Interior Design

Before Cowgrit and I bought our first house, we needed help with laying out the furniture and stuff. We’d never owned a house before, and we had more space than furniture to fill it. I thought we could just throw in the furniture we did have and then just pick up new stuff over some time. But Cowgrit didn’t want to live like that. Her mother had a friend who was an interior designer, and he came over to help us out.

Over the next few days, the designer picked out lamps and pictures and a couple pieces of furniture for us. Looking at each piece individually, I didn’t see anything great. Some of that stuff I would never have picked out. I mean, big pictures of fruit trees? Really? But once we had everything in our house, and the designer placed and hung everything the way he thought best, I was truly impressed.

Taken as a whole view, everything looked pretty good. It all just worked right. The way he arranged the furniture, the sofa here, the chairs there and there, was brilliant. Every seat in the living room gave a good view of the TV, but the feel was open and airy. Even the pictures of fruit trees looked perfectly right for the room. I will attest to the value an interior designer can give.

But every time I see one of these TV shows where they bring in interior designers to “make over” a house, I’m stunned by how stupid the results look. They walk through the house pointing out old crap, bad choices, and other such ugliness. Sometimes, the room looks perfectly acceptable, but the designer must remake everything drastically different. This direction reminds me of how hairdressers always make drastic cuts off someone’s hair when they do a makeover for a woman — long hair becomes neck-length, neck-length becomes short, and short becomes crew cut.

I remember seeing one home makeover show where the designer painted a wall some kind of puke green color. The homeowner complained that he didn’t like it (though his wife did like it), so the designer put in a spot of bright red to make the man happy. It didn’t work. The man thought it looked silly, and I agreed with him. What’s wrong with white or some other “normal,” neutral color. Why do TV designers have to go with drastic weirdness? (I know the reason why — I’m being rhetorical.)

A makeover show I’d like to see is to have a designer design a room, and then go away. Have another designer come in, not told that the room was designed by another professional, and give their opinion and design ideas. That would be fun to watch.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com