lucybrown64's Profile

Way too much marble tile in the kitchen. It ends up being cold and impersonal, even though the cabinets are nice enough. The overhanging hood covered in marble cuts the place in half and there are no plates in the slots of the dish rack over the sink--you'd think some staging could have been done to make it look like someone actually lived here. Instead it's just bare, bare, bare. I have more than a few books of modern architecture where that's also true--after the construction team has left the architect sends the photographer in right way, before anyone has moved in or a stager has been brought in to humanize the place. (When did staging in general get a bad rap? There's good staging and bad staging.)

Modern design without these touches just DOESN'T look human, so--yeah. It all kind of lacks humanity, it lacks life.

One caveat about the Potter Barn teen lamp: I bought two of these for my daughter's room and it turns out that they take a globe bulb with a chandelier base, very tiny. They do not take bulbs with standard bases. Where I live I cannot seem to buy bulbs that fit in this lamp without getting the package home, opening it up, putting the bulbs in the lamps and finding that they don't work. In 2 years I've been able to buy a total of ONE bulb that fits in this lamp that actually creates light, and I've tried buying the bulbs at 10 different stores. This type of bulb is simply completely unreliable or else all of the manufacturers of this bulb are incapable of hiring delivery people who can get them to the stores intact, without breaking the filiment in every one of them. I've wasted a tremendous amount of money buying broken bulbs for these lamps and am very disappointed that the website and catalogue do not warn you, anywhere, that the lamps take a very non-standard bulb. I wouldn't have bought them if I'd known, that's for sure.

I would not only paint the ceiling and just use a tape-line to separate the red from the white, I would start the white a lot lower than just below the ceiling--only 6" or so above the highest door or window opening. Don't use a glaringly bright white, though--use something closer to cream but highly reflective, or even steer away from white and use a golden wheat, something warm but also light in color. Use a similar tone at the windows--golden floor-length curtains or Roman shades.

Avoid dark artwork--dark frames would be fine if they are thin, but choose items with wide, light mats (cream or beige) around the artwork. And go for a rug with a lot of color in it--a Persion or Kilim. The room can take big gestures like this. A mirror over the mantel will also bounce a lot of light around.

Seems silly. Get a tub large enough to share and enjoy the fringe benefits of that. :D A double shower seems like a better idea--and fringe benefits can come from that, too.

I don't see any waste of water, though--if two people used the same tub once each, for two different baths, the same amount of water would be used. But if I had that much space I'd put a nice couch or upholstered chair and ottoman in the bath, not another tub.

I also found it too perfect and hotel-like. And while I like staying in a hotel for a little while and appreciate the amenities (like someone else doing the cleaning up) I don't want to live in a hotel.

On the up side, I have slightly distant relatives who recently built what amounts to a mansion and when they took us on a walk through I couldn't help think that they needed to make a trip to Restoration Hardware or hire a decorator or both. It was mostly empty except for some second-hand furniture they brought from their old house, which was dwarfed and inappropriate in the new space. Their house has even nicer architectural touches than the one here but they've put no thought into what to do with it. I have to say--at least these folks have done something with their house, even if it's not everyone's taste. (And even though it looks, 100%, like the decorator's taste and very staged.)

I feel, like Blandwagon, that I'd be afraid to touch anything. I've also seen loads of homes here that are lovely but look a lot more real and not like movie sets. (Hell, I've seen movie sets that look more real than this.) But I hope they enjoy their home and it works for them.

"Riot of color" and "decadent" are definitely the last descriptors I'd use for this house. I'd call it pretty neutral with some color accents here and there. While I'm not offended by nudes, skulls or possibly fake animal skins (Really? Fakes are offensive?) I don't get the placement of the TV over the head of the bed. I'd be afraid of it coming loose and killing me while I slept. Plus you'd have to lie with your head at the foot of the bed if you wanted to watch in bed rather than from those weirdly placed red chairs. It looks comfortable enough overall, I suppose, but I also wouldn't want to try to clean that bathroom. Give me wall-to-wall tile in my bathroom any day, and porcelain fixtures. At least the books appear to be a real library that's read rather than just a collection of books bought in bulk for their color and/or finish, like you see in so many shelter mags.

I would solve the problem of the lower wall and the pink fridge with the same paint: blackboard paint. Primer is a must first, of course, and there is primer specifically available for painting metal appliances like the fridge. Also, while I think black would work fine for both applications, blackboard paint does also come in other colors, so a green would also work well and not suck up as much light, plus afterward you could draw on the lower walls, write grocery lists or have drawings on the fridge, etc. Having the same paint for the fridge and lower walls would also link those areas of the apartment.

We did the same thing in our bathroom, with a buttery yellow on the ceiling and upper walls, white tile on the lower walls, and a deep colonial green on the woodwork (there's wood trim between the tile and the painted wall). We used outdoor-grade paint to withstand the humidity, even though we have an exhaust fan, and the wall color still doesn't need repainting after 12 years. The paint on the door and in one or two places on the vanity could use a touch-up, because we bang into it all the time, but otherwise it still looks great and the yellow paint bounces a lot of light around the room and makes it seem sunnier than it would be otherwise.

We keep our cats out of the dining room and kitchen, because they'd just be pests while we're cooking and eating, not to mention getting their hair where we cook and eat. We also don't let them in the laundry room because we've heard of too many horror stories about people's cats getting into clothes dryers. (Bad for the clothes but far, far worse for the cat.) Other than protecting the cats from their own bad instincts and protecting our food they have the run of the house.

Remember: Dogs have owners. Cats have staff. :D

The rule for open shelves is only put the things there that you use a lot, put other things behind doors. That's what we've done in my kitchen and this minimizes the dirt accumulated by baking ingredients, bakeware, pantry items, etc. while allowing me to quickly grab plates, glasses, cooking utensils and pots/pans as I need them, which never get greasy because they are being used almost constantly and therefore washed every 48 hours or so, if not more often.

I'd go crazy opening and closing doors to get at this stuff every day, instead of just being able to grab things from shelves! We don't even have our flatware in drawers, because none of the drawers in our kitchen were wide enough to accommodate the divided wicker baskets we already had for this purpose, and it's so much easier to just grab knives and forks from where the baskets sit on top of a counter-height bookcase (part of our open-shelving system) than opening and closing drawers all of the time. We're actually planning on moving our kitchen to a different room of the house (which means we don't need to worry about a temp kitchen while the work is done) and when we do I'll do the same thing: open storage for what we use constantly, other things behind doors, and the flatware in easily accessible baskets in a central location, with drawers reserved for stuff we use less often or that are unsightly (boxes of ziplock bags, aluminum foil, etc.).

In fact, I don't actually feel like I need more or different storage in the new kitchen--the move is to get more counter space, a bigger range and bigger sink, plus a place to eat and better natural light. Storage is one of the few things about my current kitchen that's not a problem!