After a great deal of consideration and argument, we have decided to redo our living room in classic Addams Family style. The argument was over whether to redecorate at all, of course, since usually we’re too lazy to remodel anything we can’t reach from the couch. Once we made the commitment, actually deciding on the theme took about fifteen seconds.
Teres and I have been “Addams Family” fans since we were both children. Something about the subversive nature of it appealed to us, even then. The Addamses weren’t quite evil, per se, but they were probably related to it by marriage. The whole family was relentlessly cheerful and accepting of just about everyone they encountered, where the reverse was most certainly not true. And while “The Addams Family” may not have been the first sitcom to show a husband and wife in bed together (that was, oddly enough, “The Munsters”) it was the first sitcom to suggest the parents had a sex life. Also, bear traps.
This, we knew, was something we wanted to embrace in ourselves. And in our living room.
Friends, family, and authorities making “checkup” calls can attest that this is not new for us. For over ten years our front door knocker has been a wooden hand. A plastic gargoyle found a home over our entrance back in ’89. Black and violet holiday lights from Christmases past can still be found winding around our window hangings. When we threw a silk cloth over Teres’ upright piano and covered it with goblets, weaponry, and small chests full of fake gold coins for her “Pirates of the Caribbean” birthday party two years ago we liked it so much we left it that way.
Unfortunately we can’t quite match one aspect of the Addams family’s life: we’re not rich. If our house was to be a museum where people come to see ’em, we knew it would have to be the smaller, economy model.
This is trickier than it sounds. You can’t just buy some discount Halloween stuff and throw a few rubber bats around. We don’t want to force weirdness into people’s faces, we just want to provide a pleasant living area that encourages comfort, an occasional double-take, and, with luck, an involuntary scream accompanying the temporary loss of bodily control. Is that too much to ask? Subtlety, that was our watchword.
Of course I’m saying that because I don’t know where to buy a stuffed and mounted swordfish head with a foot sticking out of its mouth. Maybe eBay…
Like any young homeowners we’ve been anguishing over the details. A dusting of mold on the walls, or just dust? Is the disembodied arm under the couch too noticeable, or should we move it farther back? Do you need a permit to install a trap door in your foyer? What if it’s more or less non-lethal? How many maces and axes are just right without being ostentatious?
(You’re reading this, waiting for the joke. There isn’t one. We really do think like this. Walk carefully in my home, and brace yourself before opening innocent doors.)
Fortunately I have in my wife a marvel of shopping expertise and sick, twisted ingenuity. For the last few weeks I’ve been getting messages at work: “Found the perfect clock but we’ll need more spiders for it,” and “Do we want people scared as soon as they come in or should we wait until they realize they can’t get out?”
So far we’re going with a comfortable Victorian look with lightly scattered strangeness. She found an understated Edvard Munch “Scream” candleholder at fantasy-gifts.com, and haunted portraits at GoreyDetails.net . HumaneTrophies.net has stuffed animal heads we can modify to our nefarious needs. Various sites offering horror props, medical supplies, and medieval weapons will benefit mightily from our surfing. Teres picked up an ornate gold-leaf Princess phone at Goodwill and we have our eyes on their assortment of cast-iron offerings, which should go along nicely, in a vaguely unsettling way.
Soon we’ll be able to enjoy our new room — Teres in a form-fitting black shroud, me in a smoking jacket, standing on my head — and welcome new visitors, possibly quite briefly.
Especially if they use our new downstairs bathroom.