decor: a space to live in

Over the holidays, I read this blog post about holiday entertaining and how to make your house appear cleaner than it is. Tip No. 4 is to hide all of your dirty dishes in the oven before your guests arrive.

How dumb. I love reading decor and design blogs, but the oven recommendation epitomizes what's wrong with them. This writer wants her house to look perfect for her guests -- but the thing is, homes are not perfect. Homes that real people live in will never attain perfection. We are not Martha Stewart. We don't live in museums. We live in houses. Houses that sometimes get dusty, that sometimes need laundry put away, that sometimes have dishes in the sink.

Presumably, the blogger dirtied several pots and pans while cooking dinner for her friends. Most likely a handful of utensils, perhaps a plate or two. Maybe a mixing bowl. Some measuring cups and spoons. I understand the feeling of wanting your house to look its best when guests come over, but the people who are coming to your house for dinner surely know that meals do not get made by magic and that dirty dishes are involved. So put those dirty dishes in the sink. Dirty dishes belong in the sink. If you have time, wash the dishes before your friends arrive. And if you run out of time, leave them in the damn sink.

And that brings me to my second rant of the day.

I see this all the time on blogs: a bookshelf in someone's home where all of the book jackets are green or purple or whatever to coordinate with the room's color scheme. Or where all of the books on a shelf are the same size. Or where the books are arranged by color to look like the American flag?

And that's ridiculous. Nobody's real-world house will ever look as interesting as those pictures because organizing books by color or size makes no sense -- how are you going to ever find a book that way? In the real world, books are alphabetized by author. I submit that a truly talented interior designer would be able to organize books alphabetically, based on how they're actually used, and still make a room look interesting. Form should follow function.

End rants.