TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
Tums. I actually think a margarita station might be nice, particularly if it included chips and salsa. Maybe even queso. Bryce made a space to store her mermaid tails and threw in a dessert table and a petting zoo, so I think she’s well ahead of me planning-wise. I know I need a place to sit to put on my tennis shoes, but I can’t think of anything else. She plans a secret hatch that goes to her brother’s room, but I can’t imagine where I would want mine to go. I clearly need to work on my creativity. It’s interesting to think about how living spaces have evolved since my childhood. Giant closets hadn’t even been imagined in the 60s, and spacious bathrooms were yet to be. King-sized beds were the very latest thing, but my parents’ bedroom barely accommodated theirs. I shared a bathroom with three siblings, and my dream bedroom at the time would have been one in which my little sister didn’t live with me. My closet had sliding doors and a single rod. Tiny as it was, it was still bigger than the closet in my
freshman dorm room at SMU. I think we all did a better job of curating our wardrobes in those days. I’m told there’s a closet in a house in Dallas that defies belief. Bigger than the average four-bedroom home, it occupies two levels and is fitted with racks like the ones at the dry cleaners. You just push the button and wait for the outfit you want to wear to come around. I would need some kind of system to remind me of my options; even with my little closet, I occasionally lose something for a season or two. There are actually some pretty spectacular closets right here in Texarkana. Though I’ve seen some of them with my own eyes, I’ve only heard tales about others. One of my favorites has a huge worktable in the center. Kind of like an island in the kitchen, it gives you a place to put your suitcase while you’re packing or your clothes when you’re cleaning out the closet. Genius. While we’re on the subject of cleaning out the closet, I have to confess that my
last thorough closet cleansing was during the first week of the COVID lockdown. I used to do it regularly, taking everything out and putting it on the bed and then dusting every shelf and vacuuming every corner. Lately, it seems like the burst of energy that gets me started gives out right about the time I get the bed covered with clothes. I take a break, returning at bedtime to find there’s no bed to get into. The closet island would solve this problem nicely, don’t you think? Unfortunately, we aren’t planning on enough square footage to accommodate it. I guess it will have to remain, like a Pop-It station, a dream. My mother once had a friend whose builder sent a cabinet designer to look at her kitchen and then design cabinetry around what it contained. Any designer who inventoried my closet and bathroom would no doubt call in sick the next day, and resign the next. I’m thinking that a good starting place for me, in fact, is the discard pile. This isn’t going to be easy.
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LIFE & STYLE
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