bachelor furniture makes a comeback

One of the things I liked best about living apart from Mr. Reluctant for three years due to our school/work -- actually, maybe THE thing I liked best -- was the removal and banishment of bachelor furniture from my premises. We joked about it, as many couples do, but I loved having a cozy little apartment with cool shabby-chic vintage furniture, studded with an antique or two.

It's not that I insist on new, beautiful things. Much of my furniture is inherited or culled from the dump and garage sales. In fact, the only new furniture I've had is my bed (long since reinforced with bolts and 2x4s -- see below), some Ikea bookshelves, and my couch. My husband is one of those keep-it-till-it-falls apart types, plus he has the maddening habit of buying ugly stuff built like a brick shithouse and then reinforcing it so it will never, ever, ever fall apart. He loves decor that is solid, thick, squat, square -- veritably Romanesque. If it were up to him, we'd be living in a crypt. He sees no need in replacing items that are still "working," even if they are an assault to the eyes. Furthermore, he insists that we keep the "temporary" furniture I bought when I graduated from college and had my first apartment. There is enough of the crap that it completely furnished his entire apartment in Utah. And my plan backfired: he became intimately reacquainted with his beloved pieces, and realized how much he missed his old friends.

So when the three-year chic furniture holiday ended, there they were, the bachelors, knocking on my door.

I've been working on him gently, trying to get him to move the worst pieces -- NOT THROW THEM AWAY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!! -- into the storage room in the back of the house. The 100-lb. tar-paper and spitwood "TV stand," for example, is now storing tarps and a toolbox. One of the blonde Scan-ish dinette tables makes a fine place to organize caulk and paintbrushes.

But the thing I hate more than anything -- and something I was party to buying, unfortunately -- is his giagantic, industrial, metal, circa 1980 desk. It weighs about 3,000 lbs., has a fake woodgrain top, two tiny drawers that can only fit pens, is painted black around the sides and has shiny stainless steel legs. I don't know what I was thinking when we were looking at desks in Connecticut at a used office furniture place and agreed to the purchase.

Oh yes, wait, I do. I remember saying, "that will make a great workshop table when we move into a real house!"

I tried, last night, to make my move. His other desk, an old oak teacher's desk salvaged from the University of California furniture graveyard, is not that bad. My first furniture refinish job was a similar desk, and I've been yearning to redo the top, but it's ok since it has a modicum of style. It's been sitting in our living room since we moved in, because the movers didn't want to struggle with it to put it back in the bedroom wing.

I thought: it's time. He'll have a nice desk, our guests who stay in his study/guest room won't have their eyes burned out in ugliness, and we'll have a nice workshop table in the back room.

Mr. R. thought it was a fantastic idea. We took off the top of the oak desk and wriggled it into his study.

"OK," sez I, "how do you want to move the metal desk?"

"Move?" sez he. "Are you kidding me? Now I can finally have TWO desks in a row for even more workspace! This is great!"

Outmaneuvered once again. The horror.