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Yesterday I spent some time surfing for Teen Boy Inspiration Rooms....Here's what I found: 
This one has a blue wall, and I like the bordered carpet. I like the large patchwork quilt, but it's too busy. Actually the whole thing is too busy.
I like the way this one has the light colored walls and I love the box pictures over the desk. Peter's desk and computer are in the basement, close to his gaming area, so I don't have to have those in his room.
Peter and I both like this one. We both liked the wall color, (although I see brown, and he doesn't!) and we really like the photo box frame arrangement over the bed. I don't like the plaid, but love the color blocks on the comforter.
Here's that TV over the bed inspiration. I can't turn Peter's bed around, though. He has to have a nightstand with lamp in order to read.
I love this black/white/gray room. I don't think we can do it with the beige in the rug, though. The squares bookshelves are like the expedit bookshelf that we'll put in his room. I think it looks masculine and modern, with both color walls. He's not impressed.
Peter liked this blue for his walls, I think it's way too bright. He didn't like the red or the white furniture. Just this blue. There's no way I want to go this dark on all the walls. An accent wall maybe...but more of a flat dark blue, like this font color.
This would be a really great blue for the walls, but Peter doesn't like it. Nor does he like anything about this picture. It's so simple and relaxing....I like the simple stripe on the bed, which is probably a throw. I don't like the picture above the bed, though.
I'd put it somewhere else.
I love to decorate, and in 20 years, Peter's room started out as our guest room with either white or pink walls (I can't remember exactly) with the Laura Ashley comforter and curtains from my single days. I made other accessories with extra sheets and fabric, and set up a "teddy bear tea party" in front of the french doors with a little set of white wicker furniture, teddy bears and even a little silver tea service.Then we found out that we were having a boy, so I painted the room light blue, and had a teddy bear theme going with blue rug and pictures of teddy bears and blocks and rocking horses. My mom bought Peter a beautiful wooden sleigh bed crib, and I brought in other accents with darker wood.
Peter got a little older, and we needed furniture, so I bought a queen sleigh bed, large dresser chest and smaller hand painted dresser. 
I found a sailing motif duvet and shams at the Company Store in Wisconsin,
had some checkerboard pattern sheer curtains on the windows and a small checkerboard rug in front of the french doors, 
and in the summer a Ralph Lauren checkerboard coverlet. The small lamps were shades of blue, and somehow it sort of came together around all the blue. I put up some white shelves above the white covered radiator, and these shelved family pictures, treasures and gameboy games. At some point, early on, I bought this dolphin painting which needed to go as soon as I bought the sailing duvet, but instead it's been above the bed until yesterday!
Then I thought Peter needed a desk, so I bought an off white one and matching chair from Crate and Barrel, and got rid of the not fancy bookshelf we were using and bought a lovely bookshelf that matched his bed.
We also needed somewhere to put his growing collection of games, so I found a perfectly sized tall narrow bookshelf at office depot that would do the job and be hidden behind the bathroom door. At some point I took down the pleated shades and put up two inch white wooden blinds in all the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms. 
Peter's bathroom is the original 1920s with green tile and white fixtures. It's a large bathroom, and I could never find the right combination of throw rugs (besides the right green) so a couple of years ago, I bought a piece of wool berber and had it cut and bound to fit so that the green floor would show around the edges, but half your feet wouldn't be on the tile when washing up on cold mornings.For a few years now, I've wanted to make Peter's room into a decorated teen room. Peter, for all that he's like me, lives in the here and now (as does Steve). Unlike Steve, Peter is a minimalist, and he'd get rid of most of his stuff in a heartbeat. Doesn't care about the furniture, doesn't care about most of the books, doesn't care about the games he no longer plays, doesn't care about the pictures, doesn't care about a theme. HOWEVER, we are doing this.
My idea was to get away from the blue and paint the walls a khaki/medium brown color, leave some of the blue accents, white trim and dark wood furniture. Keep the hand painted dresser, but maybe move it. Last summer I bought a gorgeous piece of carpet, another wool berber, Ralph Lauren, with a pattern of some sort in it. It's a light oatmeal color, and it's cut to fit so that there is a small border of floor around the room, but mostly it will be carpeted. I've wanted to move his bed to place it at an angle in the far corner for ages, but I can't think of a way that he could have a nightstand if I did that. I wish his bed was double instead of queen size, then it would center better on its wall. But it's a queen size and I don't have another spot for it.
All this time, the new carpet has been in it's roll in the hallway outside of Peter's room. It partially blocks both of our bedroom doorways, and it's spring break, and Peter could help me, so it's time to get going on this project.
Yesterday Peter and I emptied his room of the lighter furniture, cleared the surfaces, and took down all that was on the walls. What a beautiful room! I showed Peter the wall color chips to see which brown/khaki color he liked. And guess what!? He doesn't like those colors. Those are "boring grandmother old lady colors". He wants blue. He'll go for a darker blue, and I actually got him to look at a few inspiration rooms. This of course is a complete turnabout for me.....I want the brown. But it's not my room. So what I'll do is paint some version of the brown on a wall, and then a darker blue on another wall. If he wants the blue, then blue it will be. If he will go for the brown, then yea! The brown will make for a more peaceful room, the blue a more dramatic room.
