The English Maximalista

The time has arrived for me to say a fond farewell to my dear old china cabinet. 

She has made it through three house moves with nary a scratch, and has served us well. However, we REALLY need to create more much-needed wall space in our family room for bookshelves and artwork. So, somewhat sadly, the china cabinet will be finishing up her years as storage in Mr Maximalista’s workshop.

Thing is, after serving for so long as a dining room buffet, her little drawers have ended up being filled with all kinds of dining roomy thingies, of which all now need to be rehoused.

This means that one simple job (move a single piece of furniture to another part of the house) has turned into multiple task-related hassles (where do I put the tapers, cocktail napkins, and oh-my-God WHY do I have three dozen sets of place cards?)

I know. First World problems, right.

A gut-punch of nostalgia hit my olfactory sense when I opened one drawer, which held all the birthday cake candles we have used through the years. 

Dozens of unused skinny ones in an assortment of colours, as well as a healthy selection of fat ones shaped like numbers, the wicks barely burned, therefore shouldn’t be thrown away because surely I shall use them again sometime in the future.

…Best not think about the invisible drips of dried-up spittle from an enthusiastic child blowing out the candles on her birthday cakes, lovingly baked by an overachieving Earth Mother.

Then I went on to empty the cupboards below. Again, more detritus of tableware long outgrown by the girls. Tumblers I can’t bear to part with. Stemware I had forgotten we owned. Not to mention a selection of 1000-piece puzzles which need to be shelved elsewhere, or donated. 

A quiet hour of rehousing these loose items, and moving the new bookshelves into place, then another quiet hour of reorganizing the books. With a little supervision from an unimpressed dog.

More reshuffling commenced as I started bunging up artwork, poached from other parts of the house. Tough decisions were made about placement height, with the dog being a useless authority on these matters. Ever sanguine, I decide to take her silence as approval.

There are a few additional nail holes behind the paintings which weren’t there fifteen minutes ago. But let’s not mention that to Mr M, who derides my “eyeballing it” approach to decorating. 

He, who is of the tape measure and plumb-bob school of correctness. 

Anyway, I’m sure he won’t mind a few new minuscule pinholes in the wall. Hardly even noticeable! Besides, what he doesn’t know, won’t hurt him.

Pretty sure there will be some more reshuffling later on, as I’m not fully satisfied with the tablescaping, but this will have to do for now.

Lots of love,

M xo

PS don’t even ask why I had a drawer-full of empty toilet paper rolls…