Living...

I'm writing this in our new living room.
Odd, that phrase, really. "Living room". Like you're dead in the rest of the house, or something. I spend a third of my life in the bedroom, a good bit of the rest of the time in the kitchen. I'm an inveterate bathroom reader, so I spend more time in there than is probably good for me. Actually, until now, the room designated the "living room" in our house was mostly a space to pass through en route to somewhere else. The only time you'd sit in here was to use the computer.
Our real living room was downstairs, in the basement. That was by design. 'Wouldn't it be nice', we thought, 'to have a basement retreat? It's nice and dark down there...no sun-glare to interfere with quality television time. The decor is nice, if you like that sort of thing: rustic country, complete with exposed beams and a beautiful (if completely fake) fireplace. The room seemed to be built for cosy relaxing.
But then we got to living here for half a year.
What we had taken for cosy was much too large for that. The room yawned; shadows capered in corners where you couldn't quite see them. Even a lamp would only illuminate a tiny wedge of room, making the rest more imposing. And the beautiful fireplace remained beautifully fake.
Meanwhile, our library off the kitchen seemed somehow sterile. There was almost nowhere to sit in there, nowhere comfortable, anyway.
I could bring the couch and chair up from the basement, but then I'd have to look at them. You see, once upon a time, I made a foolish mistake. I took one look at a couch and chair sitting in a furniture showroom and thought, 'wow...distinctive! Discriminating! Delightful!' We got it home and before long I was thinking 'decrepit! Disgusting! Damned ugly!'
Dumb-ass.
It's black, with subtle starburst patterns of pink, gray, and God knows what else, and it manages to clash with every colour you put anywhere near it. Over the years, the cats have shredded their favourite parts and I myself have broken a few springs. (I like to sit down with authority.) So: blecch.
Instead, we brought the futon down from the guest room to serve as a couch. We only scratched nineteen walls in the process, too. Then came the shopping spree that netted us a recliner, a new entertainment centre, and a decent computer chair.
The recliner was a Christmas present to me from my wife--one of the best Christmas presents I've ever received. Back when I was a kid, my Dad had a Lazy Boy recliner in our living room. I'd look at him sitting in it and think 'someday, when I've made it, I'll have a chair like that.' Now I do.And it sees a lot of use. If I'm not in it, Eva is. And if she's not in it, both cats jump up in a heartbeat, curl up into a kitty pile, and fall asleep.
The entertainment centre: therein lies a short tale.
Our last one had slats for DVDs on either side of the television. That was the whole reason we bought it: we'd belatedly joined the DVD era and we needed someplace to store the collection. So we carted it home and put it together and grabbed a DVD and tried to insert it and what the hell? They aren't DVD slats at all...they're for CDs.
Little quiz here. Which one of these things does not belong?
(a) TV
(b) VCR
(c) DVD player
(d) PlayStation
(e) CDs
If you answered (e), CDs, congratulations! Now can you go and design an entertainment centre that reflects your uncanny common sense? For that matter, since DVDs and CDs look identical, why exactly does the packaging differ so much?
So: new entertainment centre. Still doesn't have DVD slats--I've yet to see one that does--but it does look nicer than the old one, and it's sturdier. I say this in spite of the fact that I put it together.
Everybody's done it, or seen it done, except me. So when Eva told me that this was going to be my job, my first impulse was to suggest something involving sex and travel.Then I opened the box up and spread everything out. The pieces of wood were labelled and you needed to know most of the alphabet song to sing them all out. Luckily, you didn't need to know cup sizes for chesty women, but for a second there I was afraid...well, no. But there were what seemed like forty thousand screws and dowels.
In hindsight, it wasn't too bad, but only because I had Eva there to direct me. See, I don't speak Picture. I speak English, and the instructions had absolutely none of it. It was left to Eva to translate into words I could understand. Three hours and a minimum of cursing later, the entertainment centre graced the room. At first, I didn't feel much pride, looking at it--after all, the job should have been a good deal easier--but then I got to thinking, hell, we did it. And six months ago I would have flat-out refused to attempt it.
So now our living room is a room fit for living in. That feels good.