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The Interior Decorating thread.


HexMachina

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A place to discuss all things homely and decorating related. What is your home setup! Do you have a home office? Do you have a favourite colour scheme? Are you a flatpack IKEA furniture person?

 

For me, I rent my flat so am a little more limited by what I can and can't do. It isn't a huge space as I live alone. To give a bit of an idea of my home, I have a small hallway, with a bedroom and bathroom (separate rooms, not en-suite) coming off one side of the hall and the door to my living room on the other. From my living room is another door into my kitchen which is a small room with benches along the walls and enough space to open the cupboard doors into the walkway but not much else. The living space is pretty roomy and I use it as my home office, dining area and lounge area in one. I have a fold out dining table which I generally leave with one half folded out so I have enough room for my work laptop, speakers, keyboard and a notepad while I work.

I have a sofa which I'm pretty sure weighs three times what I do and after several embarrassing failed attempts to move it, now lives under my window. I'm third storey so although I'm surrounded by pretty tall buildings (City Centre, narrow side street) I still get natural light for most of the day. I also have a TV stand (but no TV) which was left here when I moved in, that I currently use to keep my work stuff on when I'm using the dining table to eat my meals on. I also use it to keep my alcohol and drinks glasses on (not a lot of kitchen storage).

Bedroom is large, plenty of storage space by way of a wardrobe, two chests of drawers and a smaller set of bedside drawers. I have a double bed which fits comfortably and a small bookcase.

For affordability reasons, and also for ease of packing and transporting, a lot of the furniture I have is from IKEA, flatpack stuff I assembled myself. I've chosen all lighter coloured products as the darker stuff makes my small home seem even smaller.

I checked with my landlord when I moved in and got permission to paint the walls, which were and rather gross brown. I decided to keep things light again and went with a very pale yellow all around. I've added extra colour with accessories - a canvas painting of Oscar (my dog, well mothership's dog...) done by a good friend of mine, red cushions for the sofa, bright coloured bedding. 

Its a fairly minimal place because of the size constraints and knowing I probably won't stay here too long, but its nice for me and meets my needs.

What's your home space like? @Mlle. Zabzie, go wild!

 

edit: I might also end up using this thread to discuss my aunty's many many many home decorating projects because there is always something going on. She has a big house and I'm pretty sure at this point she cannot knock down any more walls without the whole thing collapsing. Its very..."open plan"

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1 hour ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I’m a total coward, because my aversion to decorating also extends to walls. I have ONE picture hung by an ex boyfriend, and a whiteboard hung by a company called Hang Masters. Over 2,700 square feet of wall space :rofl:

Hang Masters also hung the chandeliers.

 

ETA - my cowardice does not extend to starting threads that some suggest I start :P

Oh man, we have the opposite problem. There is mutually agreed upon art that hangs on the walls, not an overdone amount but not many walls are bare either - and then there is art that came with my wife that I have vetoed, as well as art that came with me that my wife had vetoed. There are about 10 of these and they all live in the basement. 

I will describe some of my favs that we have:

- an original (and quite good) painting by an unknown artist of an unknown boy found in the dusty depths of a closet in an academic building on the campus at the university of Texas. someone gave it to my wife when she worked there. 
- another original painting of unknown origin of a West Texas desert scene.

- two ~ 100 year old Italian pictures meant to be paired, one is the Virgin Mary and the other is the angel Gabriel. They are about 8x10 and have really neat green/gold diamond patterned frames and are on something that looks like gold leaf. I don’t know that they’re really worth anything (probably not), but they’re neat.

-a cezanne print on canvas with a gold frame I repurposed for it  - not an original! I love it though, I would have to look up which painting it is

- another pair: medium sized photographs of the Big Bend area of west Texas. These were taken and gifted to us by my wife’s stepfather who is a landscape photographer of some renown. 
- I have a large original French map of Scotland that dates from 1690 that I bought at an antique map shop in London as a present for myself when I finished my masters degree in Scotland. 
- a us park service produced map of big bend national park from the 60’s. It’s black and white and has got a lot of interesting illustrations and looks very much like it’s from that era. we found this within in a stack of old Texas geological maps I had and decided to frame it

- a small map of Virginia dating from before the civil war (when West Virginia was still part)

- an 8x10 canvas/ wood frame portrait of Galileo. This is one my wife might see in the basement if it were up to her - but Galileo fucking stays!

