I was shown into a room. A red room. Red wallpaper, red curtains, red carpet. They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture.
It could rain in a room this big.
from The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie
Surface Area
Two questions for you this week. Let’s start with the easy one: what do you call this?
A benchtop? Countertop? Worktop? Something else entirely? What if it’s in the bathroom – or even the laundry?
Now here’s the tough question: how much of their surface area is unintentionally covered? Be brave: your answer can’t be worse than mine!
Bathroom: three square feet, about one intentionally covered, none unintentionally. Two bare, so
3 : 1 / 0 / 2
Laundry: about one square foot of actual bench – totally covered, but mostly with things which are used right there – and about six square feet of table, which is half covered in a cat lair (intentional) and half covered in gosh-we-should-do-something-with-that (totally unintentional).
7 : 3.5 / 3.5 / 0
The kitchen (oh, the shame!) has three benches, one about 16 square feet half-covered (ok, all-covered, but half’s intentional), one about 9 square feet with 1/10 clutter (if you don’t count the day’s dishes waiting to be washed), and two of about 2 square feet, one half-cluttered and one tolerably full but with no clutter (tea-making space: sacrosanct). That doesn’t include the draining board, which seldom has anything but drying dishes on it.
29 : 11 / 10 / 8 (if dishes recently washed)
A grand total (oh, I can’t look) of 39 square feet of bench space in the kitchen, bathroom and laundry combined, with 15.5 intentionally covered, 13.5 unintentionally covered, and up to 10 free for use – up to 7 of which may be covered in dishes, depending on the time of day.
Ouch. I’d never realized before that with the exception of the bathroom bench – and not even all of that – there is no habitually clear bench space in my house. And I have the lurking suspicion that if I removed the intentional covering, the unintentional would take its place as the night the day (only faster).
So what are your numbers? Share in the comments and give me something to shoot for!
Put It All Away
“This is terrific. What a gorgeous kitchen. You’ve decorated it so beautifully. Now you’re going to have to clear all the counters. Vases. Books. Knickknacks. Get rid of all that stuff. I mean, it is just beautiful. Beautiful. I love what you’ve done with this house. Make sure you put it all away.”
Real estate agent in Slow Love: How I Lost my Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness by Dominique Browning