Moving Furniture Around

It’s driving me crazy— the fact that the furniture only fits one way in our great room due to the permanence of our fireplace and there being only one wall that accommodates the television. I’ve always been that person who loves to move things around for change, just to see how I like a new arrangement, so the fact that I can’t change up the great room is downright distressing for me.

To make matters even worse, we have a sectional sofa, and it really only fits in one orientation to properly view the television set or allow us to warm by the fire. Ugh. I look around sometimes and wonder, “What if I shoved the couch over a foot or two?” But it doesn’t really change the layout or look of the room, and that irritates me to no end. It’s like being an artist with only one color of paint to work with or a musician with a piano with only one working key.

I’m pretty sure this compulsive need to rearrange things comes from my mother, who also moved furniture around the house every now and then when I was growing up. I can remember moving chairs, tables and lamps around with her and then standing back to survey the room together, only to hear her say, “Well, let’s put it back the way it was. This doesn’t look right.”

My sister Audrey and I shared a bedroom in the ranch-style house in Bonaire where we lived, and we, too, shuffled furniture. We had two twin beds, two small desks, a dresser, and a TV cart, and we moved our bedroom furniture around every few months in dozens of layouts. Sometimes our twin beds were side by side like we were running a tiny hotel, and sometimes our room was split down the middle—her bed on her side, my bed on mine, like we’d drawn an invisible boundary along the gold shag carpet.

When we decided it was time to move everything around for a completely new configuration, Mom sometimes surprised us with new bedspreads, making our room look like something straight out of a magazine. I remember one makeover where our room’s colors were jewel tones, and Mom bought us a gold swag lamp that we dangled over a small glass table in front of our window. That lamp hanging on its gold chain looked like something Barbara Eden would have conjured up in “I Dream of Jeannie,” and I loved it. I bet my mom still has that 50-something-year-old swag lamp stored somewhere.

And we always did a thorough cleaning as we moved pieces around, turning furniture rearranging into a full production—sometimes taking all day (and sometimes most of continued from page

the night) to accomplish. Afterwards, we’d collapse on our beds and talk about how much better the new layout was, even if it looked exactly like one we’d tried three configurations ago.

In college, my roommate and I often broke the monotony of studying by shuffling the furniture around in our dorm room. After I married my husband, I began moving the furniture around in each room of our house. Some weekends, I move the furniture around on our front porch. I’ve even been known to move large, heavy furniture without assistance (which makes my husband more than a bit mad at me), simply because the mood struck me to start rearranging when no one was home to help.

Where does this desire for change come from? Do all humans have this restless decorating spirit? Were cave women moving around rocks, bones and fire pits thousands of years ago, trying to find better flow in their cave homes? Perhaps it stems from some deep-seated survival instinct that equips us to be flexible and adaptable.

But back to my great room dilemma.

I sure wish there were other ways to arrange the furniture in there. I’m genuinely bummed about it. The fireplace and TV have formed an alliance against my decorating dreams, creating a furniture nightmare with only one acceptable layout.

Maybe I’ll rearrange our bedroom instead— channel all this redecorating energy into a space with more possibilities. And maybe I’ll change the color scheme from blue to sage green while I’m at it, requiring a new quilt, a new rug, a fresh coat of paint, etc. After all, it’s definitely time for a change, and my poor husband will just have to deal with finding the bed on the opposite side of the room again.