Light Shines On the Sunroom

Before Peter and I moved from the country 5 years ago, we organized our furniture according to the floor plan of our new house. Most things fit, but somehow all the leftovers got sent to the sunroom. It was a real mish-mash of stuff.

But it was a useful room: a storage place for outdoor shoes and gardening tools as people went between the kitchen and the back yard, a playroom when the grandkids, ages 2, 6 and 7 at the time,, came to visit, a lookout when Venus the grand-dog was stalking the neighbours’ cat, and a greenhouse for some orchids I had collected and a plant Peter had tended for so long that he was thinking of adding it to his Will. Most of all, when Peter was in the living room sleeping, or reading the newspaper, or watching poker on TV, it was my escape room.

As I sat in my sunroom one day recently, I suddenly had an “ahaa” moment where I thought to myself, “This room is really a mess! What am I doing in here?” I started dreaming…in turquoise. I love turquoise; I’m a Pisces and turquoise is the colour of the Aegean Sea, Moraine Lake in BC, and, on good days, Lake Ontario. I started searching online and found a magnificent sofa in my favourite colour. I rushed to IKEA and sat on it, ignoring the fact that it sank and the cushions were all wrinkly. I couldn’t think past the colour.

I called my decorator friend Rosemary who went to IKEA the next day and then phoned me to say: “I wouldn’t buy that sofa for even a dollar.” She had taken up the challenge. Within a few days she had found me a sofa and 2 chairs. The chairs arrived intact but the sofa had to be assembled. Now I know that you have read far too many stories of furniture assembly gone wrong so I’ll just say that at the last step, as Peter and I were about to screw the legs to the bottom, there were no screw holes. We had put one of the first pieces on upside down.

After a few colourful words, we got it figured out. Rosemary came to inspect. The furniture arrangement was acceptable with a few adjustments, the table and lamp were good, the TV and stand worked together. Peter’s plant was reassigned to the corner by the windows, provided it was tied to a bamboo pole (no broom handles or hockey sticks allowed).

But the view out the side window – disgusting. And I had to admit Rosemary was right. Who wants to be sitting in a beautiful new sunroom, staring into the unfinished garage of the neighbour’s house, at his snow tires, cement bags, leftover lumber, propane tanks and garbage bins, to say nothing of the rusty chain link fence? It was not a good look.

So far I am happy in my new partly-turquoise sunroom. The grandkids are old enough now to respect the light-coloured sofa, Venus is getting too lazy to chase the cat, and Peter visits often to take care of his heritage plant. But Rosemary? She is on the hunt again for sheers, or shutters, or something, Anything, to block out that terrible view.

Sue

So now do you want to see the (mostly) finished product? OK then…