Favorite Room
Sep. 30th, 2007 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebToday I was looking through a recent issue of Domino and found an article called "My Favorite Room" where several designers show you their favorite rooms. Interestingly, none of them was a kitchen. The most interesting one was a workshop where one guy was building a boat.
I thought it was a great idea for an article, though I didn't actually get that much out of that particular article.
I remember my first favorite room. I was on an outing with a church group and we ended up at some house with two of the coolest rooms ever. One was a pillow fight room. It had wall-to-wall carpeting on both floor and ceiling, and it had floor-to-ceiling carpeting. There was a bare lightbulb in the ceiling with a protective cage over it. And there were many pillows. But that wasn't my favorite room.
My favorite was the bathroom. The walls were painted with tall grasses like a jungle. The showerhead was painted to look like a giraffe head with the rest of the giraffe painted on the wall. The toilet was painted like a hippo head, where you had to open the mouth to sit down.
I'm also a fan of any room with a revolving bookcase or other secret entrance or exit.
And treehouses. I once lived in a room with two windows in the corner on adjacent walls and the windows looked out on nothing but trees. I put my bed in that corner, because I really enjoyed that view when I woke up. I now realize you're never supposed to put your bed next to windows, especially if you're on ground level and ever open your windows for a nice breeze, because then bad guys can just grab you out of bed or whatever. Fortunately, we never had to deal with any bad guys there.
I also liked some rooms designed by King Ludwig in Germany. They were pretty over-the-top.
I was just at a party with a lovely window seat. By "lovely," I don't mean pretty. But it had a long cushion with a pillow at each end, plus a raised platform between the cushion and the window to set piles of things on, plus a lovely view. You could read until you get tired and then just lie down. You could have several stacks of books and rifle through them without having to get up. Nice.
I like some old living room/dining room combos my parents have had, back when they were more into the Spanish Inquisition style of decorating. If you have your living room and dining room attached just right, you can just stick a really long table down the two of them when you have way too many people over for supper. They used to have a dark wood table with black vinyl chairs with wrought-iron-looking curly-cues on it. They decorate a wall with a six-foot long wooden fork and spoon from the Phillipines, where the handle looks sort of like a totem pole. There is a knight-in-shining-armor napkin holder on the table. There are plaques with fake swards and maces on them. Black velvet paintings of old women. A huge oil painting of a galleon ship. A dark red couch. Brass lamps from the Orient. White walls to keep it all from looking too dark (plus we always lived in apartments where you're not allowed to paint). Now I guess they have better taste. So sad.
And now I really like my living room which has a solid long wall of beautiful bookshelves filled with Robin's and my favorite books, movies, music and do-dads. At one end is a piano in front of a window with vertical blinds that reminds me of Florida. We keep other musical instruments and toys out--anything we don't mind our friends playing with. And I liked my floor when I first re-painted it in cream with earthtone streaks and with fossils painted in some of the divots in the cork flooring. It's getting awfully scuffed now, so we plan to cover it with parquet flooring next.
Of course the best rooms are the rooms where you can easily do all the things you want to do. I always like my rooms better right after I figure out a way to re-organize things better. And right after I clean them.
I thought it was a great idea for an article, though I didn't actually get that much out of that particular article.
I remember my first favorite room. I was on an outing with a church group and we ended up at some house with two of the coolest rooms ever. One was a pillow fight room. It had wall-to-wall carpeting on both floor and ceiling, and it had floor-to-ceiling carpeting. There was a bare lightbulb in the ceiling with a protective cage over it. And there were many pillows. But that wasn't my favorite room.
My favorite was the bathroom. The walls were painted with tall grasses like a jungle. The showerhead was painted to look like a giraffe head with the rest of the giraffe painted on the wall. The toilet was painted like a hippo head, where you had to open the mouth to sit down.
I'm also a fan of any room with a revolving bookcase or other secret entrance or exit.
And treehouses. I once lived in a room with two windows in the corner on adjacent walls and the windows looked out on nothing but trees. I put my bed in that corner, because I really enjoyed that view when I woke up. I now realize you're never supposed to put your bed next to windows, especially if you're on ground level and ever open your windows for a nice breeze, because then bad guys can just grab you out of bed or whatever. Fortunately, we never had to deal with any bad guys there.
I also liked some rooms designed by King Ludwig in Germany. They were pretty over-the-top.
I was just at a party with a lovely window seat. By "lovely," I don't mean pretty. But it had a long cushion with a pillow at each end, plus a raised platform between the cushion and the window to set piles of things on, plus a lovely view. You could read until you get tired and then just lie down. You could have several stacks of books and rifle through them without having to get up. Nice.
I like some old living room/dining room combos my parents have had, back when they were more into the Spanish Inquisition style of decorating. If you have your living room and dining room attached just right, you can just stick a really long table down the two of them when you have way too many people over for supper. They used to have a dark wood table with black vinyl chairs with wrought-iron-looking curly-cues on it. They decorate a wall with a six-foot long wooden fork and spoon from the Phillipines, where the handle looks sort of like a totem pole. There is a knight-in-shining-armor napkin holder on the table. There are plaques with fake swards and maces on them. Black velvet paintings of old women. A huge oil painting of a galleon ship. A dark red couch. Brass lamps from the Orient. White walls to keep it all from looking too dark (plus we always lived in apartments where you're not allowed to paint). Now I guess they have better taste. So sad.
And now I really like my living room which has a solid long wall of beautiful bookshelves filled with Robin's and my favorite books, movies, music and do-dads. At one end is a piano in front of a window with vertical blinds that reminds me of Florida. We keep other musical instruments and toys out--anything we don't mind our friends playing with. And I liked my floor when I first re-painted it in cream with earthtone streaks and with fossils painted in some of the divots in the cork flooring. It's getting awfully scuffed now, so we plan to cover it with parquet flooring next.
Of course the best rooms are the rooms where you can easily do all the things you want to do. I always like my rooms better right after I figure out a way to re-organize things better. And right after I clean them.