On limerence, and what makes wallpaper so confounding
Even a decisive person can get caught up choosing pattern.
The other day, I found myself in a Groundhog’s Day of my own making.
After years of loving her from afar, I ordered a sample of Cole & Son’s reproduction of the Fornasetti wallpaper “Nuvolette.” One week later, a DHL guy showed up at my house with the sample — as glorious and graphic as you might expect. Full-scale quiet drama. The next day, the same guy knocked on the door burnishing the same sample, again. When he showed up with it again the third day, I was ready to invite him in for coffee and figured we were friends now.
I’m confident the company I ordered from would have kept sending me the same sample every day until I had an entire 142 square-foot wall covered. Instead, I did the proper thing and wrote to the company.
Wallpaper and I have a fickle relationship. I love it so much, but I have a hard time committing.
Recently, Adam shared with me the word limerence, which refers to an involuntary obsession and passionate feeling of falling in love that isn’t healthy and doesn’t last. It’s the Goethe’s Sorrows of a Young Werther of love — all-encompassing, thrilling, uncomfortable, and transient.
This is basically how I feel about wallpaper, and why my outsized obsession with certain papers hasn’t yet resulted in any long-term investment in my actual home. I fall in love, I see the paper in other peoples’ design stories, sometimes I put a sample of it on my wall, I get a little tired of seeing it, and I never do anything about it. Sometimes I think I change too fast and too much to live with static pattern.
Here, for example, is the Fornasetti “Fruito Prohibito” paper sample I’ve had hung in my bathroom for 12 years. (Yes, I seem to have a major Fornasetti problem). I don’t know why I haven’t just gone for it. It’s perfect — my husband, born in the year of the monkey (1980), me, with my passions and seasonal fruitfulness.
Actually, I do know why I don’t jump. With the specific neurological issue I’ve been dealing with for the past two years, I often cannot tolerate visual busyness. Wallpaper can feel maximalist unless used in a balanced manner, and I’m just not willing to get dizzy when I enter our powder room. Some days I’m like: YES! Other days: Nope.
That being said, I am all-in on slow decorating over here and I know myself now, so I’ve been feeling like it’s a good time to revisit how to assuage this yearning while acknowledging that I want to live with major decisions I make within the home long-term.
Problem Spaces
I’ve been working on a project at the front of our house to transform what was once my younger son’s bedroom into a hangout space for teens and adults.
I’ve cried a lot in this process (my babies!), but I’m far enough along that I sense I’m coming to terms with them getting older (I should write about that sometime).
Anyway, here is the room in question. A complete mess. Painted at a time when my only idea was Robin’s egg blue (2011). A bizarre shape with a weird window. Mostly cleared of stuff but still holding many vestiges of the past. Nothing like I want it to be.
This room sits at the front of the house and is the only bedroom in our home to face the front of the street. We moved my son out of it when it became clear that he could not handle the energy of the road coming in the window and the pressure of holding space at the front of the house.
Actually what he said was: “Mama, my room has bad vibes.”
When kids speak like this, believe them. They are way more tapped in when we are.
From a feng shui perspective, it makes total sense that this room might turn into a problem.
The street from the energy, the car lights that flood the room all night long as people drive towards our house, the strange shape of this room, the fact that it is located in the career and life path area of our home according to feng shui. Our child is in the thick of middle school and needs support, and we are lucky enough to have a guest room, so we took the giant step of moving him last Summer.
This process has been mostly successful, but I’ve been completely unmoored. As in, why am I here and what am I doing and how is it possible that they are growing and what does it all mean for this next stage of life. I can’t understand why grown adults with children this age are not crying in public like I seem to be.
So I’m working on this room. It’s helping. I can feel myself moving towards acceptance. I’m going for an overall vibe, and it’s 19th Century Naturalist Goes to the Movies.
But back to the wallpaper.
I’ve decided to wallpaper one wall, the one at the back of where I’ll put the couch so we can see it upon entering but it won’t detract from the things we actually want to do in the room — watch movies, craft, play Wii (old school!), fantacize.
