Ode to Reggie
Jan. 27th, 2005 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisLong before Designers Challenge or even HGTV there was Reggie.
Reggie was my Mom's interior decorator*.
I remember when he first blew into our lives. I was about 12 and we had just moved into a new house. All of a sudden there was this marvelous wonderful very very fun man who came with swatches and pictures and made a fuss over everything and everyone. I did not, at that time, know the term drama queen but I'll betcha if you had asked me to describe Reggie on that first day, I would have come up with those exact words.
I was one of the most unpleasant 12 year olds you will ever meet. Why they even kept me around in the days before child endangerment got to be such headlined news is beyond me.
But Reggie treated me like I was somebody. He came over one afternoon and had a sit with me and my sister and my brother. I don't remember the details of our conversation. I just remember that he made me feel like I was special.
The next thing I knew, he had decorated my room and it was time for the big reveal. Yes, we had a reveal - see three paragraphs up re: drama queen. I have never been so shocked in my life.
Dear dear Reggie had nailed me. The colors, the fabrics, the textures... They were totally, 100% me. So dead on that I can see and feel every bit of that room to this day and my folks moved out of that house in 1967!
He also nailed my sister and my brother. My brother's room was bunk beds with rusty reds. My sister's room was a full canopy bed with lemon yellow ruffles and eyelet curtains.
My room had high pile royal blue carpet with twin beds. With crisp tailored corduroy spreads and matching bolsters, each bed was really a safire blue couch/lounger. The curtains were a dark blue background with a wonderful geometric print of golds and reds and hunter greens. It was a palace for me. I could shut my whiney objectionable 12 year old self into that room and feel like I mattered. I loved that room and I loved Reggie.
We kept Reggie around for years. My folks moved out of that house in North Carolina to Manhattan and Reggie came up and did the apartment there. Then he did their small condo when they moved to Aiken, South Carolina. His final reveal was a house they actually built in western North Carolina - he got to help the architect and it was his finest hour. He created a 9 foot long serpentine couch and then had the living room built around it.
I remember one time going to his house with Mom. It was in the afternoon and he served martinis - not to me - I got something equally elegant just less alcoholic. The martinis did not have olives - they had tiny pickled brussel sprouts.
I am trying very hard not to set Reggie like expectations of Sheri. I'll be happy if I get new carpet and new furniture (no particle board) and it doesn't all look like I threw it together or that a furniture store lost their show room. Reggie set the bar too high, I think. But I treasure what he gave me.
Reggie was my Mom's interior decorator*.
I remember when he first blew into our lives. I was about 12 and we had just moved into a new house. All of a sudden there was this marvelous wonderful very very fun man who came with swatches and pictures and made a fuss over everything and everyone. I did not, at that time, know the term drama queen but I'll betcha if you had asked me to describe Reggie on that first day, I would have come up with those exact words.
I was one of the most unpleasant 12 year olds you will ever meet. Why they even kept me around in the days before child endangerment got to be such headlined news is beyond me.
But Reggie treated me like I was somebody. He came over one afternoon and had a sit with me and my sister and my brother. I don't remember the details of our conversation. I just remember that he made me feel like I was special.
The next thing I knew, he had decorated my room and it was time for the big reveal. Yes, we had a reveal - see three paragraphs up re: drama queen. I have never been so shocked in my life.
Dear dear Reggie had nailed me. The colors, the fabrics, the textures... They were totally, 100% me. So dead on that I can see and feel every bit of that room to this day and my folks moved out of that house in 1967!
He also nailed my sister and my brother. My brother's room was bunk beds with rusty reds. My sister's room was a full canopy bed with lemon yellow ruffles and eyelet curtains.
My room had high pile royal blue carpet with twin beds. With crisp tailored corduroy spreads and matching bolsters, each bed was really a safire blue couch/lounger. The curtains were a dark blue background with a wonderful geometric print of golds and reds and hunter greens. It was a palace for me. I could shut my whiney objectionable 12 year old self into that room and feel like I mattered. I loved that room and I loved Reggie.
We kept Reggie around for years. My folks moved out of that house in North Carolina to Manhattan and Reggie came up and did the apartment there. Then he did their small condo when they moved to Aiken, South Carolina. His final reveal was a house they actually built in western North Carolina - he got to help the architect and it was his finest hour. He created a 9 foot long serpentine couch and then had the living room built around it.
I remember one time going to his house with Mom. It was in the afternoon and he served martinis - not to me - I got something equally elegant just less alcoholic. The martinis did not have olives - they had tiny pickled brussel sprouts.
I am trying very hard not to set Reggie like expectations of Sheri. I'll be happy if I get new carpet and new furniture (no particle board) and it doesn't all look like I threw it together or that a furniture store lost their show room. Reggie set the bar too high, I think. But I treasure what he gave me.
