Does your living space have style?
My “style” is half nerd/Scandinavian (not totally Ikea…) which puts an emphasis on wood, leather, stone, simple metals and simple colors. My home is a mix of wood tones and I damn well like it that way. The intensely nerd part is the display cabinets filled with completed models and oversized computer desk.
When I was growing up, I would say my parents style would be best described as eclectic.
The antithesis of my own “personal” style would be Donald Trump’s ugly ass home with the emphasis on tacky opulence (complete with golden shower/toilet) gives me a headache. I hate it.
So, like Japandi?
I dig it.
Japandi looks awesome! I grew up in a house like that. My Dad’s treasures from Asia mixed w/ modern Hawaiian furniture w/ a splash of random antiques. We had Hakata dolls everywhere. Now my house is NW modern.
I love the lines & the idea of this–but in MN, with all that light neutral/ white, it’d be much too “cold” during our winters! It feels like it’d need just a bit of color *somewhere* beyond those pretty light-colored neutrals, to not feel *so* cold all wintertime!
(But MAN would it also *feel* nice, “cool,” and relaxing during the hot, muggy summers!😉💖)
My style is minimalist. I don’t like a lot tchotchkes or extra stuff to dust. I use classic neutral pieces so I can redecorate with rugs, lamps, pillows. I like things simple, clean, and utilitarian.
Pet hair.
There’s a lot to loathe about Trump’s Trump Tower lair, which apparently he’s too scared to visit much anymore, which is a win for us New Yorkers. Aside from the overuse of cheap “gold” leaf, it has coffered ceilings in an already not generously high living space, so that makes the whole autocrat-ruling-a-former-Soviet-Republic aesthetic even more claustrophobic.
The public spaces I’ve seen from photographs of Mar-a-Lago are not, believe it or not, the fault of the Donald or one of his trophy wives but are in fact faithful to the vision of Marjorie Merriwether Post, who designed the thing in the 1920s when Floridian/Spanish/Moorish was all the rage. I bet rumrunner Joe Kennedy’s nearby compound looked quite similar.
If my comment about sofa hunting prompted this post, I have an update. Better Half went to five places and only found one that he liked. The best they could do is promise delivery within the next seven to nine months. I guess the child laborers in China can only work so fast, the slow boats to/from China are really slow, and our Transportation Secretary, with no transportation experience whatsoever, has done little to alleviate the backups at the port of Los Angeles and the cross-country rail freight situation. We have several friends (well, four, that I can think of) who are interior designers so I might reach out to them and see if they can scout some floor models that aren’t too badly scuffed up and could be delivered same day. We might even get a little discount, because they do and charge their clients retail price, that’s one of the ways they make money, and maybe they’d shave a little off for us.
One of the interesting things about Mar A Lago that got wider coverage when the news of the classified document searches broke is that it is one of the small percentage of places in Florida with a basement. Post had bomb shelters put in during the nuke scares of the 50s.
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/local/2017/08/10/little-known-feature-trump-s/7803682007
Why she thought the Russians might target Palm Beach, I don’t know.
My suburban elementary school had a bomb shelter in the basement. It had fallen into neglect by the time I arrived for kindergarten but on our first day we were shown where it was, after getting our mandatory shots in the gymnasium from the town doctor. MMR, polio, no vaccine hesitancy or “religious” exemptions back then.
Because she was prescient and a tacky-wonderfullly-kitschy goddess, that’s why!😉
Ngl, I’m STILL hoping that Post’s dream of it becoming a US Government-owned building comes true, because I’d *love* to see it seized for back taxes/espionage/conspiracy against the United States, and *other* assorted High Crimes & Misdemeanors–then turned into a museum or something…
Simply to spite Don-the-Con, and prevent him & his spawn from profiting off the sale of it!😈😈😈
If I were listing our 1840s farm home on Zillow, I would call it “updated rustic with character”. It would be quite a generous description, but it fits the way we live.
I am a huge fan of real estate porn, I’ve posted about this before. I get especially excited about properties that have been in the same family for decades and the property comes furnished as is, or could be bought furnished for an additional amount.
