If watching Oprah and home renovation shows have taught me anything, it’s that a house should be a reflection of those who make it a home.
My husband and I do not see eye-to-eye when it comes to art, so that part has been difficult. I like abstracts, colours, maybe a sculpture on a wall instead of a painting; he likes...well, I’m not really sure, but mostly he doesn’t like what I like. Therefore, the two pieces of art we actually have in our family room are hand-me-downs from his Mother - a Robert Bateman print of a wolf barely seen amidst a wintery forest and a Thomas Kinkade print.
Both lovely pictures by talented artists, but a reflection of us? No way.
Over the past year, I’ve been keeping my eye out for items that might strike me as us, but no luck. Then we happened upon a table. A glass tabletop held up by...a sculpted dragon. Cheesy was my first thought...and my second and third, but the more I looked at it, the more I appreciated the detail. It was a quality piece - not a tacky looking dragon table (seriously!). And, ok, my husband has always had a thing for dragons, but seriously, where would we put a dragon table? We don’t have a dungeon, or a tower or anywhere in our modern home that would fit such a piece. Maybe in my husband’s previous life, before I entered into it... That’s when I realized I’d made my husband relegate his amazing fantasy collection to the garage a long time ago.
When we met, he had two tables of collectibles on display that I liked, but sniffed at as nerdy. They've been boxed in the basement ever since. At that time in my life, I had yet to embrace the nerd within me.
Now, however, I am a proud nerd, married to a nerd, raising a nerd. Comic book stores, gaming, fantasy and sci-fi novels, an obsession with LEGO that should be reserved for our child…that’s us. So why was I trying to find a way to make my house look like a model home? WE live in it.
Two nerds with a 7 year old son well on his way to super-nerdom. We’d already resigned ourselves to a fireplace mantle full of LEGO, so why stop there? The simple answer is we're not. The plan is this - replace one of the grandmotherly paintings with my husband's fantasy painting. The wolf one kind of has a Game of Thrones feel, so we’ve decided we actually like it now! The dragon table? In the corner of the room where it could hold our steins of mead. The dragon head sword-holder? Above the fireplace, to be completed when my husband finds the right sword for us. The bronze dragon and Gandalf the Grey sculptures we bought on our honeymoon? Well find a prominent place for them.
We are nerds, and damn it, you’re going to know it when you walk into our house. Now we just have to figure out where to put that iron throne.
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