- x2 hand woven rugs that I bought in Afghanistan about 10 years ago

- a cool and vibrantly colored woven basket top that my wife’s grandparents got in Ethiopia 

- a grandfather clock that my dad built 

I think those are the main ones worth mentioning, there are others too, but I don’t feel strongly about any of them. I do have some Knick-knacks and sitabouts near and dear to me but they aren’t on the scale of wall art, rugs, furniture, etc and wouldn’t be super noticeable to a guest unless I pointed them out.

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The only thing in my house that I took any interest in choosing was the sofa. Its from a company that designs them in modules so that you can make it fit perfectly in any space. Its U shaped and 4.5 metres wide, and everywhere you sit you get a great view of the TV. I hate any sort of clutter. If something doesn't have a purpose (other than pictures of my little squish) it can fuck off. 

We recently lost a bedroom and one of the en suites to create a playroom for all her crap and it was totally worth it. 

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I am sure I would find none of you to have enough art or shelves on the walls. I like to live surrounded by knickknacks like I’m in a hip antique store. I have paintings I did, paintings other artists did (including one of Lemmy Killmeister I bought while very bereaved over him). I have pornographic embroidery, I have a dia de los muertos altar for my deceased cats, I have photos of my grandparents from the 40s, I have fucktons of professional photos of my cats, I have several fine photo prints of Glenn Danzig from the tour he did with Metallica in the 90s I bought from the tour photographer. I have two cat X-rays I had blown up to 3 feet long and printed on aluminum, I have shelves to display my bronzes, I have animal skulls, and I have skateboard decks. You gotta put some weird stuff in your house.

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9 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

I am sure I would find none of you to have enough art or shelves on the walls. I like to live surrounded by knickknacks like I’m in a hip antique store. I have paintings I did, paintings other artists did (including one of Lemmy Killmeister I bought while very bereaved over him). I have pornographic embroidery, I have a dia de los muertos altar for my deceased cats, I have photos of my grandparents from the 40s, I have fucktons of professional photos of my cats, I have several fine photo prints of Glenn Danzig from the tour he did with Metallica in the 90s I bought from the tour photographer. I have two cat X-rays I had blown up to 3 feet long and printed on aluminum, I have shelves to display my bronzes, I have animal skulls, and I have skateboard decks. You gotta put some weird stuff in your house.

You and I would walk into each others houses and feel incredibly uncomfortable. 

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3 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

You’d hate the garage I do automotive and metalwork in so much more. There are fewer cats there, but you’ve never seen so many buckets of random bolts and screws

Nah. That would make me nostalgic for my dads garage (random bolts and workspace, not cats). 

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4 hours ago, Leap said:

The bedroom still has a bit of a "premier inn" vibe despite a fairly expensive piece of art on the wall and entirely new sheets/etc, so I'm not really sure what to add. Any advice there is welcome

 

 

Current house is the 4th or 5th dwelling that my wife and I have shared (and hopefully staying in this one for 10+ years) and we have noticed that in every instance our bedroom has been the least curated room in the house. Maybe it’s because a good bed costs thousands of dollars and we subconsciously don’t want to sink any more cash into that room, but it is always the most strictly utilitarian room in the house.

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The house is a brick 1910's row house, one apartment on each floor and a basement.  There is a fair amount of original detail, molding, lathe and plaster walls, plaster ceiling medallions, etc.  The style is 'traditional', a mix of  antiques and thrift store/craigslist finds.  There is a lot of art on the walls, mostly prints and small paintings [you'd be shocked at the original art that can be bought for almost nothing].  I also have some soapstone Chinese panels and a hand painted screen as well as a few other Asian items and furniture.  One of the 2nd floor bedrooms functions as my home office and there is another home office set up in the basement. 

