"Nobody has the right to be bored in a half-made home. A home which is not a fair expression of us at our best, a home which lacks what it might have, a home which is in any part more ugly or in any part more uncomfortable than it absolutely need be , .. a home which cannot be run without waste, a home which by any detail gets on the nerves of its inhabitants and so impairs the harmony of their existence - something ought to be done about such a home... Why not make the perfect home a hobby?"
If you asked yourself "Has dear Britta become lazy, uninterested in blogging, or - what the hell is she doing?" you will find an answer in the quote above. Arnold Bennett wrote 1924 an article (as part of a series "Making the Most of Life") for The Royal Magazine (the quote is by Sarah Ban Breathnach's book "Simple Abundance")
It fits. As you know I have my "second home" in Bavaria, very near to the triplets, and I furnished it as a holiday flat - for me, quite nice, BUT... now I spend almost three quarter of my time here (one quart, though not even that each month, in Berlin).
So I started to think. Looked around - and of course found many imperfections, but also good traits.
Yesterday a painter came to give an estimate what it would cost to paint the ceiling of the parlours. (Painters are not easily to be lured into your home nowadays: as it is still summer they are painting the frontage of houses in powdered pastels as long as the weather permits..)
I am really keen to know how much money it will cost - because I have only rented the flat, and if the white gloss hand painting will cost the equivalent of a gilding I will not do it.
(Plan B: buying a beautiful costly lamp for the dining table - that would be mine IF I ever move, and much easier to be stored away than a ceiling in the unlikely event of moving again... :-)
PS: The charming picture above is an illustration by "Rico Puhlmann: Fashion Photography 50er - 90er" at the Helmut Newton Museum für Fotografie in Berlin - I enjoyed every minute there!