The dining room in my old house was truly magnificent, but by far the worst room for conversation. I'd get up from the table, a very long table, and somebody would always say, Paul, I never got to talk to you.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I knew that if I could put a table in a room with not much light and a couple of chairs, I could have a real conversation. And I know that people... like to eavesdrop on a conversation.
I left the table where there were important people and had lunch with my husband and a few friends. The reception was organised in my honour, so it was rather amusing.
My favorite room in the house is my kitchen. It's definitely the heart and soul of our home. It's where we gather in the morning as a family to start the day, and it's where we wind down at night over supper.
My table seats eight, so that's my maximum. Having a small number of guests is the only way to generate good conversation. Besides, your whole house doesn't get wrecked that way.
But our waking life, and our growing years, were for the most part spent in the kitchen, and until we married, or ran away, it was the common room we shared.
To be honest dinner conversations was the worst bit about being a child and listening to the boring people around me.
My grandmother and I would go see movies, and we'd come back to the apartment - we had a one-room apartment in Hollywood - and I would kind of lock myself in this little dressing room area with a cracked mirror on the door and act out what I had just seen.
As a kid I would be put to bed when my parents had guests and because I was such a show-off I would go to my mum's room, put on her nightdress and Jackie Onassis shawl, run downstairs, go outside, ring the doorbell and pretend to be one of the guests. I'd say, 'Hello, I'm Mrs. So-and-So.'
For me, 'Room' is an opportunity to relive an aspect of my childhood that I hadn't put a ton of thought into.
Some of the most important conversations I've ever had occurred at my family's dinner table.