My Dirty Little Secret
I am a normal, red-blooded American male. I like contact sports, fishing, dissing politicians, and fast cars. Heck, I went skydiving once (almost). But I have a secret so dark, so disturbing, that for years I hid it within the confines of my own home. My secret? I care about our curtains!
Oh, I’ve tried not to care. Actually for a period of nearly 15 years, earlier in my life I stifled (as Archie Bunker used to scream at his wife, Edith) the urge to care. But it inevitably came right back out. And it’s lonely. At times I’ve screamed within the inner sanctum of my brain, “STOP caring about the curtains! For the love of all that’s sane, STOP caring!” but it doesn’t help. What’s worse, I have a major jones for modern furniture. If I get near furniture designed by people with names like Arad, Castiglioni, Eames, Jacobsen, Nelson and Noguchi, I begin to get lightheaded. And the list goes on and on! Don’t even get me started on Panton, Prove, Rashid and Saarinen. What’s worse is my major fixation with Phillippe Stark! It’s a costly monkey on my back. Just go to Design Within Reach’s website and check out their pricing. (Thank goodness, there are less expensive knockoffs.)
My problem came to a head a decade ago when my wife and I bought a new home. Early on we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy drapes for the house. I was trying to act as though the patterned drapes we picked out together were fine. Yeah, that’s it… j-u-s-t f-i-n-e. But once they were up in our home it became crystal clear to my inner designer that those patterns had to go! Couldn’t my wife see that the patterns screwed up the whole flow of the room? She protested. After that I can’t remember much except near the end of the incident, when she said that men weren’t suppose to care about “those kinds of things.” Ouch.
Hi, I’m Dave and I am an interior designer. There, I’ve said it. And you know what? I feel better. Yes, I care whether our curtains are patterned or not, and I am not going to hide in my house behind my (thankfully nonpatterned) curtains any longer! Do you hear me, world?
Hile Design is a full-service advertising agency based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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Maureen C wrote on February 24th, 2009 at 12:43 pm :
Awesome post, Dave. A certain employee of yours makes fun of me for caring so much about curtains, painting stripes in the laundry room, dog quilts to match the dining room, and other design-conscious decisions I make. Glad to see you’re in the same boat and not ashamed! Way to come right out with those secrets! (You might not want to tell that certain employee of yours. You might get harassed.)
Dave Hile wrote on February 24th, 2009 at 1:30 pm :
Maureen C, I feel your pain. Hold your head up high and paint those stripes in your laundry room with creative abandon! And don’t worry too much about that certain employee of mine. If there is any harassing to be done, it will be done by me.
Andrea wrote on February 24th, 2009 at 2:20 pm :
Wow, Dave, I didn’t know… A few of my friends just finished redecorating my room for me; I was happy to let them do the creative work while I funded the project, because I don’t really care about design. But just today I made a trip to Ikea over the lunch hour and almost couldn’t leave… the ideas, the colors, the shapes… Do you think people are born with an Interior Design gene, or is it a learned behavior? Or a virus?
Dave Hile wrote on February 24th, 2009 at 5:05 pm :
Andrea, I am not a licensed psychiatrist, but it sounds to me like you have an inner designer waiting to express herself. My guess is that you have a generational design gene which gives you a predisposition to actually care about your room. But somewhere in your childhood you had a traumatic experience with a designer pillow or other contemporary furniture item. Your experience at Ikea began to release you from those repressed memories and you are beginning the healing process. I recommend Ikea visits once a week for the next month to continue to work on the issue until it is resolved.
Paul wrote on March 2nd, 2009 at 10:36 am :
Dave, Thanks for taking the big step and coming out of your “Curtain Closet.” You are a source of inspiration to men everywhere. Personally I’m more of a louvered-blind kind of guy. But in a mad crazy moment I may add a sheer curtain on top of my blinds. But that’s how I roll.
Becky Hile wrote on November 5th, 2009 at 6:04 pm :
Oh man. Mom only said men weren’t supposed to care about curtains because the coast was clear of me! If I were there I would have surely and promptly protested! I think it’s cool that you care.
P.s. I never knew you liked contact sports. lol
Dave wrote on November 6th, 2009 at 11:50 am :
Becky, it’s nice to have an ally in the family!