In these times of lockdowns and pandemic anxiety, like everyone I have been looking for ways to reduce stress and find a way to inject some new found appreciation into being house bound. I have been trying to tidy (sort of Marie Kondo style, but not quite), bullet journal (intermittently), design and do home workouts (either alone or together with the fam – these are usually binge watch workouts), or study (very, very hard to do with everyone at home and occupying the same space). This list, it turns out, is far too ambitious, but I keep trying.

And then I thought: maybe it will inspire and entertain me to browse through some interior design magazines. I’ll come up with marvelous ideas to make our home feel new and fresh. Turns out, that doesn’t work for me as well as I thought it would.

Why not, you ask? Well…

First of all, when I leaf through these magazines I very often find that the interiors and decorative ideas don’t really work for me – which is entirely a matter of personal taste, of course. Most of the themes and decors just don’t seem to appeal to me. But more importantly: most of the projects that these magazines suggest are so involved, and I just don’t have that kind of time! Or perhaps it’s a matter of prioritizing; I don’t know.

Either way, I really don’t see myself collecting and cleaning off used straws so I can cut them into little pieces and recreate a repurposed plastic mosaic of the Mona Lisa – not to mention that we only use either paper straws these days, or stainless steel washable ones. Should I somehow free up the time it takes to make weekly rounds of my house in order to frame home made art works and hang them on the walls, only to take them down and de-frame them the next week, then use the freed up frames for different home made art works and hang them up instead (lather – rinse – repeat)? Or give my house a whole new feel on the regular with all those personally restored hidden prizes I will have found after hours and hours of flea market treasure hunting; those same hours that – I may have mentioned this earlier – I just don’t have?

I definitely don’t see myself on a whim moving all the furniture out of our living room so I can sand down my wooden floor in order to give it a new finish that makes the floor look like it hasn’t been sanded down or finished at all – I mean, it sounds marvelously modern and magnificently natural, and it would definitely be a fantastic outlet for my inner minimalist, but still.

The main reason, though, why these interior design magazines don’t do it for me is that reading them leaves me frustrated rather than inspired. All those houses with oceans of space. Everything squeaky clean and not a speck of dust anywhere. Everything tidy and in its place. All the time. And these pictures of perfection are supposed to be attainable even for families with children across all ages – as it happens ours run from ages 6 to 13. What kind of exemplary mini humans are these that they are constantly tidying away all their toys and games and clothes and candy wrappers? Don’t they ever want to build a hut in the most inconvenient spot using everything they can find that has not been bolted down? Are there no socks or slippers or stuffies that slide underneath the couch and then lie there, just out of reach but still in sight? Do these children all eat neatly above their plates, spilling neither crust nor crumb?

I know it’s all staged for the photo shoots, but the Stepfordness of it all freaks me out. Even in the houses where everything isn’t perfectly feng-shued on a shelf or neatly folded in a closet (with the closet door slightly ajar so you can see that the contents have indeed been neatly folded and tidily put away rather than hurriedly shoved behind a door because grandma has come over for a surprise visit), the one unfolded item of clothing has been draped over the edge of the bed with stylish “nonchalance”. The lone cuddly toy sitting on the sofa seems more like a modern art installation representing the tragedy of the eventual forced abandonment of childhood than a tattered stuffed bunny the resident 4-year old threw angrily across the room when his mother told him he wasn’t allowed a piece of candy. See? these stylized scenes seem to say, this is a room that’s lived in. Sure it is.

No, I’m afraid these examples of interior perfection are not for me. Do you know what magazine would work for me? An interior design magazine for families with children who don’t listen or who don’t like or manage to tidy up after themselves, and parents who don’t spend every spare second dusting every inch of their house or polishing their floors. A magazine with a special about storage and tidying solutions with spreads that include photos from before tidying, after tidying, and then five minutes after that, when the kids have been allowed back into the room to do what they usually do.

I’d subscribe to that magazine in a heartbeat!