I love poring over Country
Style and House and Garden magazines.
I can lose myself in Pinterest for days, searching for white kitchens, rustic dining tables and farmhouse gardens.
A quirky little home wares store will suck me in like a vacuum cleaner sucking up a fluff bunny.
And for the
last two and half years, I have wallowed in design and decorating ideas because we have been working towards building our own new home.
I love, love, love home decorating and decor daydreaming.
But there are a few trends that I just don't understand. Some that I abhor. I know it's simply a matter of taste but the decorating recesses of my mind are full to overflowing and I have to speak out!
These are my personal ickies:
The butler’s pantry where the sink, the dishwasher and the
oven all live.
What on earth is the kitchen for???
Who wants to spend hours cooking and cleaning up in a dark and pokey little space when you have a lovely large, open kitchen to work in?
Of course, if there's a real live butler hanging out in the pantry doing all the work, that changes my opinion completely...
What on earth is the kitchen for???
Who wants to spend hours cooking and cleaning up in a dark and pokey little space when you have a lovely large, open kitchen to work in?
Of course, if there's a real live butler hanging out in the pantry doing all the work, that changes my opinion completely...
At the other end of the crazy kitchen spectrum is the outdoor
kitchen, fully-equipped with Taj-ma-barbeque and fridge and sink and dinner
sets and wine glasses and napkins.
Come on! How many kitchens can you use at once?
And what’s wrong with a rusty, dusty barbie propped up against the back wall and keeping it simple? I've never met a person (or dog) who doesn't love a sausage and sauce sanga.
And don't get me started on having to clean two cooktops, two fridges, two sinks ...
Come on! How many kitchens can you use at once?
And what’s wrong with a rusty, dusty barbie propped up against the back wall and keeping it simple? I've never met a person (or dog) who doesn't love a sausage and sauce sanga.
And don't get me started on having to clean two cooktops, two fridges, two sinks ...
Orange.
Nobody really wants to decorate their home in orange.
Except for my mum and dad in the seventies. They splashed it around like it was going out of fashion. And, pretty soon, it was!
If you want a touch of orange, fill the fruit bowl with mandarins ... buy a bunch of gerberas ... plant some marigolds in a window box. But don't plaster the walls with orange mosaic tiles or cover the kitchen benches in orange Laminex. (Really, Mum, don't!)
Don't even buy an orange cushion.
I mean it.
Toss it out of your shopping basket.
Now.
Buy something blue or green or yellow, even.
But not orange.
But not orange.
The home theatre.
Okay, if you’re a soiree-holding kind of person, I can see how this might be quite nice. ‘Do join us in theatre at 8pm for a delightful evening of light classical music, pink champagne and muted laughter.’
But a room for just watching the tellie?
It’s like having a room dedicated to just thinking, or just knitting, or just reading.
Okay, if you’re a soiree-holding kind of person, I can see how this might be quite nice. ‘Do join us in theatre at 8pm for a delightful evening of light classical music, pink champagne and muted laughter.’
But a room for just watching the tellie?
It’s like having a room dedicated to just thinking, or just knitting, or just reading.
Oh, hang on. A room
for just reading sounds brilliant!
They even have a name for it.
LIBRARY!!!
Those fires that hang from the ceiling like some sort of
overgrown cocoon.
They look a little bit scary in a sci-fi sort of way.
And they look daft. Even if you’re going for the hipster dufus look.
My husband, the Great Dane, thinks they're cool. Then again, he tucks his T-shirt into his jeans and still thinks 'Smokey and the Bandit' is the best movie EVER!!!
Cocoon fireplaces are just not right. And you can't tell me that someone's kid won't swing from it and burn their derriere before wrenching the whole contraption out of the ceiling.
They look a little bit scary in a sci-fi sort of way.
And they look daft. Even if you’re going for the hipster dufus look.
My husband, the Great Dane, thinks they're cool. Then again, he tucks his T-shirt into his jeans and still thinks 'Smokey and the Bandit' is the best movie EVER!!!
Cocoon fireplaces are just not right. And you can't tell me that someone's kid won't swing from it and burn their derriere before wrenching the whole contraption out of the ceiling.
Rectangular free-standing baths.
They give me the creeps.
Too much like sarcophagi.
As soon as I see one, I start developing a murder mystery plot where someone dies in the bath. Not terribly uplifting.
They give me the creeps.
Too much like sarcophagi.
As soon as I see one, I start developing a murder mystery plot where someone dies in the bath. Not terribly uplifting.
Toilets that open onto en suites that open onto the master bedroom.
I dig the bathtub that looks straight across to the bed (unless it’s a sarcophagus tub!). But the toilet with no solid door between the user and the bedroom…
I dig the bathtub that looks straight across to the bed (unless it’s a sarcophagus tub!). But the toilet with no solid door between the user and the bedroom…
Think about it!
It’s not good.
For anybody.
So what do I love?
White.
Floorboards.
High ceilings and exposed beams.
Big windows and French doors and natural light.
Wide verandas made for lazing and sipping coffee and reading
a book and chatting with friends over a glass of wine.
Hills hoist clotheslines.
Fresh flowers.
Fresh flowers.
Book shelves filled with well-thumbed books.
Gardens filled with blossom trees.
Log fires that are anchored in the wall or on the ground and
don’t look like they’re about to split apart and launch an oversized cockroach
or cicada into your lounge room that will then bite your head off and spit it out into a sarcophagus-shaped bathtub.
Feel free to disagree.
Except on the orange thing!
Except on the orange thing!
What do you love in a home?
What gives you the ickies?
You can go here to my Pinterest page to see some of my home
decorating fantasies.
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