The curio cabinet in the living room wasn’t supposed to go in the living room. It was meant for the bar room to hold small bottles of booze. We bought the curio about a year before the house was ready and stashed it in storage.
When the house was done, and the bar pieces and curio were in the bar room, we realized there was too much furniture and the space felt cramped.
We also realized the Guinness collection deserved to take center stage in that room. The plan was to position the bar at an angle and hang the mirror on the same wall as the window.
But after we moved in, and my parents were over for a visit and a tour, my Dad said the mirror deserved to be on a wall of its own. This was the same wall that the curio was supposed to go against.
A week later, my Dad mentioned again that the room would look better with the bar and mirror as the main components in the space. (Yes, my Dad giving decorating advice.)
John and I agreed. But that meant the curio would have to go. Fortunately, the curio matched the pieces in the living room. It now holds crystal pieces from Waterford and Tiffany & Co instead of Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark.
But I am not completely sold on having it in the living room. Not that it looks bad. I just doesn’t look like the plan I had for the space.
For starters, there is only one spot in the living room that I can put the curio- against the pony walls that divide the bar room and living room. But that means it blocks the sight lines that should have run through the area.
I’m also not a fan of displaying crystal. The look is too 1980s. But you can’t have a curio and nothing on the shelves.
I’m sure it looks nice. It provides another piece of the Hayworth Collection to the space. But the curio is an example of not being 100 percent happy with the outcome. Then again, are designers every 100 percent happy with the outcome?
Designing Goldilocks 