Lifestyles of the Rich and Fug

Just because someone lives in a mansion and has lots of money to throw at a decorator doesn't mean they'll get five-star style results. Behold, a patterned floral fright, in two acts:

For me? Wallpaper and a checkerboard floor? You shouldn't have!

 Perhaps the best option is to retire to bed, and be faced by this horridly coordinated nightmare incentor of a pattern creeping across the walls and linens. Thank goodness that vomit-green floor is there to cool it all down, or amp up the quease effect. Really now, just go to sleep and dream about all the money that went into these flower horrors, and make a promise to call your contractor in the morning. Sweet dreams!

Floored

I present: the kitchen. The cabinets are all right, modern, kinda plain but passable. The granite-looking backsplash is OK on its own but looks weird with the bald-faced Ikea-looking cabinets.

But....the FLOOR....the floor is where the fug is at.

Decor by Crayola

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but behold these bright designs and see how your eyes feel afterwards.

Lavender wall, plum wall, and Sea O' Blue carpeting. Is it bad lighting and a photography flaw, or a color-blind decorator? Whatever it is, it needs to be repainted and refloored as soon as the deal closes. This room makes me sad and gloomy. Make it go away!

It's the BRIGHTEST, BLUEST LIVING ROOM EVER!!!!1 Actually, the more I look at it, the less I hate it. I'm starting to like it. Ssshhh, don't tell nobody. Damn mind-controlling color! It probably glows during the dreary days of winter, though. But boy, is it bright. It's like making every wall an accent wall. That said, I need to stop looking at it before I drive to Sherwin Williams with this photo and ask for 5 gallons.

Fresh from the grove is this orange kitchen featuring brown and white cabinetry. The orange itself isn't the worst color I've ever seen in a kitchen, and it's a nice change from the ubiquitous red kitchen, but those cabinets have got to go. The end effect is cheap, cheap, cheap. Even if this kitchen cost $80,000, it looks cheaply done. So there.

I don't usually show home exteriors because it's too "identifying", but this was too good to pass up. I figure that if you paint your house bright red, you want people to notice it so I'm going to help you out. This cedar house is ultra red, ultra trapezoidal and looks like a bunker in which to hide out from reality. You too can live in that house that everyone uses as a navigational aid: "if you pass the ugly red house that looks like half of it sunk under ground, you drove too far."

Glass Block Fashion Trap

Nothing says "20 years ago, someone said this was a good idea and now that person is no longer allowed in my house again" like an overabundance of 80's glass block in 2008.

  Welcome to the 80's, where the price of the home has been adjusted to 2008 numbers but the decor hasn't.

Now, for the glamorous bath, where the bather is entrapped in 80's luxury. What is that other building material, mahwbul? This here is where you take a soak after Jazzercise with a wine cooler in your hand.

Rest your Reeboks in front of the floor-to-ceiling 80's wall, contented in your decision to open a 2008 copy of the Yellow Pages and call a contractor. All this can be yours today, though it won't bring your feather-haired youth back. Damn!

Texture Maze

When designing an upper-bracket home (or evena lower-bracket home, for that matter), one should ensure the design flows seamlessly throughout the space.

A basement-y tiled ceiling bisected with plaster, a marble floor raised above and delineated from fields of subterranean carpet, and a sponge-painted wall all competing for attention in a 200 square foot space is NOT good design and probably pisses off feng shui, too. This corner of luxury isn't fooling anyone, which is why the owner should keep the liquor bottles out in order to provide the necessary "goggles" through which to view this opulence.

Wow House: Fab Closet

In a feeble attempt to reverse the neg karma being bandied about via this blog, every now and then I'll post examples of what I consider to be fab design.

Today's "wow" room is actually a closet...a closet that, at 25' x 16' is bigger than the living room of my first apartment and contains more shoes than a DSW:

I bow humbly in honor of anyone organized enough to keep this collection in check, and spendy enough to have enough shoes to warrant such an organization. Plus, there is an entire 4-foot section of nothing but black and brown shoes. A homeowner after my own cold, judgmental heart. Bravo!

Media Room Yee-Haw!

This multi-million-dollar suburban estate features a barfy pink media room with a cowboy statue in it. Never mind that pink and cowboys don't go together, at least not in my mind. This mauve hell reeks of 80's delight, but the house was built in 1999. Throwback throw-up, indeed.