UPFRONT:AS JOXER DALY would say: "If you want to know me, come live with me." Please do not take that literally. Not that you'd really have to, given the level of self-exposure on these pages, but my house is too small for all of you. Or any of you for that matter, no matter how few you may be. This I know, because it's even too small for those that currently reside therein, particularly the one who is over six feet tall. It is because the house was bought by – and for – little people, that is my vertically challenged self and my similarly challenged sister.
When we bought it, overcome with the notion that all of it would from then on be ours (and that we’d be responsible for its upkeep), we thought it was huge. It wasn’t. But it was, at least, proportional. Then along came a big-limbed American husband, and it suddenly wasn’t any more.
When he first folded his limbs through the door and into the living room, elbows brushing walls and knees knocking through to the neighbours, the whole room came down to meet him until the ceiling was more or less resting on his stooped shoulders. It was worse when he sat down: he looked like Goldilocks on Baby Bear’s chair.
My sister moved out shortly afterwards, and in with her own paramour: the suddenly encroaching walls may or may not have had something to do with it, but she now lives in more spacious accommodation, a more house-sized house.
In his defence, my poor man had come striding across continents from a big wooden house on the American west coast, which was practically Southforkian compared with our “period cottage”. Once he got here and found he had to crawl through on all fours and press against walls to pass people in the hallway, he was understandably crestfallen. But being a proactive citizen of the United States, instead of sitting cramped in the corner and complaining like a normal person, he set about making a change. Yes we can! Which meant flinging most of our furniture onto the street and donating family heirlooms to the local charity shop. Or getting rid of clutter, as he called it.
Eventually, when everything in the house was gone and you could have hosted a Democratic convention in the space remaining, he started to breathe again.
Then I invited my friend Annie to move in. Because the place was clearly empty. And in the American’s defence, he got right on board with that.
It helps that Annie is cracking company and has office supplies that he covets. He’d also lived in the cottage long enough to lose all spatial perspective. So we cleared out the “spare” bedroom and along came wandering Annie, rucksack on back and guitar in hand, and we were three again. One in one bedroom, all spread out and singing country songs into the echo chamber, and two in the other, now piled high with all the stuff that had previously lived in the former. Plus Lola, the dog, who requires only the smallest of spaces to wreak all sorts of havoc.
There was nothing for it but to run away screaming to Ikea. And then to run screaming from there. (This is not the place for a rant about shops that require you to follow an arrowed path through their product range and frown at the notion of counter-flow. Nor shall I mention how much those perfectly uncluttered, designer mini apartments that it constructs from its product range make me want to punch a hole in its Hvalstelt headboards and Krundar cabinets.) The logic was: now that our room is so crowded, we clearly need more stuff. We went in for a simple chest of drawers and came out with a Micra-full of bath mats and storage jars, having lost the will to live somewhere in between.
Many excruciating hours later, our marriage having survived trial by Ikea only to flounder as soon as the flat-packs were opened, we had a new chest of drawers into which was piled all the accumulated detritus of a combined total of 71 years of existence. By the time we found the bed under a pile of coats and plastic coat hangers, we had been zapped of all the energy required to continue our lively discussion on how much better things may or may not be in the US. (With the healthcare bill passed in Congress, I’d lost one of my fail-safe fallback positions anyway. Strikes me George Bush was a lot better for my European sense of superiority than this latest chap.)
The point is, one man’s space is another woman’s vacuum, and things looked altogether brighter the following morning. Firstly because Annie’s in the house. Secondly because if you squint a little in the morning light, you could almost believe you were living in one of those model Ikea apartments. What with the American and the Welsh flatmate and the Scandinavian furniture, it’s starting to feel like the United Nations in here. As Joxer might say, it’s a darlin’ house. A daaarlin’ house, after all. fionamccann@irishtimes.com