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?