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Home Decorating
家居装饰

Date: Oct 01 2010

Themes: Family

Grammar: Simple Past Tense

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Intro

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tastes
hire

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

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Sometimes life feels like a routine, and you need to make a change. When you start to get bored with your surroundings, you can always redecorate your space. Rearranging furniture, painting the walls, or hanging some new artwork can transform your home and shake things up.

But home decorating can also be an expensive and time consuming project. Some people do it deliberately, going room by room and carefully sticking to a specific color scheme. Others collect furniture and decorations piece by piece without worrying about whether or not they match, creating eclectic spaces.

Mason recently bought a new home. Hear him share his decorating plans with Marni.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Marni

Mason

Marni: So Mason, I know you recently purchased a home.

Mason: I did. I did indeed.

Marni: And I’m kinda wondering, how’s the decorating coming?

Mason: It is slow but steady. We did some painting first off.

Marni: OK.

Mason: And that was, you know, a whole debacle trying to pick what colors, what our palette was.

Marni: That can be tricky.

Mason: Absolutely. But you know we did it ourselves, we didn’t hire anybody, so we saved a lot of money, which was nice.

Marni: Yes.

Mason: But the big thing is like we kinda had a whole thrift store, flea market aesthetic, just we inherited a lot of hand-me-down pieces. And now we’re kinda like, let’s be deliberate, let’s find nice things and pick a style.

Marni: So you’re kinda doing a makeover, it sounds like.

Mason: Absolutely. And it’s gonna just take forever, because not only do my wife and I have different tastes, but it’s expensive to buy new things.

Marni: It is, indeed. But I personally love decorating, and I sort of love the hunt of like finding great deals, and finding pieces that, you know, I just think are really special. And I think, though, there’s small things you can do like just repainting your room or moving things around even, changing things from room to room can just give your house a brand new look. So good luck to you!

Mason: You want to do it for me?

Marni: No. I’ve got my own to do.

Grammar Point

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Discussion

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Mason recently bought a house. Now he and his wife get to decorate it. But decorating can be a slow and expensive process. Mason and his wife started by painting the house. When it comes to buying furniture, they can’t get everything they want all at once. Over time they come to collect nice new pieces that will suit both their tastes.

Marni loves decorating. She thinks there are a lot of little things you can do to make your house a home. You can paint or rearrange your furniture. Marni also loves searching for just the right piece to complete the look of a room.

Do you like decorating your home? What is your home decorating style? Where do you find furniture and decorations for your house or apartment?

Comments

1 through 20 of 52
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Simonking

United Kingdom

site. http://www.cheapgrass.co.uk/ :: http://www.cheapgrass.co.uk/product-category/shop-by-range/

Artificial grass and cheap artificial grass

ElenA

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

This is my lovely job

deadmeitly

China

My job is a factory inside make design, but I still a novice, our factory mainly produces LED lighting, household lighting and many! I like decorate my home, my family's style is according to oneself idea to decorate, maybe I could in the lamp can make some small comment!

melamarc

Philippines

im not really good in decorating a home. my cousin is an interior designer, so she help me things work out in my house.

Marcelolic

Brazil

Hummm this is the first time that I'm decorating my own place….I have just rented a flat so now I'm buying some things to fill the empty places hehe…It was so funny 'cause I started to decorating my bedroom,after my kitchen and now it is missing my living room because this one is still empty :P

kukuka

Ukraine

I find things I need for my apartment in stores, I doubt if it's wise to buy used things (the only exception is probably an apartment itself), because there is nothing better then new stuff in your new home. That's my opinion.

Zambuka

United States

It’s certainly my cup of tea :) i really like it, and i hope i’ll manage to decorate my house the way i want to :)

Jasmine Nilar

Myanmar

i also like cozy home decoration .... but if only somebody does it for me

rosendo

Mexico

Home Decorating is a hard thing , believe me , i just recently change from a new apartment , the idea was good , bcs all is new ,but the progress turned too hard , so i hate Decorate hahaha

lolekesh

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

I like decording Kiss

luz.dosolhos

Brazil

I enjoy decorating my home. I believe that is important to be feel comfortable being in a home that you like, and decorating it, makes it even better. You can add your taste to any kind of style, you can rearrange then, and make it looks just like the way you want it to be. That is why I love decorating my home.

asias

Mexico

Home decoration in my opinion is a boring thing but you know women like their home to be nice and special for that reason they always like to spend money to buy a new furniture and decoration, and git rid of old stuff.

spider.pete78

Indonesia

Home decorating? such a hassle. I don't really like to decorate my room. I prefer something steady, not many shake-ups. Choosing a perfect palette is such a headache and I'd rather give away hand-me-down stuff than keep it in my closet.

jurmala1

Germany

Home decorating is a fine thing. I prefer a broken styl, where a modern furniture mixes with a antique pieces. And a lot of flowers. hahaha. Mostly i like to move a furniture. Then i feel to live in comletely new invironment.

Romio79

Russian Federation

Well when it's time to shake my home up I'm ready to spend some time to choose appropriate things for decoration. Although it's really time consuming process for me 'cause you have to visit several stores in order to find things you like I prefer to spend my time once but then enjoy the decoration for some years.

pamodoujarra

Gambia

I like decorating my house because it makes the house look clean and spacious. House decorating tells what kind of a person you are & people respect you in that sense.