Duty Plus Beauty

Home living has to be more than working. If everyone's job had an end-result of beauty, it would change the results considerably. I remember growing up how we used to have what is called "copy-books." Some of the students had made their's so beautiful, they were worth saving. They contained various subjects that we were graded on, and we learned quickly that we would either be miserable completing the task, or add beauty to it and relieve the pressure, increase the enjoyment, and end up with a project worth admiring.

Today's cottages are by artist Susan Rios. You can order these prints at a reasonable price and decorate your home with them.

In previous articles on the Lady Lydia Speaks columns, I have mentioned how children will form some of their tastes, their likes and dislikes, visually. I had a painting of two children sitting on a little white fence with berry buckets in their hands. My children always wanted to have their picture taken in a similar pose. We tend to imitate what we see around us.

Our moods can be greatly affected by the sights we see. In Elizabeth's Gaskell's "North and South," the main character, Margaret, wrote to her cousin and expressed her great sorrow over the gloominess of the place she had removed to.

When we wake up to bleakness and emptiness, we can get quickly depressed. This sets a very cloudy forcast for the day! That is why, in going about the necessary work of the home, I believe it is good to include as much beauty as possible.

Our grandmothers put out their little colored embroidery, their small vases of flowers, and all their pretty tapestry for a reason. The home is not intended to be a box where everyone lives a plain existence with no softness and loveliness surrounding them.

Linda Lichter wrote in her book "The Benevolence of Manners" that modernist designers had taken away the beauty of architecture, so much so, that a songwriter expressed the blandness in a song with, "Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same." These elitist designers believed in "less" and told people it was "more," hoping to talk them into such bland living. As she so eloquently stated, we have gotten more and more of less and less..."

When we live without beauty, as though we were in jail cells or army barracks, it can create depression. The little cottages here really are cheerful and give some idea that a simple structure that would otherwise be very depressing, can create a happy response in the human heart when it is decorated beautifully.

It is in my opinion, important to approach other things, such as dish washing, laundry, cleaning up messes or sweeping, with an eye for detail and for beauty in the end. That means that when it is finished, it creates an opportunity to improve the look, not just with cleanliness, but with the things that make you smile; the things that make your heart happy.

Let me give some examples:

A favorite doll or toy in the book shelf gives the eye a rest and makes you smile as you glance across the book titles.

A lamp sitting on a colorful cloth gives the surface some softness and creates less glare.

Other interesting touches of beauty:

-Add a collection of photographs in interesting frames, when straightening and cleaning a fireplace mantel

-A copper kettle on top of your stove

-A vase of flowers in the kitchen gives an unlikely color spot

-A colorful mat or rug at your feet in the kitchen

-After cleaning the bathroom, fold towels in a special way and put out a fresh bar of soap on top of them.

If you teach yourself and your children that there is a reason and a reward for the work of the home, they, and you, will approach it with an entirely different attitude.

Contentment by the Sea by Susan Rios, from http://www.karenwhitney.com/sr/gallery2/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=4

The painting is by Susan Rios, called "Rosey Beginning" which can be purchased from http://www.karenwhitney.com/sr/gallery2/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=21