the quote jules at pancakes and french fries has based her 'william morris project' on states;
"have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful - william morris"
until the other day the bottles in their nasty, smelly cardboard cases continued to pile up, despite our constant efforts to take out one or two cases each time we left the apartment empty handed. however, with work-to-home laptops, recycling, garbage, travel coffee mugs, the whathaveyous of daily life, empty hands occurred less often than we would have liked. and so they piled up, guests to our home bringing them in but not leaving with their empty treasures. leaving them for us to deal with. or ignore, as the case became.
i couldn't ignore it anymore and so i got to it. with my mother's help {and her extremely useful suv - good for more than our thrifting trips, it turns out} we loaded up the vehicle and returned those banes of my existence to the place from which they came; the beer store.
{edit: for my readers outside of canada, canadians enjoy the ease of shopping at a store that carries beer. only beer. they also accept your bottle returns and give you money. i have received some comments that this practice, not practiced in some parts of the world, is "freaking incredible". if you enjoy beer. which i do not. but i digress.}
to thank her for her kind help and so as not to profit from our laziness the forty dollars and forty cents** we received in tax free cash was put to a donation for "the heart and stroke foundation" my mum is collecting for this month. a win/win, i'd say.
and so i now have a gloriously empty space to work with in the entryway. no more cases piled against the wall means a less crowded, more welcoming, functional and, dare i say, cleaner entrance to the space. brian's beloved elvis picture {a very appreciated christmas gift} will be hung in it's intended space. ideally, i would have loved to have hung a few decorative yet useful hooks underneath the picture but the stone walls do not allow for any drilling. hence, the giant hole pictured above. whoops!
instead, i will keep an eye open at the thrifts for a bench to place in the space. i am thinking orange leather, mid-century modern, a real pop against the grey wall. to be certain, however, whatever the style i choose, t will be both useful and beautiful.
**if you are any good at math you would have concluded by now that at ten cents a bottle we returned four-hundred and four bottles. please do not write me with concerns for our drinking habits. we host friends. a lot. they bring beer. they do not leave with beer. perhaps going forward the empty hand policy should be extended to all people leaving the house...
