Sleeping Balcony

The house that I grew up in was built in 1918 and had a number of old timey features indicative of century old homes. We had a coal room where coal would have been shovelled into and stored, piano windows (windows at weird heights ostensibly to accommodate pianos and other taller furniture. We also had a sleeping balcony that was meant for sleeping in on hot summer nights in the days before air conditioning.

As the house belonged to my grandmother before us, when we moved in we inherited all of her furniture, plus the furniture of an aunt. On top of this, adding our furniture into the mix meant not a lot of room. Every spare room was used for storage, including the sleeping balcony. You literally could not walk into it, it was that full of stuff.

 

One year, I must have been 12, I decided that we needed to clear out the sleeping balcony. I can't remember how I did it, or where I put all the stuff that was in there, but I managed to rearrange and redistribute things to the rest of the house until the room was cleared out and there were just two beds (with plenty tucked underneath) and a little table that my mom called an "invalid table" because it tucked under the bed so one could eat while sitting up in bed.

I didn't so much want the room as a summer bedroom as I wanted to use it as my "writing retreat". I had pre-teen pretensions of becoming a world famous author and I would sit up there afternoons and write my weird little bits on these extra long pieces of foolscap that we had because my dad was a teacher and he hoarded stationery.


The idea of a screened in porch to write on still fills me with longing for those days:  propped up on my elbows reading L. M. Montgomery and Archie comics and dragon books by the boatload. And then scribbling out the usual childhood embarrassments that I was sure would get teachers' approval come fall.

A room of one's own, I suppose is what I crave - and I have one waiting for me on the second floor here, but it is, oddly enough, chock full of "stuff". I'll have to harness my inner 12 year old to get around to sorting out my Ovarian Den so I can write that damned best seller for once and for all.

There might be dragons.

Ovarian Den

I am excited because I am going to make a lady room.

I was browsing my favourite local lady store, Chatelet/Nesters on Queen St. East

and I told the shop owner that I might have to divorce my husband and turn my whole house into a fabulous lady doily land where there were no dogs, no bits of bike, no voodoo beer cap man statues.

yes. this is on my mantle. One makes compromises for love.

 She said that “Every woman needs a Marie Antoinette Room”. I was stopped in my tracks. A room? Just for me? A room of ones’ own? What could be more delightful, more self-indulgent, and more sand and fur free? 

I posted a picture in a blog awhile back of my office/ laundry/junk room. 

And I’ve decided to clean it out and turn it into a lady room for me. 

This will be a long process and will require much shifting and Goodwilling. I imagine it will take a long time of saving to do this too. But as I do the grunt work I can think of things I want to do to transform this ordinary, rather dull, room, into my personal oasis of calm and feminine snazziness. 

So what goes on in a lady room?

Lady things, naturally.

Needlepointing, reading, coffee drinking, visiting, cat worship, blogging, dreaming, nibbling on wafer thin biscuits from Paris, jewelry fondling, handwritten letter writing, hair braiding, wet nursing, greeting card making, door shutting, Chopin listening, cello playing, sewing lesson taking, piano playing and plotting mayhem.

What instills this need to have a lady room? I’m not the only one, it seems Some peoples on the intermicnets are  calling these lady retreats “Mom Caves”,  a moniker with which I am not entirely comfortable. How about Uterine Lounge? Vagina Vault? Ovarian Den?

Ovarian Den. I like it.

Should it be all white with hints of soft blue and cream? 

Or lacquer red  with black and gold?  

Peacock blue with pink and gold accents?

too much, Ryan?

 Deep red with persian rug jewel tones?

A chandelier. There MUST be a chandelier. 

       

And all my needlepoint storage stuff.

And some neat accessories!

foo dogs. the only dogs allowed in the Ovarian Den

baker studios

crate and barrel

restoration hardware

horchow.com

horchow.com

this chair, different upholstery.
horchow.com

horchow.com

Here's the bare bones of the room. I'm hoping to expand the closet out, so there will be less floor space overall. The window on the right will be inside the future closet.

I want to have a big sliding barn door along that right hand wall, so that the closet is quite open when the door is opened all the way.

barn door, but I wouldn't have mine look so much like a fridge door.

I want a nice writing table - I have an oak pedestal table that I could paint white, or red, or black.

Freakin' doilies EVERYWHERE!

Ok. Maybe not.

I think I need a lady house. 

I'll keep you posted as to my progress. Aren't you super super thrilled? 

Virginia Woolfe said famously that few women published literary works because they lacked a room of their own, some personal space where they could work uninterrupted. I think the real problem was that that probably had dogs that never let them have a moment's peace. Still, generally, I am home all day, and can be in any room I like without fear of someone barging in a demanding I provide them with hasenpfeffer and a male heir. 

So why do I need a room of my own?

Because I am a spoiled little prima donna who will pester and nag and whine and tear at the flesh of your ankles like so many frenzied weasels until she gets what she wants.

That is why.