Home 'too sweet' home

The last time we shifted, we found out a fridge magnet which read "A clean house is a sign of a misspent life".

I would partly agree. I mean, sure, you don't want to live in a dirty house but I do so hate picture-perfect living spaces. They look so very unlived in!

So let me modify that to an 'immaculately interior-decorated' home, to me, is a sign of a misspent life.

When I step into a house where everything matches with everything else, not a cushion is out of place - and it's not even a formal dinner party - I feel a small, inward cringe. If the home is truly outstanding, I even feel a little bit like a kid in a china shop.

Growing up, there was one home of this kind in our locality. In a colony of teachers where the prevailing fashions were divans and rexine sofas, this one home had carefully laid out expensive antique furniture. It reminded me of a museum no one ever visited.

The aunty in this house was rumoured to be related to some royal family - no idea if there was any truth in it. The kids were the only I knew outside Enid Blyton books who actually went to boarding school.

The lasting impression I have of this 'lovely' home : cold and unwelcoming. A very personal - and perhaps biased - impression but hard to erase.

Perfection comes not from adding things, but taking them off. Imagine a newly built up house, don't you think it looks better without the furniture than with the furniture? I would say, keep it really simple and neat. The more stuff you add, the more messy it becomes and the more the time you spend on cleaning it up.

Rather, for me it extends to people also. Infact I have difficulty maintaining my place in semi-messed condition, as I find it difficult to decide what should be in place, and what should not... So, for me it starts with a picture-perfect one, stays like this for some time then slowly starts messy.. and gets (and stays for sometime) messier...

I mean it's personal choice, how much time and energy (and money) you want to invest in home decor but I would much rather eat, read or sleep than bother about putting together a living room that could make it to the centrespread of 'Inside Outside' magazine.

But if I really really had to put my passion into a building project (assuming I ever have that kind of money!) - 'Amazing Vacation Homes' (Discovery Travel & Living) would be the way to go. Amen.