Refresh or Recycle?

by Emmie Dark

Hello everyone, it’s an absolute honor to join you on the SuperRomance author’s blog. My first SuperRomance, “Cassie’s Grand Plan”, is due out in March next year and there’ll be another book to follow shortly after (title still TBA!). I’ve been thinking for a while about what to write for my inaugural post on the blog and it wasn’t until last night that I pinned it down.

It’s the early days of Spring in the southern hemisphere (not that you can really tell from Melbourne’s chilly weather this week) and I’ve got a little Spring itch to redecorate. Nothing too dramatic, although a bathroom renovation is on the cards, but I’m more interested in sprucing up my living room.

Like many people, I’ve got a hotch-potch collection of furniture. Some pieces I’ve bought myself, some pieces I’ve inherited. However it seems to me that the fashion in interior design these days is very sleek - very coordinated and polished. I browse through furniture stores and design catalogues and think how wonderful it would be to just start fresh, throw everything out and bring in a totally matching new look.

But apart from the expense, I don’t want to throw everything out! I love my couches, even though they’re getting a little worn, and I love the huge dresser that my mum helped me pick out many years ago. My Victorian table with its mis-matched Edwardian barley-twist chairs is incredibly impractical (it seats six, at the absolute most, and the two people on the end have to watch their knees – the carved underside can bite). But it belonged to my grandmother – and she inherited it from her mother. My dad still remembers sitting at that table for Sunday roasts. I don’t want to give that up for something more glossy and streamlined.

So how do I bring a fresh new look into the room when I’m not willing to part with anything that’s in there?

It’s about now that I wish I possessed the interior decorating flair that I bestowed on Cassie, my heroine in Cassie’s Grand Plan. I need that artful touch that some people have – of knowing just how to group a collection of items on a shelf to make them look interesting, and how to arrange a throw and some cushions to brighten up a room.

For now, I’m going to let the whole idea sit in the back of my head for a while and see what I come up with when the sun starts to shine. Perhaps that will bring some inspiration. Or perhaps it will just help make the old stuff look a little new again!

What’s your favorite piece of furniture, and why? Don't forget, everyone who comments goes in the running to win a Kindle.