Rearranging the Furniture

My mother, (very old school) believed in the adage that when there a problem in the marriage that you should rearrange the furniture in the living room. Well, at least things would look different. Don’t roll your eyes; psychotherapists have long believed in “Second Order Change” altering the environment in an effort to alter the condition, look it up.

Well speaking of “Second Order Change” A new retailer is in our midst, Elizabeth Edwards, (as in the wife of former U.S. Presidential candidate, all around cutie John Edwards, aka the poster boy for “don’t let this happen to you.”). Ms. Edwards is planning to open a furniture store near their North Carolina home. The store is scheduled to open in October. It will be called “Red Window”. The store will feature a mix of styles and prices, so reports Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau. It would be similar to a charity store Edwards' mother managed when she lived in Japan. However, this will not be a charity store. You can bet your sweet bippie!

While on her book tour for “Resilience,” Ms. Edwards repeatedly deflected pertinent questions about fidelity and cancer treatment by confounding reporters by confiding that she had bought a large selection of furniture in High Point, NC. Huh What? Now we get it. Duh?

Maybe you caught Ms. Edwards on Oprah Winfrey where we were primed for shopping by given a tour of her sumptuous home. While some of us wanted to hear a reply to Oprah’s, “Do you still love him?” question, others of us where saying, “forget by the love child, where did you get those dreamy toss pillows and quilt covered Bergere chairs?” The house is a is so over decorated it looks like “Town and County” on crack. I loved it!!!

What does Ms. Edwards know about interior design? It was not done by Sugarbaker’s. Ms Edwards takes credit for it herself. Her six million dollar estate is includes a sprawling 28,200 square foot home, it has a regulation-sized basketball and racquetball court (enter John in tennis whites, ”Tennis anyone?”). It is set on 102 pastoral acres. It makes the Kennedy compound in Hyannis look like a trailer park. The Edwards estate has five bedrooms, 6 ½ baths and a library. A second wing of the house is connected by a heated enclosed walkway, and is lined with family and political photographs. It’s lovingly called “The Barn” (how cute is that?) by the family, and it includes a lounge and offices. Ms. Edwards said there is nothing “grandiose” about the house, and that it was designed to be a functional home with room for her children to play outdoors, (yeah, 102 acres) and a large kitchen to entertain friends and family. She portrayed their lifestyle as lacking pretension. That is so “House Beautiful!”

The Edwards house already has become grist for his critics, who have called it a plantation, or “Uncle John’s Cabin.” Not a dilettante, or stranger to design, Mr. Edwards had hit the talk show circuit to plug his book “Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives,” which describes the childhood homes of various more-or-less famous people, including his own modest mill village houses.

One thing is for certain, the Edwards home was not furnished by Ikea. Had I my druthers, I’d book my flight to Chapel Hill to be the first in line. I want those toile draperies and mattress-ticking settee.