PrintI’ve stared at some unpainted, unfinished pine board trim around the windows in an expanded great room in my tiny, horrendously under-decorated house for over a year. I sit and stare at it, begging it to tell me what it wants to be when it grows up. Does it want to be stained? If so, does it want to be stained a natural color? A darker color? A color to match the floor? A color to match the beautiful barn doors displayed in the window behind it?
Or does it want to be painted? Do I paint it white? Do I paint it a color that goes with the verbena lime green paint I finally settled on for the walls? Or white. White always works. Or, should I stain it? Maybe I should stain it. I can’t stain it once it’s been painted, and I paid for the really nice wood so it would look nice stained. I should stain it. But maybe it would look really nice and Martha-Stewart-ee with paint.
This trim mocks me on a daily basis and has sent me into an anxiety spiral the likes of which I’ve not seen since trying to decide on whether to go strapless or strapped for senior prom.
My little un-painted/stained-trimmed house sits on the road that many people use to get to the Carolina Horse Park, and as such, lots of my friends stop in during their travels there. Veteran event rider Will Faudree happened to swing by my place a few weeks ago, and upon inviting him in and asking him to excuse the mess we were tripping over, we went to sit down in the room housing my own personal Dementor, the unfinished wood trim.
It was not even three seconds later when Will—who designed and decorated his own house beautifully with no doubt the sole purpose of using it to mock people like myself—said “I love that wood trim around the windows!” I told him about my festering anxiety, as I picked at the hives breaking out on my body, and he blurted out: “Well, it should be stained natural and then varnished, and the walls should be painted a much darker color—something like this!” as he pointed out a darker green swath in a nearby magazine.
My anxiety came to a screeching, grinding, palpable halt.
My own personal home-design Patronus had saved me. He was totally, unequivocally right, and I felt the blood return to my head. My brain would live to obsess over another trivial thing in my life, and I could let this year-long pain run free.
Seeing What Could Be
Why am I talking about home design on a horse blog, you ask? Simple. Will was able to walk in, see exactly what would work for the space and verbalize it. He has what I refer to as vision. It is something that I am, quite clearly, lacking in when it comes to home design, but not for racehorses who want a second career.
Vision is something I find myself talking about a lot with people who are looking to purchase off-the-track horses. Vision allows you to take a look at something in its current state and envision what it will be in the future with the proper nutrition, muscling, trimming, mane pulling… or paint. You know, “What you SEE, is not necessarily what you GET.” Get it?
There have been many times when my volunteers and I come across a horse that we are falling over one another to purchase (if we have the room/money!) and cannot understand when others don’t see what we see.
