My sister and her husband are home builders, and she excels at staging homes and enticing prospective buyers with simple, crisp decor -- much like the decor in those home magazines and stores that rattle my cage. (Yes, the Shabby-Chic-Practical candle is still in the wire basket in the corner of my kitchen.) Despite seeing my sister’s work and knowing the tricks of her trade, I have yet again been drawn into the staging at a home store, where no one actually sleeps on the beds. Our bedroom is decorated in a blue that reminds me of the ocean with a contrasting chocolate brown that reminds me of… well… chocolate. This bedroom is new; it was part of the addition we put on our house two years ago. However, the color scheme is old: I based it on the curtains, bedspread, and pillows we had for several years in our old bedroom.

The old bedspread was tired and worn out in the new room. I unleashed shopping angels at every home store as I went through the bedding departments, on the hunt for a combination of ocean and chocolate. I passed over many options: No flowers, no paisleys, no extra accent colors.

Finally, a simple, crisp bedspread popped: Ocean & chocolate with a big, fresh, cream square in the middle. Stunning. Were the boys old enough that I could have a big square of bright cream on my bedspread? Yes. At home the colors were perfect. I threw away the price tags. I made the bed & covered a couple of the old pillows with new covers that were included in the set. It was pristine, calmness.

Until we slept in the bed.

To keep it pristine on a daily basis, Bill and I would need to spend five minutes making the bed together, gently tugging back and forth on the bedspread to center the square. We do not.

We do not have a staged square in the middle of our bed. We have a square-ish quadrangle that floats on our bed like a jellyfish with its soft edges and middle rippling along in the ocean current.

Some afternoons I might give it a tug here or there, but mostly I’m thankful for a husband that usually makes the bed on his own in the morning without comment on my decorating choices.  However, on mornings when I make the bed, I occasionally get fed up and change the décor a bit.

Yes, it’s reversible, or at least I think it is.

By the way, did you see those pillows that do double duty as window treatments at night? Not planned, but so very practical.

(The easy-going practicality of a simple summer vacation is refreshing after all that comforter flipping.)