Help Prevent an Atrocity (or: Renovator Seeks List of Decorating "Don'ts")

Oct 24 18:59 UTC 2006

 In item #31 I recommended to easlern that he check out the "Interior
 Desecrations" site, which mocks the excesses of 70s-era decor.  It started
 me thinking that the 70s must have been a uniquely tasteless decade.
 Only a few minutes on the subject, though, convinced me that there was
 nothing unique about the decorating excesses of the 70s and that I could
 think of equally awful and dated-looking examples from the 50s, 60s, and
 80s.  I'm having a little more trouble coming up with examples from the
 90s -- perhaps cheese needs a little time to ripen -- but what I wound
 up concluding is that every decade is capable of producing looks that age
 particularly poorly.

 What's worrisome about that conclusion is that at some point the people
 coming up with these designs surely thought they were the height of cool.
 Since I'm in the middle of fitfully, in bits and pieces, renovating an older
 house, and since I would like to avoid that "what was I THINKING?" feeling
 10 years down the road, I'm prompted to ask:

   What decorating trends, now in fashion, are going to look hopelessly
   tacky and outdated 10-20 years from now?  When we set in, two decades
   hence, to mock the decorative excesses of the 00s, which will be the
   juiciest targets?

 Now's your chance to prevent a (decorating) atrocity with no more than
 a little bit of timely advice.  So lend me a clue (hopefully with links
 to a picture) and let me know what lines shouldn't be crossed.  The home
 you save may be my own.

response 2 of 15:

Oct 24 19:21 UTC 2006

Fathead football appliques. Any art with "cyberspace," "information
superhighway," or ones and zeroes on it. Posters in plastic frames. Futons.
Giant flourescent bean bags. I could go on.  :(

response 4 of 15:

Oct 24 21:02 UTC 2006

 One thing that is considered cool-looking now but that I think may be
 really out of style in 20 years is having a giant flat-screen television
 floating in the middle of a wall.  I'm not sure what will replace it but
 I bet those people with egg-shaped stereo speakers from the 70s thought
 they'd look cool and modern forever, too..

response 6 of 15:

Oct 24 21:09 UTC 2006

I actually kind of like the floating TV idea. It's ubiquitous, like a
painting. If I had a big floating TV I'd probably put a nice wooden frame
around it.  :)  I think the worst offender TV-wise is the
TV-in-the-refridgerator-door thing. 
God please don't revoke my status as a man for talking about home decorating
on an internet bulletin board.  :(

response 8 of 15:

Oct 25 02:12 UTC 2006

 Hmmm..  That's a possibility.  I'll have to consider that when 
 I get to the kitchen..

 By the way, I had no idea I was in the music conference when I entered this
 item; I thought I was in Agora.  Is there any way to move it?

response 10 of 15:

Oct 25 05:29 UTC 2006

 In the meantime I apologize to the participants of the music conference..

response 12 of 15:

Oct 25 05:45 UTC 2006

Post an item/response in aggro requesting that one of them link it, I mean.

response 14 of 15:

Nov 2 04:35 UTC 2006

If your old house has some style of its own, you can't go wrong by at 
least respecting it.  A geodesic dome or a Corinthian portico on a 1950s 
ranch house or a 1940s colonial will look ridiculous a lot sooner than 
10-20 years.

If you build an addition, say, it will look a lot better if the roof pitch 
matches the roof pitch of the original house.  New windows should match 
the originals, especially if you don't replace all of them.  If you want 
to completely change the look of the house, do it right and hire an 
architect.

In architecture, details matter.  One of the worst looking places I've 
seen is a new sorority house on Michigan Avenue (east of Delta Street) in 
East Lansing with what are meant to be classical columns in front.  But 
the columns are straight cylinders, the same diameter at the top and at 
the bottom!  Classical columns that look right are tapered.  The sorority 
spent all that money in an attempt to achieve a "classy" look and achieved 
extreme tackiniess, and you don't have to be an architect to be appalled.  
Extra points for the really awful looking variegated fake brick.

Meanwhile, also in East Lansing, a fraternity built a traditional style 
house on East Grand River (just west of Kedzie).  It's more modest in its 
stylistic pretensions but much more successful.  Hmm, use of actual real 
solid bricks might be part of the reason the place looks so good.

I guess the lesson is that fake materials don't age well.

One of the very worst is Dryvit (aka EIFS), styrofoam sprayed with wet 
concrete.  The stuff can be easily formed into any shape, but it's so 
brittle (a thin hard layer over a very soft substrate) that it can be 
smashed by a five year old on a tricycle.  When it burns, it releases 
toxic gases.  When water gets inside (inevitable in a wet climate like 
Michigan), then it gets moldy.  The city of Chicago has banned the stuff, 
but you can see it all over Ann Arbor in new construction.

On one of the historic preservation lists, one of the conservators was 
bemoaning the fact that one of these days, some famous event will make a 
Dryvit building a historic landmark, and some unfortunate curator will be 
faced with the impossible task of making Dryvit last.  On the scale of 
years, it would be about like trying to preserve a sand castle.

On the Quality 16 theater on Jackson Road (west of Wagner), they have some 
understanding of what crowds of kids are likely to do to Dryvit.  The 
lower part of the exterior wall is concrete blocks, and the Dryvit is up 
higher, out of reach.