All the ingredients came together: I had a job, real money to spend, an incredible knack for getting to yard sales before the dealers did, sympathetic co-workers cleaning out aging parents' garages, and a place of my own to put it all in. My apartment was a showcase; a friend who wrote for a local newspaper did a piece on it in the "Style" section, and through that a regional magazine followed up with a full-color spread. Within a year, a number of major design magazines had photographed some or all of my collection to illustrate what could be done through flea markets and determination. My home reflected the same streamlined simplicity that I had sensed, and shunned, in that book on the Japanese garden; I had come full circle. It was ironic that after years of finding inspiration in second-hand decorating books, my home was providing inspiration for others.

But with my newfound "fame" (my mom and dad were really impressed!) came apathy. I got tired of the sterile, unfriendly world of amoeba-shapes and atomic starbursts; I longed for comfort, coziness, and kitsch. I made several vain attempts at themes with more "personality". First came a half-baked recreation of my childhood "jungle" theme, complete with leopard-print bar; next was the red-velvet-and-fringe "bordello" look, then a "cowgirl" theme with bandanna slip covers, denim, leather, and a wall hanging featuring eight different kinds of barbed wire ranch fencing. The last theme I totally embraced was the short-lived "Rococo-Puffs" theme, where dumpster-bound French Provincial furniture and cherub lamps were spray-painted gold. I even had an entire wall filled with ornate gold-leaf frames sporting paint-by-number poodle portraits. But although painfully hip, it just wasn't me. I thought back over my past themes and the obscene amount of junk I had amassed over the years. I decided I could easily glean from my own decorating past, as my parents had wisely (or weirdly, depending on how you look at it) saved every scrap of furniture from my former forays into interior design in their ample basement.