Restoration Hardware: A League of Their Own

Maybe if I say “Restoration Hardware” enough, it will appear in my life like it’s Beetlejuice and I’m a young Geena Davis (total babe). Alas, I’m more like Miss Davis in her best role (A League of Their own, DUH) and Restoration Hardware alludes me altogether, as it exists somewhere in some different plotline. Still, I find myself exploring the “Thaddeus Collection” of RH’s website, curiously perusing while avoiding work at the auction yard – my personal equivalent to whatever Dottie Hinson was raised on in A League of Their Own.

A single chair from the Thaddeus Collection will put a “regular” person back a cool $3495, but if you are a member of RH’s club, the price tag settles down at a meager $2691. The collection, designed by Julie Lawrence, and inspired by Salvador Dali and Diego Giacometti, is one to marvel at. Hand hammered to God-like perfection; the chairs warrant a drooling response. But with a price tag like that, it might as well be St. Edward’s Chair and carved by Michelangelo’s steady hand because no chair on Earth is worth 3500 unless it does your taxes or has the history of England farted into its cushioning. How dare YOU, Restoration Hardware? For as long as I can remember, I have wanted a life that expresses the same sentiment Ferris Bueller said when talking of his friend, Cameron’s home: “The place is like a museum. It’s very beautiful and very cold, and you’re not allowed to touch anything.” While Cameron was as insufferable as they come, his house sounded like a PARADISE. How was he such a whiny asshole? Being cold sucks, but have you ever been raised in a house that has every wall covered? Minimalism does not exist in the lower and middle classes, CAM-ER-ON. (Yes, he was probably clinically depressed and yes, his parents neglected him, but still…). You might think that an Utz’s pretzel container only has a singular use, but you would be completely wrong, and my father would let you know after shaming you for throwing it in the recycling. When you grow up surrounded by things, it becomes suffocating. I have never wanted much and have needed much less. I can’t stand appliances on the counter or boxes of cereal on the refrigerator and only because there was barely a clear surface in any room of my upbringing. This is no shade to my parents; they were poor kids out of the Midwest – you *fix* things with stuff and as the adage goes: “it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it”. “It” is obviously means sixteen extra toothbrushes and three food processors JUST IN CASE. Restoration Hardware is the upscale home-furnishings company that kids who were raised in warehouses dream of. Of course I want the opposite of what I had! Of course I want luxury and furniture that would make me roundhouse a child’s head off his body if he ever traipsed into my living room with a cup of Kool-Aid! HELL NO if you think you’re going to spill red sugar juice on Auntie’s Berber carpet and Thaddeus chairs. This is why dreaming is important, right? I am not in my industrial Anchorage office watching semi-trucks thunder by when I’m lost in thought and roaming the halls of my RH worthy mansion. I’ll get there someday. “Restoration Hardware, Restoration Hardware, Restoration Hardware”. Someday.