Entryway

D and I have been discussing doing something with our entryway. In general, we have less stuff in our house - both decor wise and generally speaking - than do other people. I like it this way because I equate stuff with stress. Too much stuff means I have to clean around it, it means it's more to take care of, it means more stuff to put away, and more stuff to find a place for, it means stress. Therefore, I try to keep the stuff to a minimum. It makes it much easier when I go into a Restoration Hardware or a Pottery Barn because, while I often like a lot of the things I see, I rarely buy anything because I view it as more stuff. No more stuff! Nonetheless, there is a point where things seem a bit too bare. I think I've reached that point with the entryway.

Our entryway is currently quite barren and I've had two thoughts for how to deal with this. One is to buy a circular rug and circular table to go beneath the hanging light. Here's a shot of our entryway to refresh everyone's memory:

This table would then have to have a fairly large display on it because of the height of the vertical space, which is 20-21 feet high in the foyer area.

The other thought is that I could buy a large pot of indoor bamboo that will grow very high. They have these in some of the malls here and they get very tall. I would put it in the corner by the stairs:

I would have to buy already tall bamboo - I couldn't buy small ones unless they grew really fast since it would look very odd to have small plants in such a large space ... that framed picture looks a bit odd right now, but I guess I never noticed because there's usually a large fake plant sitting there. This means, I would have to keep them alive. Keeping plants alive and healthy is clearly not a strength of mine. Sometimes I don't understand how people can follow a recipe and still have a dish not taste so good. After all, you just follow some directions and it typically tastes pretty good. But there are people who cannot seem to cook or bake well despite following a recipe exactly. I am sure those who have no trouble keeping plants alive will not understand why I have such difficulty. After all, you just water them and they live. Not me. I water them and I kill them. Sometimes it's from too much water, sometimes it's from not enough, sometimes it's from too much light, or not enough. I don't know. All I know is that I kill them.

I like the idea of having a large, green, living plant in our foyer. I think it would add an element of life missing in the house. However, I am pretty sure the plant and pot for it would cost a fair amount of money and that means, when I kill it, I would be extremely upset with myself. So, at the moment, I'm leaning towards the rug and the table. There's plenty of time to decide since I don't think we'll be making any large home purchases like this until the house in Mexico is complete. If we were, I'd be pushing harder for a huge flat screen in the bedroom!

In other consumerism news, I read up on all the reviews I could find online for the Indoor Compost Bin. For the most part, everyone indicated that it works as described. It's a lot of money, so I'm still mulling it over, but I think this is something that I want to buy. I have to weigh the balance of the electricity the machine is using with the savings made by eliminating that waste into a landfill (hauling cost, space, etc). I read one statement that if everyone eliminated their organic waste from landfills, the rate of decomposition within those landfills would slow quite dramatically. I hadn't thought about that. However, I am still inclined to buy this. I think what I will do is maybe put all organic waste (paper towels, tissues, food, etc) into one bin and all other non-recyclable waste into another and see exactly how much of each I have. If it's at least a 50/50 split, I think it's worth it. If I have more non-recyclable/non-organic waste, then perhaps it's not the best use of our funds.