10 commandments of decorating

Text taken from the (now defunct) Nest Magazine a quarterly of interior & landscape design, art and architecture. Issue #24 was themed "decorating for the Christian home". I can't express how much I miss this magazine. Forget about HGTV - these 10 rules are all you need, particularly #7.

I. Thou shalt not put one color before another.

II. Thou shalt not bow down before any color, except thou worship each of them, even unto tan and brown; there is not one that will not sing, in its rightful ordination. All else being prejudice, for which of the colors that the Lord thy God hath made shall be called butt ugly?

III. Do not consider thyself an artist: For the Lord thy God hath made men according to their ilk. That be makers of art, according to their ilk, shall be served by those that are decorators, according to their ilk. The one shall paint, and the other shall frame that which was painted, even for its sake. And if a decorator call himself artist, he shall surely die; but if any artist goeth by the other’s name, I say let him watch out.

IV. That the Lord thy God made the Sun to be the greater and the Moon the lesser light, and hath caused night to follow day, of that shall ye be mindful in lighting thy rooms. Let night bring forth pooled lamplight and pits of darkness where day doth gladden in every part. Verily, he who kindles the hearth to throw fleeting shadow is blessed in my sight, whereas whoever installeth recessèd lighting has committed an abomination.

V. Thy room shall be like unto a box. Trifle not with straight walls and right angles, for the Lord thy God hath made them so. A fool who thwarts my will with juggling curves shall draw the curtain of his bed wracked with boredom and waken with a yawn.

VI. Honor thy edges. Consider the marble floor, yea, even linoleum tiles and the least of them that are trodden: unto each is given a figure, and these shall find their thoughtful end is given a figure, and these shall find their thoughtful end and margin. Whoever neglects his wallpaper at its edges has committed an abomination.

VII. He who clothes not his decorating in humor shall surely die, saith the Lord.

VIII. He who forsaketh comfort, who loveth the undressed stool and not the cushion, shall be parboiled, flayed, and dropped in a briar patch, and shall surely die.

IX. Covet not that which thou needest not; let each thing thou hast account itself or be no more present. To mirror thy walls, making increase of every thing, is an abomination, but whoever mirrors his ceiling commits an abomination above the rest: Nor should such a one trust in his reflected image, for it will not yield refuge, on the day of reckoning.

X. This above all else: delight in the look of thy facing as thou lovest thine own self, looking back from polished bronze. For if the finger of thine eye cannot tell calfskin from onyx, or silk from the bristles of a she ass, verily thou art no decorator.