It’s Always Something! [NOT 21/3/23]

21/3/23 brightersideoflife 51

Hi, friends!

How is your week going?

It looks like I will need to replace the siding this year on my house. It was old when I bought the place – cracked in places, etc — and we had enough bad wind that some pieces have finally crapped out.

I’m probably just going to go with the basic same color for the replacement. But if I could easily find it? Fuck yeah I’d go with a real soft light blush pink. That would look super nice on the house and with my yard. Then, since my house numbers aren’t obvious, I’d be like “yeah, I’m the pink house!”

But I won’t, because I don’t care enough to ask for something custom.

Anyways, I’ve also been watching HGTV as background noise while cleaning and cooking again, and tonight’s topic if you want a prompt is —

What popular trend now do you think will be complained about in 30 years and what for?

For example, I think the failure of so many 90s houses is that the idea was OMG WE HAVE MONEY LOOK AT THIS FLOORPLAN yet the houses have lots of weird wasted space. Or how a lot of old homes have tiny closets because the average person didn’t expect to need walk in closets.

I think the obsession with giant kitchen islands will be one of those “ugh, so 2020s” trends. I’m not anti-kitchen island, I wish I had one at times. But the ones that are bigger than an 8-seater kitchen table? Or so wide that you can’t easily reach stuff in the middle if you’re a short person? They are great for posing picture stuff but giant junk collectors. I think in 30 years people are going to gripe about what a pain it is to renovate around them.

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51 Comments

    • Yeah lawns are basically worthless beyond an area for kids to play. Which is definitely important, but for many of us, just nothing that we need. I’m slowly trying to turn my entire front lawn into perennial beds of mostly native plants.

      • Flowers or groundcover? Or a mix?

        I’ve been gradually replacing privet with rando natives. I’ve now got blueberries, chokecherry and last fall I planted viburnum, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed the viburnum has made it through the winter.

        • Not really sure how ground cover vs flowers is defined, so unsure how to answer.

          I will say that I can’t do anything with big root systems in the front lawn because all my plumbing and gas lines come in the front and I don’t want to risk impacting those.

          Also while I so far have planted things that do bloom (different times of the year, because I want to make the pollinators happy as often as possible), I also need to not obscure my line of sight trying to pull out of the driveway so nothing is taller than about 24 inches when blooming, so maybe yes almost all of it will be considered ground cover?

          • When I think of groundcover I think of stuff that’s like a couple of inches tall, max, and if it has flowers they’re mostly an afterthought.

            I’ve trying hard to get some butterfly weed established, which is a relative of milkweed and about a foot high and has some fun bright orange flowers. Monarchs love it and we got a few monarch caterpillers, but the stuff struggles to grow back where I’ve planted it despite the weed name. But some people get it to grow like crazy.

            • I haven’t got any butterfly weed or milkweed, but I did plant some cliff goldenrod last summer and holy fuck was that a winner winner pollen dinner for bees, bumblebees, more bees, butterflies, and more bumblebees. It’s one of the last good pollen sources apparently before frosts happen and wowsers was it a helluva draw for them.

  2. I’m with you on the giant islands, we have a small one that is just big enough to fit my stove & 4 bar seats to watch the cook.  I’ve been doing remodels & have been shocked how many people want stark white kitchens.  White flooring, tile, paint & appliances.  Put a little color in your life people!

    • Also maintaining it.

      A story a friend of mine tells me about someone in his social group who was trying to impress his date at his parent’s large/expensive home by cooking the meal himself (this was in our early 20s). Rich guy was too busy sucking back wine to notice till too late that the pasta pot was on fire (too much oil or heat depending on who tells the story).  He panicked and instead of turning off the heat and covering the pot, he grabbed the pot, kicked open the door, and threw the pot of burning pasta, oil and water headlong into a gust of wind.

      The wind threw back burning oil and pasta back onto him and all over his mom’s elegant and expensive white kitchen leaving burn marks everywhere.

      The fire dept had to be called and when his parents came home, she screamed about her precious white now burned kitchen while her son was covered in ointment and his clothes ruined from the burning oil/pasta.

  3. I have a small portable “island” er fancy table that my dad got for me as a house warming gift 20 years ago that I still use for food prep.