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In the city we LITERALLY just moved (yesterday).  I describe my style as “our style”.   It isn’t Traditional.  It isn’t Transitional.  It isn’t MidCentury, or mod or industrial.  It’s just crap I like that goes together in my tortured mind.  All my walls are white, white, white. I mean, they are different whites for different rooms, but WHITE.  This is so I can explode color with everything else with impunity.  I have a fair number of re-upholstered antiques from my grandparents’ house, and I upcycle a lot of things that I find different places and/or I do pretty well on the secondhand market.  For instance, we have a pale aqua mohair sofa I bought off a showroom floor at the D&D building for a song, and an Odegaard rug I bought at a yard sale for next to nothing.  Other rugs are just broadloom carpet (basically industrial) that I had cut to order and bound.  I have a Restoration Hardware large sofa en route that will go under a painting by @Angalin’s friend Anne-Marie.  I just splurged on two tables from Mr. Brown, one for gaming and one for eating.  Dining chairs are second hand Arhaus that I’m going to re-cover in purple performance velvet.  I fell in love with some chairs from Julian Chichester for the game table that we cannot afford, so I’m trolling sites to see if I can either find equivalents or cast offs.  I’m guessing I or my decorator can find something at an estate/yard/etc. sale and reupholster.  Either that or Home Goods will have something cheap that can be re-upholstered. I have a barrister’s bookcase that my great grandmother took off the show room floor of the furniture factory in Charlotte NC for which she was the office manager (this would have been circa 1922).  It is modular, and used to have a different finish on each module to show what could be ordered, but she refinished them herself to match.  I am taking two huge 9 foot mirrors that used to be at my great grandfathers’ house in Chattanooga and then was at my grandparents’ house in Tennessee (they actually built an addition with ceilings high enough for them on purpose).  I finally have ceilings high enough (and no other grandchild does) I have a coffee table made of lucite with cool pull out ottomans underneath that I designed and had custom made.  I have some random stuff I picked up from Anthropologie.  Bedrooms are still works in progress, but we are getting there.  I am obsessed with lighting, and I drive my husband and our decorator absolutely nuts.

In other art, I have two seascapes by Fee Dickson, another boarder (whom I don’t think posts here anymore).  I have a portrait of Elvis in front of a pickup truck.  I have some photos of flowers that I took in my garden upstate that I had put on canvas through Snapfish that I genuinely love.  I have lots of little pictures by Kristina Parn (a Finnish artist who worked out of New York for a while) painted on board that I grouped together.  I have two framed photos my grandfather took during WWII, one when he was stationed in Alabama and the other when he was in San Francisco.  They are pretty cool.  I have two bird prints I bought in Scotland from the artist.  I have a painting of a house in the mountains around Asheville that I got from an artist there.  I have a bunch of Knick knacks I have collected over the years - vases from a trip to Italy, a jar with an octopus on it.  My Octopus bookends give me joy as does a small  brass frog I bought in a consignment shop.  

Upstate our vibe is a little different, but also eclectic.  I have a lot of things from CB2 and Mitchell Gold (their outlet is fabulous) or that we picked up at Home Goods.  I have another painting by Fee up there, as well as a painting by Anne Marie, and I also have two horses by a local artist that are gilded charcoal on canvas (they are pretty cool).  I got a mass-produced canvas that I had framed and sort of repurposed (I hung it upside down) that looks fabulous (I think Oliver Gal)  I have a magpie print from our walking trip to the Cotswolds.  I still have a lot of empty walls up there though.  

 

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Apropos of nothing, there used to be a great HGTV show where they would choose a very expensive designer room, and then the show would go about reproducing the same effect for around $2K by replicating the shapes/finishes and patterns in yard sale finds.   It was on when we first bought the house and was a wonderful tutorial in terms of looking at how various items interact in a room and made it very clear that you could get a nice upscale feeling w/out paying thousands.  Now that HGTV has gone full real estate I regret not taping this show.

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7 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Apropos of nothing, there used to be a great HGTV show where they would choose a very expensive designer room, and then the show would go about reproducing the same effect for around $2K by replicating the shapes/finishes and patterns in yard sale finds.   It was on when we first bought the house and was a wonderful tutorial in terms of looking at how various items interact in a room and made it very clear that you could get a nice upscale feeling w/out paying thousands.  Now that HGTV has gone full real estate I regret not taping this show.

