Home Decorating: The Zen of the Dressing Room
by Wendy CroixWhen I bought my home, a big selling point for me was the spacious bedroom closet. I've furnished it now with family pieces: my grandmother's antique chest of drawers and a chair from a dining set whose leather seat I prize. Naturally there's a full length mirror in a wooden frame. An ornate 5' tall brass artist's easel displays my vests, scarves, purses, and belts. I never have to rummage through drawers for lost accessories. In short, I created a dressing room, one home decorating idea at a time.
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Now, I'm no decorator, much less an interior designer. I just know what I like, and that's anything that simplifies my life. For me, creating a space for dressing and undressing has meant creating a place of calm before I start my busy day.
An Old Home Decorating Idea Is New Again
Akiko Busch, who frequently writes on home decorating and interior design, points out that the dressing room fell out of favor with Americans during the move to openness in the '70s. Prized as personal sanctuaries in earlier centuries, "dressing rooms for both women and men were historically furnished with desks or writing tables and functioned much the way home offices or studies do today, as a place for personal reflection." These little rooms served as the place to "indulge one's fancies and compose one's soul." Today, Busch claims, we are rediscovering the "appeal of privacy."Interior Decorating: the Idea of Dressing as Personal Reflection
If your closet space is so small that it defies even a wall mirror in an elegant frame and fabric garment bags, you may have to screen off a corner of your bedroom to create your dressing room. The only crucial element, in the last home decorating analysis, is that you fill your space with objects that organize and simplify your existence. Objects that signify stability and peace. Can you chant "aum"? I knew that you could.Sources:
"A Room for Private Reflection," by Akiko Busch. Victoria 10.2 (February 1996).About the Author
Wendy Croix, Ph.D. is a freelance writer, cultural critic and university professor. In her twenty years as a professional educator, Wendy has guided hundreds of students toward the careers of their dreams.
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