    BTW, I just realized that this week is the week I moved into my home… 20 years ago.

  4. My sister just redid her kitchen. The contractor talked her out of the large island. He also talked her out of a large built in microwave. He told her younger people don’t want them so if she wanted to sell in the next few years she’d regret having one. She got a double oven instead, standard and convection, and added a coffee station. The coffee station has a small microwave. The whole set up is very nice and modern. But it is white which I’m not crazy about.

    • The built in thing can be a problem too for replacing as sizes change for appliances.  Many contractors & owners also don’t take into account venting or airflow requirements for appliances so they don’t last as long or can be a fire hazard.

    • My kitchen has a built in microwave which makes sense as the counter space is so small to begin with. But I admit – I don’t like it. It’s also one of those holdovers from being broke as fuck that I think about how expensive that would be to fix/replace vs just getting a new cheap microwave to sit on the counter.

    • We have an Asian one which I love but I wanted to add native ones. I’m figuring if they make it to their first birthday they’re good to go.

      I really love the flowers and the fall foliage, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

    • Every once in a while I see photos that really impress me, but they tend to be in places where the design is custom made to fit a very specific surrounding. Most of them just look like cookie cutter designs dropped with a thud on a concrete slab.

    • STUPID SINGLE-BASIN SINKS!!!

      Tell *everyone* you** don’t cook or bake, without *telling* us you don’t do such things!

      **random non-cooking/non-baking homeowner “you,” *not* “you” @HammerZeitgeist-you!😉💖

      • That’s interesting to me. I don’t bake but I do cook a lot. I’ve only even used the second basin as a drying rack. What do you use it for? I also have a countertop drying rack which drips into the second basin.

        • If you do a lot of cooking, having the double basin is 100% what you want, so that you can be *washing* your dirty dishes as you go (water in the sink, so you don’t waste it by using only *running* water), but still have a sink/basin available to wash your hands, wash veggies, let stuff dry, etc.

          Having lived in a few apartments & houses with double-basin sinks, and a few with single-basin–if someone is *using* that single basin for something (holding a turkey or other large slab of meat in water to defrost it), washing dishes, washing fruit/veggies to can, etc, you quickly realize how much of a PITA it is, to trek to the bathroom sink, all 85 times you need to wash your hands, that that single-basin sink is in use🙃

  11. grey everything! grey everything (interior design) – like in the early 90’s to contrast the fluorescent clothing that was popular at the time – will be as deplored in 2032 as it was in 2002.

    mark my words!

      • i’d argue that it hasn’t…a lot are still going for it…but you’re right about beige making a comeback. beige and brown are comforting colours, specifically in living room settings…where they’re making a comeback. but white and grey are more sanitary to people so, after the pandemic, i think a lot of people are still going for them in kitchens and washrooms?

        perhaps some need a comforting place to relax after the pandemic but still desire sanitary -seeming kitchens and washrooms?

      • more to your point, though…look no further than mcdicks or timmies over the years/decades.

        beige and brown to grey to beige and brown to grey to beige and brown. funny thing is – and probably because of the pandemic – neither of them transitioned to grey when it was hot…

        i think they’ve saved themselves a lot of money considering beige is becoming the new grey…AGAIN.

        • To save money/make money, homeowners should wait until the neutral tone that they selected comes back in style before listing their home. I’m guilty of the greys (floor tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen) but don’t plan on selling for another decade or more.

    • Yeah there’s a difference between whites/grays/soft neutrals and OMG this house is 4 shades of pale gray! About 5 years ago when a friend moved out of their place, they literally bought paint where the color name was HGTV Gray!!!

  12. “What popular trend now do you think will be complained about in 30 years and what for?”