The theme will be running. Peter likes the idea of a bean bag chair to flop in. I like the idea of a tv in the room. He's had one since he was little, and has never ever watched it. Now that he has a big tv in his game cave in the basement, that's where he watches movies. One of the inspiration rooms had the TV on the wall over the bed, and I'm thinking that might work, but he'd have to lean back on his footboard to watch. Maybe hang the tv over the bookcase? I think I'm going to swap out the Expedit bookcase from my room, and put it in Peter's room because the scale is better on the wall next to the radiator. There won't be that awkward space. The beanbag chair will go next to the radiator. I have a couple of ideas for that wall, but nothing has gelled yet. Sometimes it's nice to have a plain wall.
Here's what's staying:
The Queensize Sleighbed
The Dresser Chest
The 2" White Wooden Blinds
The Chandelier
The New Carpet
Everything else is fair game to not come back into the room. I wish I'd shown the true "before" pictures. The room was really cluttered, although it's such a large room that I didn't realize it. I want to give Peter a room where he'll feel great and sleep well, and want to spend time. I think he likes the sailing theme, but I'm not sure how to incorporate that with the running theme. Maybe it's a sailing room that happens to be occupied by a runner? I want to display his running awards, too, so I have to figure out something creative there.
In the meantime, I'll do some blog posts with inspiration rooms and other ideas, and make a graph of the room and furniture. There might be a way to rearrange the furniture that's really different and that Peter will love. Hmmm...How I love to rearrange furniture!
Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett - Sorry, no. First of all I chose this book based on the blurb on the back of the book that said it was about a woman who hears her two dogs speaking to her in the voices of Cotton Mather and Malcom X. I was going for an unusual story that would stretch my imagination and knowledge. Instead I got some kind of second rate banking disaster "thriller" that wasn't at all thrilling, but more like a text book set against some supposedly selfish real life characters. I have no idea why I kept reading this book! But, as my mom would say..."it's done, it's over, It's done." Ya gotta admit the cover is kind of pretty, too.
But guess what? When I just searched for the cover art for this book, I saw that there were other covers, NONE of which would have caused me to pick up this book. I'm usually good at ferreting out phony stuff and reading between the lines, but sometimes they get you, and this time they did! Rest in peace, Charlotte, you liberal tree hugging dog hearer, you. Let's look at those other covers:
Ulysses - We finally watched the 1954 Kirk Douglas version of The Odyssey, and although it was entertaining, it didn't quite live up to our hopes. Peter and I both wanted it to seem bigger and more epic. Instead, it came across as a fairy tale type story on our paltry 50 inch high definition TV screen. Maybe this one had to be seen in Cinerama! Ulysses (Odysseus) was smaller than life rather than larger than life, the gods weren't in our faces as we'd hoped, Penelope was stiff and fake, and the suitors didn't seem to number 120 strong. Cyclops was good, though, and it's a great example of a Kirk Douglas 1954 genre film. Which it's not a film, it's a movie. A young Anthony Quinn as the arrogant Antinuos brought to mind Leonard Cohen, so he wasn't all bad!
Valentine's Day - I'd DVR'd this movie ages ago and finally watched it the other night while doing stuff in the living room. (read multi-tasking). It's about a Valentine's Day in L.A., and the ensemble cast does a credible job of telling multiple happy, sad, then happily ever after stories. It's a sweet thing to watch when there's nothing else on.
Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut by Jill Kargeman - Here's a book for all those 30 something women who "don't have time to read". Jill's autobiographical essays about her nutty life in New York are fun and light reading. She's an almost Nora Ephron for her generation, without Nora's understatement. Jill spoon feeds you. It's fine, though - she's sweet and sassy.
Big Love - The final episode aired Sunday night, and it was perfect. It really was a show about big love, and the writers were in evidence all over HBO, discussing their show. The characters were always talking about their lives on earth and the impact those lives would someday have in the life they would eventually spend with heavenly father. Each character continued to be true and complicated in this last episode, and we know that they will each be OK as they move past us into tv history.
Detroit 1-8-7 - This excellent series about the Detroit Police Department Homicide Detectives wrapped up its first season last Tuesday. What a great show, and not just because I'm from Detroit and crave to see it all the time. (Even though what I see is so different than the memories - half of it you can't see because the buildings are literally gone). This one was also wrapped up with a bow, and was as stomach churning as ever, with so much room left to expand these characters even more. Will Fitch end up with Sanchez? Will McDaniel ever return to Tuscany? Will Mahajan find true love? Exactly who is Lt. Mason? Will Washington always be a mensch? I hope it continues.
