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a home + living guide for the post-college, pre-parenthood, quasi-adult generation

04.02.2001

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Newlyweds' nest
by Carrie Benes |
1 2 3
continued from page 1

Fortunately, however, a trip to a local home-improvement store interceded before the ultimatum passed from my lips. It was on this excursion that I found the perfect solution to my Joe Montana dilemma: a 6-foot-long shelf kit. A rather simple little beauty, the shelf kit consists of two wooden brackets and a board, everything already painted a smooth, even coat of white. My boy loved the idea of having a designated spot for the entire barrage of Joes (and his little friends), and so we mounted the shelf up high on a wall in our bedroom. Not only did it get the pesky figurines off of the various dressers and shelves, but it actually made for quite an impressive presentation – all those plastic men, in their various stages of throwing and catching and running, looked like a display rather than individual knick-knacks strewn all over. And as an added bonus, the area underneath the shelf became the home of my husband’s other prized collection: autographed football-player mug shots. Even I have to admit that it all makes for quite a nice grouping. My next step for fine-tuning "the manly wall"? Get my hubby to put all the photos in matching, or at least complementary, picture frames …though that may be pushing for miracles.

Now, I haven’t made my poor husband do all the compromising. This may sound strange, but the majority of my "gives" have been in the form of altering my color preferences. Instead of choosing bright turquoise throw pillows, for example, I opted for a more grayed-down version of the same color. Neutral colors seem to be more unisex, and my husband appreciates the fact that my beloved aqua has become more of a smoky blue-green. I especially try to think "neutral" when it comes to decorating areas like our bedroom, where we don’t want "male" or "female" looks to dominate. However, neutral doesn’t have to mean solely browns or grays. We’ve found that sage and olive greens, denim blue and khaki look great together and are colors that we both find appealing.

Once we’d moved past the Joe Montana and color choice obstacles, we found ourselves faced with another common rock in the road to successful newlywed décor: the decorating budget. Specifically, the fact that it was practically non-existent – after all, we’d just poured frightening amounts of money into that wedding of our dreams. Thanks to the wedding, we’d been deluged with lovely new things for our nest, but still, the place didn’t look decorated. We had received some wonderful stuff… but then we were faced with deciding where it all went and how we could make it work with what we already had.

Case in point: the tall, blue-glazed vase. Back when I’d been turned loose with the scanner at Pier One to put things on our bridal registry, I’d decided that I just had to have it. But once it was plunked next to our black entertainment center, it didn’t look so hot. It looked … empty.

keep going ... still more this way!

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