Sunday, August 20, 2006

Purple Haze

All you mothers of little guys out there, enjoy your baby blue nursery while it lasts. Because when your son gets older, interior decoration become much more of a challenge.

See, once they outgrow the comic-book character themed stuff, there are two themes for decorating boys' rooms: sports and war. Either you decorate your son's rooms with baseballs, footballs, soccer balls, tennis balls, or I've-got-big-balls. Or you use camouflage. There is nothing else. If you want to decorate your son's bedroom in anything other than Ode to Testosterone, you're S. out of L. And probably gay.

And now, for color choices: You get navy blue. Or khaki. If you like anything else, you are gay. And so is your son.

But we are rugged individualists here in Buxomland. First of all, what's wrong with being gay? We're all gay here. I'm a total dyke, my husband is a Nancy-boy, my daughter plays Femme to my Butch, and my son? Well, his favorite Teletubby was Tinky Winky. And his favorite color is purple. So he must be gay.

Did you know that at the mass market level, purple is a girl's color? I didn't either, until I started looking for sheets and curtains for my son's bedroom.

The best I could do was a set of purple and white tie-dyed sheets and duvet cover ... and a heathery purple flotaki rugs. I was going for a puka-shell wearing skater boy/gamer vibe. Because although my son neither surfs nor skateboards, he does play a lot of Nintendo games ... on his purple GayCube GameCube.

So I set up the room, and my son and the rest of my alternative family were pleased with the effect. But. If you are an indifferent housekeeper, DO NOT BUY A FLOTAKI RUG. They shed. And shed. And shed and shed andshedandshedandshedandshed. My children, who went out for Halloween last year dressed as Bart and Lisa Simpson, will be going out this year as as Patty and Selma Bouvier.

Decorating icons Dorothy Draper and Elsie de Wolfe discussing what kind of rug to put in my son's bedroom.

I've got it all worked out. I can make their wigs out of the purple fluff that is taking over my house.

7 comments:

  1. Although I do bow before your decorating skillz (note the z for coolness) I must tell you that you have overlooked one scheme in the doing of the boy's room:
    rock star.
    Either all white, or all black -
    furniture, rug, walls, littered with Arizona Ice Tea cans if under age, beer cans if over 21.
    Sheets are unnecessary -especially the bottom fitted one, and should look as though one has fallen onto them directly from the tour bus. Duvets are welcome as the air conditioning must be at arctic levels but the use of a duvet cover? Superfluous.
    Ticket stubs, packs of rolling papers, crusty socks, used tissues, shirts that have never belonged to the occupant of the room are all optional - and unavailable at Ralph Lauren.
    Lighting should be very dim or non-existent as a limited area is lit well enough by the Play Station II which must be left on the tv screen at all times so that one does not lose their position in the game wherein one murders prostitutes.

    You know what they say...little kids, little decorating problems. Big kids...

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  2. I was going to leave a comment but I can't possibly follow blackbird's act!

    Except to add that purple also works excellently with the rock star theme.

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  3. 1- I used to adore purple when I was Master Buxom's age. I eventually developed an unblemished heterosexual. Not the hippest thing these days, but there you are.

    2- NOS's current decorating theme is glow-in-the-dark, and undiscriminately so.

    -J.

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  4. This gave me a good laugh! We're going through the "decorate the boys' rooms" thing right now, and we're stalled on choice of colors, just like you said :o)
    To Love, Honor and Dismay

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  5. I'm going to talk the boys into Hyde-of-the-Naga in any color they choose when they get uppity about their room decor. I'd like to do concrete built-ins, tile floors and a drain in the middle. So the entire thing can just be Hosed Down. But that won't happen.
    *sigh*

    And I have seen many teenage boys rooms done in Late Tragic. All Black, All the Time. I have to say it fades well...

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  6. Hi again,
    Thanks so much for dropping by my site today and for leaving such an insightful comment. I truly appreciate it.

    See you next time!
    Andrew

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  7. Well I lucked out..my oldest son (now 19) was easy to decorate for since he was into hunting, so deer and camo it was. And my second boy (now 18) is gay, so OMG the fun we've had decorating his room! My youngest boy is 10 and he's going to love Scooby Doo forever, so I'm good to go on that. And last but not least, my youngest child is a girl, so my options are endless. Oh what about the "nautical" theme? When I worked in retail at a paint and wallpaper shop, you can't even imagine the women that would come in and buy nautical colors and anchor borders and sailboat wallpaper. But they came back about 6 months later saying they had to redo their son's room because he hated it. Ya think?

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Gentle Readers:

For the time being, I have turned off comment moderation. Please don't spam; it's not nice.

xxx, Poppy.