And now, to get on with my day. I hope that I'll take a walk, even though it's super cold outside. I hope that I'll get a whole category of paperwork off the dining room table, and I hope that I'll go through two boxes and find places for the stuff that still resides on the dining room floor. I hope I put some ads on Craigslist. I hope I refer back to this list throughout the day and that I'm accomplishing these tasks. They sound simple, but oh, because we have no storage or closets, they are fraught.
Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann - This is a story composed of short stories set to the background of Phillipe Petite's iconic tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in New York City in 1974. The story moves forward because each story includes characters we've met in previous stories. It flows beautifully, and the the stories unfold with compassion and intuition. Each story is about a life, whether told in the first or third person. It's interesting that I didn't get a good visual image of any of the characters, and yet I feel like I really knew them, and that if I saw them walking down the street, I might have a flash of recognition. There's something of the historical novel here, when you think about a year, 1974, and all that was happening in the world in that year, and all that could affect people in that year. It has gritty moments and moments of passion and moments of wealth, and many many moments of love which you'll find between the lines.
At the end of this version of the book is a small interview with the author where he briefly discusses book covers. I find the different covers for books and movies to be so interesting, and wonder who makes the decisions, and how it ever became so complicated and possible.
On another note, I've been making slow but sure progress toward my goal of living a more minimalistic life of art and craft. Slow is the operative word, but as long as I move forward every day, I'll continue to believe that I can do it. Here's a quote from Colum McCann in that author interview:
"It's strange but as I grow older, I find myself developing more optimism. I keep inching toward the point where I believe that it's more difficult to have hope than it is to embrace cynicism...."
That observation resonated with me as much as the entire book did; I think that's why we often enjoy or don't enjoy a story....we know when we are reading the words of someone who would judge, and we know when we are reading the words of someone who would accept. So I'll keep going about the tasks of hoping and doing.
It's Kind of a Funny Story - I loved this movie which I checked out based on a great title, and the fact that Zach Galifianakis was in it. I had no idea that I was getting a really sweet story about a 16 year old boy who feels so much pressure from parents, school and friends that he gets himself admitted to the psych ward in a New York City hospital. At 16, we think we are the only one. The only one with friend problems, parent problems, school problems. We're the only one and we're just not getting it and everyone else IS getting it. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you must have been among that small minority of teens who got it). That's how Craig feels, and It's Kind of a Funny Story to see how a week in his life probably impacted the rest of his life.
The Odyssey by Homer - The entire freshman class at Peter's high school reads this epic classic in English class every year, and one of the English teachers loves it so much that he conducts a parent book group for those parents who want to read along with their students. I often read the assigned books along with Peter, and it happens that the parent Odyssey teacher is also the track coach this year, so I had to read and attend. And am so happy that I did. This is an incredible book. It was written at the beginning of time pretty much, and the age old story has it all. A heroic man who wants to go home, immortal gods playing important roles in what happens to humans, uncommon adversity, romance, contests, tests of all types and standards of conduct. It's an absolutely resilient tale, and if you think you haven't read it before, you're mistaken, because elements of this story are found universally in history in both fiction and non-fiction. It's about Odysseus who, after ten years of the Trojan War, and another ten years of wandering around the Mediterranean, gets himself home, only to find that his home has been overrun by suitors who all want to marry his wife. The suitors have been there for years taking advantage of the Odysseus' wife and sons' hospitality. These guys are eating and drinking them out of house and home while the wife puts off choosing one of them to marry because she's waiting for Odysseus to return home. This is a story that raises more questions than it answers, and one that will stay with you for a long time.
Chariots of Fire - I saw Chariots years ago when it first came out, but Peter had never seen it, and his track coach recommended it to the track athletes as an example of this year's motto, which is "tough it out". It takes place in the early 1920s, and is the story of Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, and the sacrifices they make in order to run. They end up being team mates at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. It's a beautiful movie to watch; Abrahams and Liddell run for different reasons - and they are the fastest men in the British Empire. When they get to the Olympics, they are up against the Americans, including two who are known to be the fastest men in the world. It's a true story, and simply told, the winner of the 1981 Oscar for Best Picture. A little Wiki research rounds out the story of each man's life in its entirety.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot - Henrietta Lacks was the unwitting source of a strain of research cells called HeLa, that have been used by scientists for more than 50 years. This is a true and wild story about science, cells and what on our bodies that we don't own once it comes off our bodies. Rebecca weaves a tale that is amazing and (I wish) unbelievable. The HeLa cells were taken from Henrietta within a year of her death at 29 years old in 1951. The cells were cancerous, but usable for science, because they multiplied, like no other cells had previously done. In the last 10 - 20 years, medical research corporations have profited from selling the cells, and Henrietta's heirs and family have never seen one penny of that money. This could actually still happen in today's medical climate where an individual would have to fight for the right to make money from cells from his/her body. To me, this is wrong and wrong, and akin to the unreasonable and invasive searches that Americans suffer every day in our airports. It's a privacy issue and a property issue and a boundary issue. Read the book and see what you think.