This is honestly a lot of what I do.  And with Letgo, 1st Dibs, AptDeco, Apartment Therapy Bizarre, etc., it’s even easier than it used to be.  Also, you can buy mass market pieces second hand and re-upholster them using your own material and it can look REALLY upscale for not that much.  

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1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

Apropos of nothing, there used to be a great HGTV show where they would choose a very expensive designer room, and then the show would go about reproducing the same effect for around $2K by replicating the shapes/finishes and patterns in yard sale finds.

I used to enjoy that show too! HGTV used to have a nice series of decorating shows. It is a shame they didn't keep a few at least to have a better mix of shows. I don't need to know how to gut a small town or suburban house and make it all modern white and grey. I'd like a few shows where they just focused simply on decorating a single room with furniture and accessories. And I miss the Design Star show too.

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I describe my style as “our style”.   It isn’t Traditional.  It isn’t Transitional.  It isn’t MidCentury, or mod or industrial.  It’s just crap I like that goes together in my tortured mind.  All my walls are white, white, white. I mean, they are different whites for different rooms, but WHITE.  This is so I can explode color with everything else with impunity.

This is pretty much me. I have furniture ranging from my great-grandfather's Victorian secretary desk to my grandparents' 1930s faux Jacobean dining set to an IKEA bed and bookcases I made to Eileen Grey sidetables. My walls are also white because of the color from everything else and also I rotate in colored accessories (pillows, tablecloths, pictures) 4 times a year - red in winter, green in spring, blue in summer, and orange in fall. There is not one wall that is empty - if there isn't a bookcase in front of it, there are pictures. My pictures range from 18th century engravings of English architecture to NYC/Chicago construction photographs to a picture I took from the front piece of a Judy Bolton girl detective book from the 1930s, scanned, and printed at 5' high. My knick knacks are somewhat minimal because of lack of shelf space due to too many books but I do have a few glass, wood, and ceramic pieces.

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3 minutes ago, lady narcissa said:

I used to enjoy that show too! HGTV used to have a nice series of decorating shows. It is a shame they didn't keep a few at least to have a better mix of shows. I don't need to know how to gut a small town or suburban house and make it all modern white and grey. I'd like a few shows where they just focused simply on decorating a single room with furniture and accessories. And I miss the Design Star show too.

snip

Yes, it is a shame, I really miss the decorating shows.  I stopped watching HGTV a few years ago.  I watched for a while one of the 'staging' shows because that also gave you a sense of what could be accomplished with paint and changing out the fixtures and how to scale furniture to the room.  But, otherwise, yes, there is only so much gutting to be replaced with white shiplap that a person needs to see.  The thing w/Design Star, is that the only winner, IMO, who was really a good designer was David Bromstead, and even he has reduced himself to a caricature now, with everything he does totally OTT.  Some of those subsequent winner shows were cringeworthy.     

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14 minutes ago, lady narcissa said:

I used to enjoy that show too! HGTV used to have a nice series of decorating shows. It is a shame they didn't keep a few at least to have a better mix of shows. I don't need to know how to gut a small town or suburban house and make it all modern white and grey. I'd like a few shows where they just focused simply on decorating a single room with furniture and accessories. And I miss the Design Star show too.

A lot of grey will end up being a distinctive mark of a construction or renovation circa 2015 - present just like a yellow bathtub and toilet is a mark of the 1970’s.

having bought a house recently and looked at a bunch of properties so so so so many recently renovated houses make excessive use of grey. Almost all of them. grey walls, grey cabinets ...all the way down to pale grey wood floors. I am not a fan. I get it as a kind of neutral base to layer other things, but like @Mlle. Zabzie I am partial to shades of white for that purpose and use of grey has become so ubiquitous that I almost feel obligated not to like it for that reason alone. 

