I Want What I Want

I want what I want. This will be my epitaph when they lay me to rest.

This is both a boon and the bane of my existence. I argue it’s not about stubbornness or pride, it’s about a never-ending curiosity that expands daily, tugging in all directions. The more I look, the more I see. The more I see, the more I know.  I come to understand the possibilities, and what pleases me.

When it comes to possessions and finishing my house, it hasn’t a whit to do with outdoing the Joneses and everything to do with what turns my crank. It’s about the puzzle – the researching, the looking, the pondering, the imagining – and the ensuing adventure – the driving, the searching, the stories, the meetings with strangers, and the final decision: Do I take it home or walk away? Do I acquire the skills and make it myself? Just how much do I really love it?

The downside? When you want what you want you can’t always get what you want when you want it.

What I want isn’t available at the usual retail outlets. It mostly comes from hilltop villages, individual artisans, collectors, garage sales, flea markets, basements, pickers, reclamation shops, friends, my imagination and, occasionally, from a garbage pile by the side of the road.

This takes time.

I can wish for that magical coffee table, but I can’t really speed up the process to find it. I have no control over what appears out of the blue, at a random point in time, at a location I’ve lucked into passing, or talking to just the right person.  I think persistence is part of it, but it’s more a game of good fortune than one of straight numbers.

For example, I’ve stopped counting the months (years?) I’ve been wrapping my mind around the kitchen backsplash, to bring my vision to fruition on a budget that doesn’t cause me psychic pain.

It’s fair to say I’m invested in this project. I’ve searched the internet and read books and magazines until my eyes bled…

…and taken thousands of photographs of some of the finest ceramic, stone, and design work in the western world for inspiration…

…and hunted through a hundred antique shops and retail specialty vendors to search for what I want.

So wasn’t I just thrilled  to find a dozen Minton transferware tiles for sale on Balleycanoe & Co.’s delicious site?

“I’ll be down in the morning,” I wrote on John’s wall.

The tiles came out of someone’s basement, originally from a fireplace surround in Gananoque. They lived in John’s shop for less than a day before they followed me home.

Minton’s Ltd, was a major ceramics manufacturing company producing earthenware, established in Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England, in 1793. The founder’s son, Herbert Minton, took over the business upon the death of his father, and expanded the business into the production of encaustic tiles.

Minton entered into partnership with Michael Hollins in 1845 and formed the tile making firm of Minton Hollins & Co., which was at the forefront of a large newly developing market as suppliers of durable decorative finishes for walls and floors in churches, public buildings, grand palaces and simple domestic houses. The great Victorian tile boom lasted from the mid-1800’s until the turn of the century.

The building of the kitchen counter unit and tile installation will be an end-of-summer project, but having one piece of the puzzle – the backsplash tiles – settled means I can formulate a plan: a 9′ stand-alone wood frame open-faced cabinet with a concrete top, stained and polished to a creamy limestone finish.  Add a shelf, move the coffee machine and voila, we will have a perfectly functional and aesthetically pleasing coffee bar, all doable within a modest budget. (That is, if I don’t change my mind in the meantime…)

I want what I want because I want to be surrounded by people and things that feed my soul over the longterm.  I want to be inspired and delighted when I look around my house.

To this end, I am willing to live with unfinished projects. What probably looks a lot like lazy or disorganized is really an exercise in patience. You really want to hear how my projects are going?  How much time do you have? I always have a backstory (or ten) for you.