Bear with me. If I were one of those people who fell into a coma and woke up—not speaking with a foreign accent (surprisingly common, according to the trans-Atlantic tabloids I read) or not recognizing my Better Half and my Faithful Hound, but with an intense desire to own an 1840s farm home—if yours were listed for sale, would it come with the goats? Or would I have to acquire my own? I suppose you would want to take all the goats with you if you moved. I would, but just as a what if.
I don’t know if you subscribe to the post-Deadspin reincarnation of defector.com, but if you don’t every other Saturday they have an in depth look at a (usually) crazy Zillow listing. That alone is almost worth the subscription, which I think is about $8-10 per month.
I do real estate photography & I could show you some shit! I actually stopped taking calls from some realtors that wouldn’t make people clean or declutter houses. Now I only work with ones that stage the houses or at very least I trust to not take shitty hoarder houses I cannot make look good.
Oh God, I envy you. Well, kind of. Every time I enter some friend or family member’s apartment or house I immediately think things like, “Get rid of all this shit and I don’t care if you have three children under the age of six, this crap belongs up in a playroom upstairs” or “I saw that watercolor of a sunset over a coastal town hanging above the toilet while I was peeing. Have you ever heard of the Museum of Bad Art?”
I should talk. When we have people over everything looks sane and civilized except for my office. We keep that door firmly shut but there’s no lock on it. That is my domain exclusively and that way madness lies. Hundreds of books double-stacked vertically and horizontally. The pill bottles (because I take a lot of pills for my various non-lethal maladies) and the ever-ready supply of empty, half-empty, and full water bottles to wash the pills down with. The Faithful Hound’s crate is under my wall-length table desk, he likes to hang out with me, and while I don’t detect a particularly doggy smell I bet there is one, since he has a couple of blankets in there that we only have laundered once a month or so, because he doesn’t like the disruption and enjoys, I’m sure, the comforting smell of himself. Then the piles of papers, work projects, my three-years’ long health “care” chronicle that I try to deal with as the bills come in and I can file them away but resolution often takes—to put this in perspective, we could, if we wanted to, send people back to the moon in about three days. I recently received a bill from a doctor visit three months ago and they just got around to sending it to me. That I’ll have to discuss on Tuesday, because the Public Health Provider of Last Resort, as I like to call them, and the insurance company, keep strict 1950s-era 9–5 operating hours, I think the insurance company might be 8–6, but in any event more likely than not I’ll be calling a call center in south or east Asia…
Sorry for the rant. I made crab cakes and potato salad for dinner and there was a lot of Portuguese white table wine to go with it, vinho branco.
I signed up for their newsletter (free) and since I’m not a sprots fan I don’t click on most of their links, but sometimes there’s something I’m interested in, like Drew Magary’s annual Williams Sonoma Christmas catalog analysis. I think they have a policy to draw you in by letting you read one or two articles a month for free, so I do read it. I’ve never seen a real estate post though. I may have to check this out. Although ten bucks a month to read two over-the-top real estate listings doesn’t seem like good value for money, as the Brits say, when America’s finest news source, The New York Post, posts two or three daily. They’re not always well written and they refrain from commentary but I don’t need a reporter to tell me that certain aspects of a home, despite its celebrity pedigree, are completely unworkable or unspeakably vulgar.
My neighbors have goats. We have sheep. The difference is significant, especially to the sheep and goats.
If we were to sell you the property, we would throw in a few sheep to sweeten the deal, and your pick of the sheep dogs (except not Izzy or Argo – those are family) and if you close today, I can let you have one of the donkeys at a steep discount.
Problem is, I’m not sure we could pass an inspection. Our place was lifted in the 1960s and a full basement was put in. I’m seeing some broken cinderblocks along the bottom but they’d need to be fixed. Two years ago we had a black snake get into the basement looking for mice and recently a bird got in and we’re not sure how.
Like I said: rustic.
I thought you had goats for some reason. I apologize to your sheep.
Donkeys gettin’ a little “kick-y” at the farm?