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3 minutes ago, S John said:

A lot of grey will end up being a distinctive mark of a construction or renovation circa 2015 - present just like a yellow bathtub and toilet is a mark of the 1970’s.

having bought a house recently and looked at a bunch of properties so so so so many recently renovated houses make excessive use of grey. Almost all of them. grey walls, grey cabinets ...all the way down to pale grey wood floors. I am not a fan. I get it as a kind of neutral base to layer other things, but like @Mlle. Zabzie I am partial to shades of white for that purpose and use of grey has become so ubiquitous that I almost feel obligated not to like it for that reason alone. 

Agree.  Although I do like grey walls, it is a nice neutral and is a little weird that seemingly grey wasn't used at all as a color until the 2010s.  But, yes, all the grey cabinetry/floors is going to age very badly just like the avocado 70s appliances. The white kitchen with grey granite or marble counters is a nice classic design.

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2 minutes ago, S John said:

A lot of grey will end up being a distinctive mark of a construction or renovation circa 2015 - present just like a yellow bathtub and toilet is a mark of the 1970’s.

having bought a house recently and looked at a bunch of properties so so so so many recently renovated houses make excessive use of grey. Almost all of them. grey walls, grey cabinets ...all the way down to pale grey wood floors. I am not a fan. I get it as a kind of neutral base to layer other things, but like @Mlle. Zabzie I am partial to shades of white for that purpose and use of grey has become so ubiquitous that I almost feel obligated not to like it for that reason alone. 

Agree.  And the mark of a ‘20s house is going to be a kitchen/bath with navy blue or forest green cabinets with brass or white hardware (“bold” and “different” per the magazines).  Also, people are trying to make terra cotta happen again.  I guess it’s “warm” and “inviting” again?

In decor, mid-century is starting the range into the brutalist (I guess this was inevitable). It’s interesting to watch, and I might pick up one piece, but I’m not going to “bite” in terms of the overall look.  Just wait, by 2025, macrame and avocado kitchens will be a thing again (macrame and wicker inspired lights are already here). The thing I will say about “eclectic” is that it ages well (I WOULD think that, but I think this is true).  

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12 minutes ago, S John said:

A lot of grey will end up being a distinctive mark of a construction or renovation circa 2015 - present just like a yellow bathtub and toilet is a mark of the 1970’s.

In the 1990s everything was beige. I was working on the construction of high rise high end condominiums at the time and everyone did their bathrooms and kitchens in shades of beige and brown. When I went looking for apartments for myself at that time I was hard pressed to find an apartment that did not have beige carpeting. I longed for grey and actually ultimately ended up paying more for a rental apartment that came with grey carpeting. So I certainly do not dislike grey, it is my preferred neutral color.  But I do think the difference is a lot of people now use it as their only accent color while I use it as a neutral.  Of course now you would be hard pressed to find beige anything. But I am sure it will be back.

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9 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Agree.  Although I do like grey walls, it is a nice neutral and is a little weird that seemingly grey wasn't used at all as a color until the 2010s.  But, yes, all the grey cabinetry/floors is going to age very badly just like the avocado 70s appliances. The white kitchen with grey granite or marble counters is a nice classic design.

Yea funny enough, right after I made that post I walked out into the hallway to go to the bathroom and was immediately reminded that it is painted grey. :lol: but that’s the only grey area we have and I didn’t paint it, since it’s just paint and not cabinetry or flooring it isn’t a big deal and it does work in there. But seems y’all knew what I meant by OVER use of grey. No issue with the stray grey wall here and there.

 

12 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Agree.  And the mark of a ‘20s house is going to be a kitchen/bath with navy blue or forest green cabinets with brass or white hardware (“bold” and “different” per the magazines).  Also, people are trying to make terra cotta happen again.  I guess it’s “warm” and “inviting” again?

In decor, mid-century is starting the range into the brutalist (I guess this was inevitable). It’s interesting to watch, and I might pick up one piece, but I’m not going to “bite” in terms of the overall look.  Just wait, by 2025, macrame and avocado kitchens will be a thing again (macrame and wicker inspired lights are already here). The thing I will say about “eclectic” is that it ages well (I WOULD think that, but I think this is true).  

Yep definitely been seeing those bathrooms popping up. I guess our mix could be described as eclectic as well. Some colonial, some modern, some mid century. Maybe it’s like diversifying your stocks? Don’t have to trash all your furniture and start over as styles evolve.

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