Home Adjustment

So I just moved into my new digs for the next nine months. After sharing a 900-square-foot loft with two roommates, this is a big adjustment. The new crib has been blasted clean of every speck of dirt, and proffers gobs of space--a family could live here, and yet it's just lil' old me. I figure this is a good chance to finally get my shit organized--I mean, I have a guest room, but who the hell's gonna visit me so far off the beaten track? It'll spend most of its time as a 'projects' room--as well as to try to see how far I can diverge from the ways we commonly use living space.

A few years ago, a team of cultural sociologists talked their way into a number of middle-class living rooms in order to see what kinds of patterns obtained in the way people from similar backgrounds arrange and decorate their spaces. I was struck by how tightly folks tend to follow scripts without at all realizing there's any kind of script, and I have asked myself ever since how possible it is to improvise on them. Most middle-class people do their formal entertaining in the living room, right? Then there's the formal dining room; the family might have a den in which they do their actual living, as well as much of their eating (in front of the TV). Home office in the study, etc.

My place, too, is set up for Standard American Domestic Design. It's got a living room, dining room, wood-paneled study, kitchen, enclosed porches back and front, two bedrooms upstairs. Every room pretty much suggests what to do with it and how--the devil is in the details of where you put the couch. But since I don't have a couch--I drove down w/a bed, a dresser, and a bookcase--I figure I'm already a step ahead when it comes to trying to re-imagine this place.

Since I barely have any furniture, and since I'm ranging over the entire house, I figure the key is be (1) minimalist and (2) mobile. As big a pack rat as I am, I simply don't have enough stuff to fill the space, so I can let one object dominate and define each room. And because I've got a lot of room to cover, things should be on wheels whenever possible.  

And entertaining, too, in a James Bond-y, Swiss-Army-knife kind of way.  Can't forget entertaining.

I'm not exactly winding up to a punchline here--just thinking aloud about my process here. But I think it could issue in a couple of interesting pics in the next few weeks.