(My Bestie & her husband have a hobby farm–although *goat* no sheep, some turkeys & chickens, occasionally hay-burners, and one or two donkeys at a time, over the years…
I seem to recall lots of years, around this time (late winter, sick of being stuck in the barn, because of the exceedingly cold weather), that said Donkey got… a bit “kick-y” at her husband😉
My style is probably best summed up as, “Eclectic×Vintage–with occasional splashes of “ADHD-pile” & pet-haired nooks-and-crannies×Absent-minded Librarian/Victorian Apothecary× hints of 1800’s Bordello and splashes of Magpie Mary/ Ordinary Magpie/ Corvid/ Squirrel😉
In other words, aside from my Bookshelves (5 in my bedroom–four line one wall, my bed is on the other wall, and the 5th is against the wall between the foot of my bed and my closet), I honestly can’t think of a single piece of furniture I’ve actually *purchased* “New, from a store.”
I either get interesting/needed/useful things from a thrift store, estate/garage sales, from “dumpster-diving”** or as hand-me-downs from folks i know…
My bedroom chair is Vintage-i’m honestly not sure if it’s Victorian, Edwardian, or *perhaps* from as late as the 40’s?… I got it about a decade and a half ago, from the estate sale of a man who’d been a student, then a longtime professor, in the U of M’s medical school. It’s a small-ish wingback-style fireside/library chair, with dark (mahogany or walnut maybe?) carved legs & details. It’s got a deep cushion (although it *really* needs re-springing😉), and while it’s big enough for me to sit cross-wise, or curl up with my head on the armrest, it’s also small enough & light enough that *I* am able to move it by myself, if need be😁
We have a “Bar Shelf” in the living room similar to this, which came from the magic spot down in the parking garage–left when someone moved out–ours doesn’t have the drawer, it’s just 3 shelves, but it’s PRETTY and *perfect* for beverage storage😉
Basically, the main “design theme” is “cozy & comfortable, with good details, and which lasts.”
Lamps are either second-hand, vintage ones I’ve re-wired, or ones I’ve *made* out of something(s) neat… because it’s EASY to wire a lamp!
A couple of places ago, I made a pony-keg into a lamp for my roommate’s bar area, and I’m thinking of getting a 1919 Rootbeer Pony to make into one, sometime in the next year, because it’d be easy, but I *like* that style of small-ish lamp (I have a pretty Stella Rosa tin that I found in The Magic Room a while ago, to make into a lamp, too!😉😁)
Otherwise, it’s soft fabrics to contrast any rough upholstery on chairs/couches, things that *feel* “pettable” and/or are warm & cozy, and things which tend to be difficult to pin-down era-wise, so that they *stay* “Eclectic,” as opposed to dated.
Kitsch is 100% acceptable-if not *desired,* (that whole 1800’s Bordello & Mary Magpie thing!), and pops of interesting (Librarian×Apothecary!), plus random books, to round it all out & make it *feel* homey/cozy.
I love furniture & other items from too many eras (Victorian, Edwardian, Art Nouveau *and* Deco, & MidMo), to just go with *one* design style… if I *find* a great vintage/antique piece, and it fits a need? THAT is the piece that’s getting blended in…
Boring same-ness is just *that* to me… and when you combine ^that^ with my autistic tendencies to just *not CARE* if someone not in my household “haaaaates!” something design-wise?
I just honestly don’t care what the current/popular design “trends” may be–if I like something, then yep, I may look for that thing inexpensively.
But if not? (Alllll that ugly-ass “Shiplap!”🙄🙄🙄), i’ma skip it!😉
**”Shopping ‘The Magic Room,’ really!
Our building has trash rooms on each floor, and when folks move out, plenty of times, they either leave unwanted items inside (that’s how I got my brand-new-in-box Wedgwood champagne flutes & Sleigh dish!), or if they’re large, in the hallway *outside* the trash rooms. Sometimes, folks’ll haul the larger stuff down to the garage and leave it in the area where our maintenance guys leave appliances which need hauling off–got the mirrored shelf and my roommate’s black & brass vintage lotus/tulip lamp down there!😉
I have a NW modern home that was built in the late 70’s. We painted the interior a stark white and replaced the old carpet with wide white oak flooring. To combat Seattle’s dreary weather, we decorated with brightly coloured artwork and furniture. Kind of in this range of colours if the Hazelnut was a grey and minus the greens (we own nothing in green as we live in the “Emerald City”).
brown is cozy