Passage 25

A place of our own

We are all usually very careful when we buy something for the house.

Why?

Because we have to live with it for a long time.

We paint a room to make it brighter, so we choose the colors carefully.

We buy new curtains in order to match the newly decorated room, so they must be the right color.

We move the furniture round so as to make more space—or we buy new furniture—and so on.

It is an endless business.

Rich or poor, we take time to furnish a room.

Perhaps some people buy furniture in order to impress their friends.

But most of us just want to enjoy our surroundings.

We want to live as comfortably as we can afford to.

We spend a large part of our lives at home.

We want to make a small corner in the world which we can recognize as our own.