After years of seeing “Nuvolette” pop up in design projects (and at the home of my dear Kurt Beadell), I am here to say that I ALWAYS LOVE IT. It’s perfect. Large scale, hits you in the face in a quiet way (ha), metaphorically and literally atmospheric, and to add to the magic, my husband is a cloud-obsessive. We want it.
So of course I ordered like ten other samples to compare it to.
Some moody, darkish papers I am considering instead:
Here’s the tough talk. “Nuvolette” is spendy. This is a room for teens. Their brains are mushy and sometimes, like monkeys, they throw things at each other. Other peoples’ children are even more unpredictable. Does it even make sense to put the most expensive wallcovering in your home in the space most likely to get damaged?
I’ve got more samples coming, so I’m back at the beginning. Thinking about wallpaper, preparing my wall, being fickle, accepting change, learning how to move with it.
PERFUME
“Does this Perfume Smell Like Gentrification?” — on a scent company whose m.o. is to capture the sense (and price) of a neighborhood.
ART
“Hang Art Like a Pro,” a perfect how-to that answered a lot of important questions for me (like the hardware to use).
PRODUCT
Household projectors are a thing, like in this Domino story. Mixed feelings about bringing the entire cinema home, but as far as products go, this is incredibly cool.
SPACE
All the right curves in this Domino story about a West Stockholm product designer. I love a small space big on style.
OPULENCE
My rage-reading of my favorite magazine continues with this pretty but grossly angled story “Why Everyone Needs a Party Barn.”
SUSTAINBILITY
This trend story from The Spruce about sustainable design trends you’ll see this year. Hopefully this will last longer.
SURVIVAL
The first issue of Rue Magazine since editor Kelli Lamb lost her home in the Altadena fire is out. She’s been cataloguing her response for a few months now and I’m really glad this publication is still going.
📖I’ve heard it’s your seasonal moment to peer, witch-like, out of your hovel?
Yes, the Oregon Home Spring Color Issue is out! After seven years, I still enjoy editing this beauty and, above all, sharing home stories with design-loving homeowners. I’m especially excited to share the work of color expert Brandi Katherine Herrera, a Long Covid survivor and multi-disciplinary artist behind A Lively Manner, who gives color consultations and affordable design packages for people who don’t want the help of a designer without the cost of a full-project hand-holding. I’m also proud of the ambitious story I did about designers’ search for the ONE COLOR they pair with neutrals and other finishes.
🎥 I know you love the French Revolution. But are you open to thinking about it differently?
I am! I’m binging through Marie Antoinette on PBS. A few years ago, I listened to the You’re Wrong About podcast about her, which was humanizing and illuminating, and the miniseries is opening up a lot of space in me for compassion and interest beyond just the eye candy of the period’s aesthetic and the glory of a peoples’ revolt. Much more, I am interested in Louis XVI, the king who was beheaded alongside her. I’m deeply curious about the theory that he had autism, and am being swept along by that idea in the context of the series, where the actor Louis Cunningham portrays him in all of his awkwardness, linguistic quirks, passion for hunting and clock-making, and overall inability to socialize and communicate according to his society’s norms. My heart is broken open watching it (we all know how it ends).
🎧 Who can you listen to all day long?
Pete Buttegieg. I highly enjoyed this conversation between him and Jon Stewart on the Daily Show podcast on tariffs and media strategy.
🏡How do you prioritize house projects for Summer?
Well, I started out thinking we needed to give some love to our porch to support partnership and community, but I just had to work on the indoor hangout space first for overall life path and career confusion. Designing is a nice grief balm. Trying not to get distracted.
😦What have you been doing differently?
I’m doing a vegetable challenge! I heard from an autoimmunity expert that we should be getting 30 servings of fruits and vegetables a week. WHOA! The idea being that different vegetables support the growth of different gut bacteria. Doing this for a week. Turns out I eat the same 10 vegetables and fruits every week and need more variety. I’ll report back.
Do the Kate, pleaseee. I wish I had a space that was perfect for her art.