Animal House

I married Martha Stewart.

Could be worse — I could’ve pledged for better or worse until renovations do us part with… someone like me. Then where would we be living? A yurt? With a dirt floor?

Which, honestly, would better suit our lifestyle that includes kids and dogs, in triplicate.

But since I do enjoy indoor plumbing, it’s good to be married to someone who can detect those subtle differences between ecru and beige because if you asked me, I’d say they’re both gonna show barf stains.

I just don’t have a lot of interest in that kind of thing. Sorry not sorry.

Part of it goes back to what I said before — kids and dogs live here. That means the best way to describe our decorating style is frat house-y. Sigma Crappa chic. Half-filled plastic cups are everywhere, waiting to be tipped. Dirty socks are shoved between seat cushions. Sandals are abandoned throughout the house. Scruffy blankets pile on the couch. Oh wait — that’s a dog! GET OFF THE COUCH.

See why we can’t have nice things?

The last time I actively participated in choosing the décor of my home was when I was a freshman in high school and I had to make a time capsule that included magazine and catalog clippings to show what the living room of my future home would look like. It had gray carpeting and dark green leather couches. Lo and behold, a green sofa and love seat were the first furniture purchases we made as a married couple. As a bonus, I picked out — on my very own — a sleek mauve, easy chair with black lacquered legs and splashed with tres 80s streaks of teal and purple. My husband dubbed it the Barf Chair, so named because if anyone threw up on it, you wouldn’t be able to tell.

Do you detect a theme with my interior design?

So did he.

Now he pretends to ask me if I have an opinion about whether the exterior trim is painted army or olive or cargo, but we both know I don’t. Dude, they’re all just green.

We bought a fixer-upper which has meant three different bathroom remodels. He’s solely responsible for how nicely the sea-glass colored accent tiles pair with the Sonoran Fawn stone counter in the master bath.

He’s the one who picked out the Berkshire Chestnut couch that just replaced our 20-something, scuffed dark-green leather one. Now he says we need throw pillows.

Good grief.

He laid out his decorating plan that involved assorted neutral tones to complement the medium brown leather. I think. What I heard was the waaah-wah-wah-wah droning of the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons. I am pretty sure he created a Pinterest board.

I stumbled across some pom-pom trimmed pillows decorated with cartoony cactuses online and shared with him. It did not get a response.

Over the weekend, he decided to go shopping.

“I’m going to Home Goods, want to come?”

Uh, no.

So instead, my day was punctuated with texted photos of blue-ish puffs with oversized buttons and rectangles with black-and-white geometric patterns, square black pillows, way-too-white ones. Lots and lots of pillow porn.

He ended up bringing home three, for starters.

Those pillows are so doomed. That is unless… Hmmmmm. We could expel some members of Sigma Crappa….