A woman's prerogative

My younger daughter has been in a whirlwind of redecorating activity for the past couple of weeks. I've always thought her home was beautiful as it was, but she grew tired of its neutral color palette, deciding to use bolder colors on certain walls and accessories to "warm it up." She loves the new look, and I can't wait to see it.

Listening to her excitement as she talked about the changes she's making reminded me of her enthusiasm when she was 10 and we redecorated her bedroom in New York. Back then she fell in love with French provincial furniture, white, with gold trim. The wallpaper she chose had stripes of delicate flowers in pastel blue, green, and lavendar on a white background. Her dad built a white wooden canopy over her bed, with scalloped edges and strands of beads hanging from each side in colors that matched her wallpaper. It was a room fit for a princess.

Fast forward five years. We'd moved from New York to Georgia and then on to Louisiana, and the white bedroom furniture had moved with us. She was 15 by then and had definite ideas about how her hip teenager's room should look. Her plans included new furniture, and she wasn't happy to learn that our budget didn't.

"This looks like a little girl's stuff," she complained. "It's too young for me now."

"We can make it work," we told her. "We tried to talk you into something different when we bought this furniture, but this is what you had to have. You wouldn't even consider anything else."

"Well, maybe so," she said without missing a beat, "but how would you like to live with a decision made by a ten-year-old?"

There was no way we could argue with that kind of logic, so we didn't even try. Her point was valid. Still, it all came down to money, and she didn't get new furniture. I can't tell you how happy I am for her now that she's in a position to change her mind once in a while.

You go, girl!