The uncertainty principle

There are many decisions involved in any project; color, size and shape, style, etc., but I know of few places where decisions are made more difficult because of the sheer number of choices as in a store selling light fixtures. Add to this the knowledge that the choices to be made were for a room that, as yet, only existed as a line drawing on a piece of paper and one wonders if Heisenberg wasn’t so much a Nobel prize winning physicist as a man whose house was being remodeled.

We had to visit one such store recently. By the time we left, we both had headaches and, if we hadn’t carried our final choices out with us, we would not have been able to recall what they were half a hour later. Too many choices bouncing around our brains.

When one looks at a large bronze outside light fixture with a carefully attained patina and a slip of wonderfully crackled glass, it is difficult to remember that you’ll need one for each side of the french doors and that the size of this particular choice will overwhelm everything. You need to close your eyes to remember the light will hang at eye level out the kitchen window and you’d better have some sort of smoky glass if you don’t want to blind yourself looking at a bare bulb. You need to keep in mind the entire structure. You need to remember this is the light you may have hanging outside that kitchen window for a long, long time.

I’m amazed we were able to make any choice at all.