May 14, 2007

One Red Dot

Joanne and Eric, our American grandparents, gave us this wonderful book a few years back. Like it says on the cover, it's a pop-up book for children of all ages. It's almost hypnotic. The idea is to find one red dot on each page.
On the back cover it warns that it's not suitable for children under 3. It is quite tempting to rip the pop-ups.
Three burning baskets.... and one red dot!
One perplexing puzzle box... and one red dot.
This book gave me an idea for our home. Each room should have one red dot. Something that draws your attention in a positive way, not like an acne spot. It started in the living room after Christmas. The room looked colourless and dull after we took the Christmas tree out. It needed something green! We had a long discussion, DH and I, about the red pot, but I managed to convince him of the color choice. He did admit that it looks good. But the poor palm tree doesn't. This picture was taken a month ago and now the poor thing looks even worse. Somehow thinking about watering it doesn't help....
One red dot in our living room.
The next red dot was placed in the kitchen. We asked a carpenter near Auntie P to build us a shelf for our cook books and stuff. I wanted it to be bright red (surprise, surprise), but this time DH said a very firm "no". It's easier to move a flower pot (or accidentally break it) if you don't like it, but a shelf screwed to the wall is another thing. Besides it was me who put it up. So, this blue shelf is the red dot of our kitchen.
You've probably seen those black board walls in magazines with menus, names of wines, herbs written on them in beautiful handwriting. This is far from it.
The idea for my (oops, our) next red dot I got from the blogosphere and DH kindly ordered it from here. This time it's red.
I think it looks great next to the stairs. I wish I would remember to obey the command!
This chair was also bought from the carpenter near Auntie P's. We didn't exactly need another chair, but it was sooooo comfortable that I wanted it. DH said it out loud before I even had the chance to open my mouth:"If you're thinking of painting it red, forget it!" But I want it to be "a red dot", something that draws your attention. I'm picturing lime green or pale pink (totally not my colour!). What do you say?


3 comments:

Melanie said...

I love the idea! I have a thing with red too - all our exterior doors are painted red even though our house is a light tan. My husband didn't go for painting the inside of the doors red, though. They're all a sage green.

Outi Loimaranta said...

The idea of having a focal point in each area is a good one. It might be nice to make a continuum of the "red dots" in each room, so please not lime green for the chair unless you have a very specific spot for it! Don't do anything before tomorrow! :-)

Anonymous said...

Jep jep, punaista sen olla pitää!

Ja muuten, se meidän vanha punainen divaani sopisi teille loistavasti. Siinä on mukava istua ja lisäksi divaani toimisi olkkarissanne loistavasti piristävänä pisteenä ;-).

-pH(ästis)