    That goddamned *Shiplap* craaaaaap is going to be as popular as shag-carpet in the bathroom & patterned berber in the kitchen…

    It will be the 20-teens & 20’s analogue to the 70’s Avocado/ Goldenrod/ Rust/ Brown, the 1980’s  Dusty Rose/ Cornflower Blue/ Seafoam Green/ Pearl Grey, and the 90’s Forest Green/ Burgundy/ Navy Blue/ Chocolate Brown (Aka, the “Eddie Bauer”/Mountain Cabin/English Lodge color-scheme)…

    Shiplap, Grey floors, *Grey Everything,* boring neutrals (all white-no color, all grey-no color, & all beige-no color), houses that *only* seem to have the stupid *huge* bedroom closets, with no other real storage space/closets, the dumb kitchen cabinets that hang mid-wall & then catch *all* the dust & cooking grease–rather than just making that storage run all the way to the ceiling, like old-fashioned kitchens did until about the 1940’s/50’s… vaulted ceilings & split-level ranches (tell me you’re *young* and able-bodied, without telling me you’re young & able bodied!)

    And that damn ranch-home basement “family room” that you heat in the winter & air-condition all summer that no one EVER bothers to use, because everyone sits up in the living room off the kitchen/dining room to be sociable, instead….

    Those will all be relics of our modern, tacky, era home-design wise😉

    Give me a 1920’s-40’s Craftsman instead–with *all* that built-in storage *where it’s NEEDED* linen closets just off the bathroom, with another between the doors of the adjacent bedrooms. Hall closet, so you can take your wet coats off when you get in the door–bot *not* have to LOOK at them all day. Store-room in the basement, off the laundry room, pantry off the kitchen, *attic space with a REAL FLOOR* to store your big bulky and/or seasonal gear!

    Not these tiny, wet, crawlspaces, instead of a real basement/cellar, *singular* closet for each bedroom, with *one* tiny hallway closet per floor of the house–and only a couple *cabinets* in the bathroom…😒🙄😖😱

    Give me a house where the craftspeople making it shoved a damn closet & cupboard in between *every* damn stud they could, so that a person can store *everything* they want out of sight, and where the kids can play Hide & Seek for *days* if it’s cold or rainy outside!😉😁💖

    • Emmer, I’m in a Facebook group that makes fun of “modern farmhouse” decor and I shit you not, some people are doing “Sharpie shiplap” where they fucking are drawing lines on walls to mimic shiplap. Ugh!

      • @Brightersideoflife,  GAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!😱😱😱😱😤

        SweartoDog, you can TELL the folks who grew up Middle-Class and not in a trailer house with that gawdawful 1970’s Luan “Wood Paneling” throughout the house…

        Shiplap is the (TERRIBLE!) version of *that,* and those of us who grew up “Poor, Trailer-Trash” know it!😉😂🤣

  13. Unrelated to tonight’s topic, but a really great thing!

    I suspect that once other Midwestern fire departments catch word of this rig, it’s gonna be a popular thing–and most likely something that a few departments band together to pay for as a piece of Mutual-Aid equipment.

    I won’t be surprised at all, in fact I’d be surprised if we don’t eventually see a few of these vacuum rigs stationed all around the state–ready to deploy within 30-45 minutes of any potential grain-bin accident💖

    This thing WILL save lives!😉😁🤗

    https://www.kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/community-fundraises-for-new-rescue-equipment-for-farm-emergencies/

     

  15. Apropos to this shiplap discussion, I read an interesting opinion piece a while back about how shiplap is also just skeezy once you get out of the northeast region. Because if your walls are trying to look like old wood used on big ships in the 1800s and you’re in the South where you had the slave trade … What do you think those ships were carrying?

    • Yikes. I wonder if Joanna Gaines knows that. Maybe that’s why she stopped using shiplap. I blame her for its popularity. In her Castle series I noticed they finally stopped using the term “master” for the main bedroom.

      • Tbh, I don’t necessarily think it was *that* with Jo, as much as it was, that she overplayed the damn “trend” so hard, it’s become the “White Subway Tile” of Livingroom wall materials… useful, but gauche, and nothing an upper-class designer would ever do, for the next 15-20 years–unless done *completely* tongue-in-cheek.

        Her Shiplap did *originally* have an excellent reasoning, snd wholeheartedly *was* a callback to & honoring of the way multiple vintage houses in & around Waco were built… she mentioned her reason for adoring Shiplap in some of the early episodes–that it was an easy but *good* way for the original builders/homeowners to finish walls, securely & weathertightly–and that it was used *regularly* in their part of TX to finish interiors, since they didn’t need as much insulation or do as much lath & plaster as we did up here in the Northern US, back then.😉💖

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