Here's a bunch of random commentary on other people's decorating, as well as on advice from the "experts."
1.) Hands down the stoopidest new trend I have seen--and apparently people are doing it a lot--is to mount your flat screen TV above your fireplace. First of all, there are all kinds of fireplaces, modern, traditional, rustic, funky, but in general? There are very few really ugly fireplaces. So if you're lucky enough to have one in your living room, it should be a focal point. Focal points are not enhanced by hanging an ugly piece of electronics over them. Secondly, mostly it appears to me that this puts the TV up higher than it should be for comfortable viewing. Now, as a bodyworker, I suppose I should be rooting for people to torque their necks and thus need them to be massaged, but eh. I'm still not down with it.
2.) Speaking of how high to place things, apparently, according to the design professionals, when you hang a picture behind a sofa, the bottom of the picture should be six inches above the back of the sofa. Who knew? Go measure yours if you have one. I bet it's way higher than that.
3.) There is (as far as I know!) no such thing as "rod iron." However, many many many people who have never seen the word wrought in print, think there is. It makes me smile every time I see it. If you didn't know the word wrought, rod makes perfect sense in that context. In fact, I may just start calling it rod iron myself.
4.) Oh, and speaking of hanging pictures? I can't think of anything as horrifying as people who buy "art" because the colors match their sofa or duvet or whatever. If you're going to put a picture on a wall in your home, it ought to be a picture you love in and of itself, right? If you're decorating the lobby of an office building, okay, you get a pass. But your home in which you live is not the lobby of an office building. Jesus Christ, people.
5.) Did you know that there is such a thing as "subway tile" that people put in their kitchens and bathrooms and it looks much like the name might suggest and yet it is inexplicably trendy and popular?
6.) Also, people like to say their bathrooms are Tuscan-inspired. I'm not sure if the people of Tuscany would be in favor of that.
I'm sure there's more, but that'll do for now. And if I just inadvertently insulted your taste or your home? Just remember, I'm the woman who spent three days gluing the equivalent of brown grocery bags to her bedroom walls and take it with the proverbial grain of salt, huh?
xoxo
8 comments:
My ex once chose a cat on the basis of his fur matching the carpeting, though he was one of the coolest cats I've ever known, so it's hard for me to dis the technique based on experience. I will say that choosing which favorite pieces to hang where has got to be permissible based on colors, or we'd all go colorblind. (i.e. Sox memorabilia in the "red and blue" areas, etc.)
Freud would have a hint for you on the iron thing, too. ;-)
Six inches above the back of the sofa?
Wouldn't that lead to an awful lot of people leaning back on the sofa and banging their heads against the picture or frame?
Which I'd honestly think can't be good for either the head or the picture.
P.S. The people who put their flat screen TVs above their fireplace are probably also the people who leave their TVs on the setting that streeeeeetches standard dimension television to fill the whole screen, cause "they don't like those black bars". Thus half the people they watch on TV are short and fat, leading to an increase in concern for the obestification of America.
Same people probably light a fire in the fireplace while they're watching TV, thus guaranteeing the picture while look like crap as the extra ambient light bounces off the screen and produces all sorts of glare and light in the black areas. As well as causing everyone's pupils to shrink and expand as they look down from the TV to fireplace, thus making the TV's pictures appear dim and washed out.
Is *that* why she let the other poor, innocent kitten die? It didn't match her decor? ahaha
No, seriously, I've spent enough of my life fighting a losing battle against cat hair*** on all my clothing and upholstery to not fail to appreciate the wisdom of matching the new cat to the carpeting. In fact, if I ever get the funds to rip up all that carpeting upstairs, whatever I pick to replace it will probably be chosen on what blends best with cat *puke*. Because that can also be a sad and losing battle.
But when people give advice like, "Oh, you should get a picture with the same green as your drapes for that wall to tie the room together," or people proudly show off the four (coordinating) prints they got at the Pottery Barn because they're designed to go with their bed, as Edina Monsson would say, I take iss-you. I don't think that's art and I think it makes a mockery of the whole concept of art. (Like Eddy, I have no taste and a lot of snobbery, so there ya go.) :-)
***One of the marvelous features of Evil Kitty is that she is not much of a shedder. Hardly all in the winter, and even in the summer, if we keep on top of it and comb her every day or two, she's good.
Wow, there's a lot of typos in that last comment. Too bad I can't revise revise revise.
So, yeah, about the flat screen above the fireplace. I hadn't thought of it, but I can't imagine having a roaring fire just below the TV would be exactly good for the electronics either. Would it?
And if "obestification" *wasn't* just a typo, bravo :-)
Perhaps you just need to expand your concept of art to include the art of coordinated home decor...
And if "obestification" *wasn't* just a typo, bravo :-)
Nope, not a typo at all. ;-)
I'd also thought of "obesefication", but obestification just (literally) sounded better.
You're probably right about the long-term affect of all that fireplace heat (and ash and soot getting in the cooling vents) of a flatscreen over an actual functional fireplace. Not to mention the picture degradation of all the soot getting on the screen all the time.
Much electronics is rated to run as high as 90 or 95 degrees Fahrenheit ambient temperature, but my experience has been that running serious electronics for very long at temperatures like that really tends to shorten the overall lifespan of the device The internal electrons may normally run at a significantly higher temperature than that, but if the ambient air is also that hot the interior bits just can't be cooled down sufficiently, and something's likely to literally burn up sooner rather than later.
Only electronic appliances i've ever overcooked have been audio amplifiers... I should think the soot would be the main risk, but, honestly, it takes a special kind of clueless either way. There's a reason they always made the flues out of brick.
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