Saturday, April 2, 2011

How do you say it?

Do you know how to pronounce this? I learned when I was about 8 or 9. Most of the pencils in our house growing up were from the Brunschwig and Fils showroom at ADAC (the Atlanta interior design center). They were very liberal with their writing utensils and my mother brought a lot home. There are still a few floating around my parents' house even though my mother died 14 years ago.

People who had doctor dads would have pads of paper with medication names at the top. We had these pencils because my mom was an interior decorator. I think a lot of women of a certain age with good taste become decorators. More of the "help me redo my den now that the kids are off at college" variety rather than the "work with my architect to design the entire interior of my 27 room home in Alpine NJ" sort of thing. That was my mom, anyway. She did lots of smaller jobs for her friends more than anything else.

 I don't know whether my mom took any design courses, but she did have a good eye. I enjoyed going to ADAC with her as a kid. The diffrent showrooms were beautiful and quiet. Like libraries, in a way. I'd flip through the samples in various showrooms while she did her work. I'd always be the only kid in the place, which was kind of a cool feeling. Like I wasn't supposed to be there, that my mom and I were breaking some unspoken rules. I loved seeing the often beautiful sometimes outrageous fabrics and wall coverings. My private game was looking for the ugliest wallpaper in the showroom.

Brunschwig and Fils isn't exactly the most cutting edge; it's pretty safe.  And looking at their site today, it's not really my taste now, but I remember them as pretty great back in the day. By Buckhead standards anyway. Or maybe I just liked the free pencils.

No comments:

Post a Comment