Jack Tame: The experience of moving and decorating has clarified my perspective

“It’s not the colour of cushions,” my girlfriend said.

“It’s the combination of the colours of the cushions.”

She stood on one side of the room, hands on her hips, as her eyes passed unsparingly across the new lounge suite.

There are a few experiences that will test even the long-lasting, most joyous of relationships.

Meeting the in-laws? Check.

Travelling overseas together? Check.

Moving house and settling on an interior design aesthetic? Hmm.

The good news is we’ve survived the furniture hauling. We unrolled my brand new World Map wallpaper, shipped from a specialist map shop in America, almost three metres wide, and managed to stick it to the wall with only a few bubbles. Balancing on a cupboard, pressed to the wall, her arms spread wide as she held the unweildy canvas in a level position, my girlfriend maintained an impressive degree of patience and good humour. I cannot reflect quite so generously on my own behaviour during the installation. If a crime writer were to find themselves with a creative block, struggling with character dialogue, I can recommend interior decorating to inspire the filthiest, gnarliest bad language. It’d make a mobster blush.

The walls are almost good to go. My girlfriend has selected a range of elegantly-framed prints, French and Japanese artists, impressionist and modern works. She hit a few sales and got a few deals, but it doesn’t leave much space for my more man-cavey momentos: pictures of rappers, guitarists, and graffiti art.

“Maybe downstairs.” Said my girlfriend, with a smile.

“Maybe.”

I’d feel a stronger urge to make my case if deep down, I didn’t know my girlfriend is right. Pains me as it does, there are more than a few fashion and design choices which I’ve made over the years, that act as a gentle reminder of my taste’s propensity to stray.

There were my paisley trackpants, a little tighter than necessary around the crotch, that for some reason I insisted wearing in public for several years while living in New York. It wasn’t until someone on the subway sincerely asked it I was going to a pyjama party that I thought maybe it was time to switch to jeans.

I’m embarrassed to acknowledge that for many years in my early twenties, I had a large framed pencil sketch of a woman in a state of undress, displayed prominently in my home. I bought it at an art fair and thought it was sophisticated, until it was pointed out by several visitors that the picture had an underlying fourth-form-giggling-pubescent-boy quality to its penmanship.

Furniture choices have been little better. Couches, lamps, armchairs: almost every time I’ve decided on something bold, I’ve come to see that actually; perhaps subtle would have been a better option. And of course, there’s my long term commitment to minimalism. Friends at my old apartment would comment that it felt like a hotel room crossed with a hospital ward. Not really the aesthetic anyone goes for.

For the first time in my adult life, with my girlfriend’s gentle insistence, I’m now the owner of a coffee table. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of them but they’re good for both aesthetic and practical reasons. We also bought a jute rug, something I’d literally never heard of until two weeks ago. And hey, it looks great!

The experience of moving and decorating has clarified my perspective. It’s not that I have zero taste. It’s that I have near-zero taste. I have just enough taste to know my taste cannot be trusted.

It’s a blessing and a curse. Someone with no taste whatsoever is not aware of their lack of taste. They live blissfully, surrounded by tasteless things but beautifully, totally, naively unaware of the hideousness of their own aesthetic and surroundings.

Someone with near-zero taste can appreciate good taste, but struggles to implement it themselves. It means that when it’s time to decorate a home and comes to matters of aesthetic, sometimes it’s better to delegate. My girlfriend moved the cushions from the couch.Ja

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