Of all the questions I’ve been asked over the years, one in particular stands out as the most difficult to answer: “What color is your living room?”
Sadly, I couldn’t tell you the color of any of the walls in our house – some of them even if I’m standing in the room in question. Truth to tell, I don’t know the color of our front door, or the style or design of the wallpaper in our bathroom or who designed our bedroom sheets.
But if you ask me about the output capacity of the surround-sound system I personally installed in our enclosed-porch-turned-miniature-media-room, I can talk your ear off. Or just ask me to expound on the wondrous capabilities of the laptop computer I use both at work and at home. I can also talk at length about the number of coils in the oversized, overstuffed recliner I successfully begged for (my wife received, as her part of the deal, an overpriced refrigerator with a stainless steel exterior).
Whether you’re more like me or more like my wife in terms of design interest and skill, we have something for you in our third annual Home Design 2002 magazine. This special issue of the Advocate is designed for year-round reference and covers all kinds of design and remodeling details associated with owning (or wanting to own) a home.
Included are tips about selecting art for your home, including works produced by neighborhood artists; stories about people who searched throughout the neighborhood for their dream home only to find that they already lived in it; and information about gardening and garden art, media rooms, remodeling, faux finishes and lots more.
Best of all, Home Design 2002 is a showcase for practical ideas from neighborhood craftsmen and businesspeople. Our stories talk about what your neighbors have done with their homes, and the source lists and advertisements in the magazine tell us about neighborhood people who can help supply the materials or labor or design instinct necessary to get the job done, whether you’re using wallpaper or oil-based paint.
And when it comes to color, there is one hue I can be counted on to recognize: Green.
Perhaps that’s not surprising, since that happens to be the color of the money that used to be in my wallet before it came in handy to pay for all of the other colors and textures now adorning our home.
