Not In On It
Apr. 11th, 2006 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebI think I'm finally burnt out on the cool small spaces contest.
My first clue is that I started peaking ahead at the pictures without spending any quality time with them, except for two. One had a bathroom with tiling from the same period as that in my bathroom. The other just looked like a regular house. The furniture reminded me of my best friend from high school's parents' house, which is where I was much of the time during my high school years, and which consequently feels comfortable to me. It also has wallpaper borders that remind me of how a house was decorated when an old roommate of mine first bought it.
I knew this place was going to get low votes because it looked too ordinary. And on looking more closely, I could see that there was still a lot of room for improvement in the design, even if you loved this person's taste in decor. There were a lot of things stored in stacks and piles. You could see some areas where the owner forgot to dust. A lampshade could use some straightening.
But the commenters were vicious. What's the worst thing you could imagine saying? "Your place is ugly"? "You have no taste"? No, they did worse than that. They convinced themselves that it was a joke entry and then fell over themselves pointing out evidence.
So then I started feeling defensive. Someone said it looked like the house of old people. Like old people can't have good design? (As a prospective old person, I am insulted.) You have to be young, hip, and urban? Then I realized that this contest is, after all, about apartments. Not mobile homes or travel trailers or boats, which are other hard-to-live-in small spaces.
I also felt defensive about the owner's design hint: sometimes you can store things right out in the open. Her example didn't sound so great. But even some popular entries show expensive pans hanging right out in the open. And tea kettles.
I also felt defensive about "taste." Apparently old things from the fifties are good, but old things from the eighties are bad, no matter how they are arranged.
And your place pretty much has to be bare to get any respect. One of those country places with little knickknacks and doilies (allowable only under cactus, for the irony) and pictures of family members everywhere would get a big thumbs down.
It doesn't matter that she can have lots of folks over sitting in comfy seating. What matters is that her place does not look like art. If your furniture looks too much like furniture and not enough like sculpture, then you're not a good designer.
Some of the comments kept echoing in my head while I was trying to go to sleep last night. "...inch of dust..." "If it's a joke, I doubt she was in on it." (Implying that not only is her taste in decor terrible, so is her taste in "friends.") These comments left a bad taste in my mouth about the whole site.
Part of my defensiveness probably stems from suspecting that I am also perceived as a joke sometimes. I don't share this owner's aesthetic tastes, except in her kitchen, but I'm sure I have some other kinds of laughable tastes. I'm too uncool even to know. I mean, I'd never have guessed that dumpster-diving (okay, not quite, but finding things on the street) is cool. I don't care about being laughable except that when people see you as a joke, they blind themselves to your other, probably more relevant, traits. I have enough substantial reasons to turn away prospective friends and employers; I don't need to add useless stuff!
As I re-read the comments on this entry, I realize that I blew up their nasty nature in my mind even beyond what was already there. And I see that even with the young, hip, urban, snooty, insider bias of this site, there are plenty of good ideas here: getting rid of stuff you don't use, seeking ways to hide ugly stuff, getting pretty versions of things you aren't hiding, and arranging your things in ways that are aesthetically pleasing can help your place feel more pleasant and relaxing.
Also, since I have the same bias for fifties stuff over eighties stuff, there should even be lots of ideas relevant to me, right? Also that page had a link to today's:
Journal entry of the day: Jalpuna's How Did Thou Pow a Brown Cow?, a funny first-date story. "Who's family is nuttier? The game goes like this: You tell me that your mom is addicted to Prozac, I say that some uncle I'd never met tried to kidnap me on the day of my father's funeral when I was 11. Your turn! Ahh, silence."
My first clue is that I started peaking ahead at the pictures without spending any quality time with them, except for two. One had a bathroom with tiling from the same period as that in my bathroom. The other just looked like a regular house. The furniture reminded me of my best friend from high school's parents' house, which is where I was much of the time during my high school years, and which consequently feels comfortable to me. It also has wallpaper borders that remind me of how a house was decorated when an old roommate of mine first bought it.
I knew this place was going to get low votes because it looked too ordinary. And on looking more closely, I could see that there was still a lot of room for improvement in the design, even if you loved this person's taste in decor. There were a lot of things stored in stacks and piles. You could see some areas where the owner forgot to dust. A lampshade could use some straightening.
But the commenters were vicious. What's the worst thing you could imagine saying? "Your place is ugly"? "You have no taste"? No, they did worse than that. They convinced themselves that it was a joke entry and then fell over themselves pointing out evidence.
So then I started feeling defensive. Someone said it looked like the house of old people. Like old people can't have good design? (As a prospective old person, I am insulted.) You have to be young, hip, and urban? Then I realized that this contest is, after all, about apartments. Not mobile homes or travel trailers or boats, which are other hard-to-live-in small spaces.
I also felt defensive about the owner's design hint: sometimes you can store things right out in the open. Her example didn't sound so great. But even some popular entries show expensive pans hanging right out in the open. And tea kettles.
I also felt defensive about "taste." Apparently old things from the fifties are good, but old things from the eighties are bad, no matter how they are arranged.
And your place pretty much has to be bare to get any respect. One of those country places with little knickknacks and doilies (allowable only under cactus, for the irony) and pictures of family members everywhere would get a big thumbs down.
It doesn't matter that she can have lots of folks over sitting in comfy seating. What matters is that her place does not look like art. If your furniture looks too much like furniture and not enough like sculpture, then you're not a good designer.
Some of the comments kept echoing in my head while I was trying to go to sleep last night. "...inch of dust..." "If it's a joke, I doubt she was in on it." (Implying that not only is her taste in decor terrible, so is her taste in "friends.") These comments left a bad taste in my mouth about the whole site.
Part of my defensiveness probably stems from suspecting that I am also perceived as a joke sometimes. I don't share this owner's aesthetic tastes, except in her kitchen, but I'm sure I have some other kinds of laughable tastes. I'm too uncool even to know. I mean, I'd never have guessed that dumpster-diving (okay, not quite, but finding things on the street) is cool. I don't care about being laughable except that when people see you as a joke, they blind themselves to your other, probably more relevant, traits. I have enough substantial reasons to turn away prospective friends and employers; I don't need to add useless stuff!
As I re-read the comments on this entry, I realize that I blew up their nasty nature in my mind even beyond what was already there. And I see that even with the young, hip, urban, snooty, insider bias of this site, there are plenty of good ideas here: getting rid of stuff you don't use, seeking ways to hide ugly stuff, getting pretty versions of things you aren't hiding, and arranging your things in ways that are aesthetically pleasing can help your place feel more pleasant and relaxing.
Also, since I have the same bias for fifties stuff over eighties stuff, there should even be lots of ideas relevant to me, right? Also that page had a link to today's:
Journal entry of the day: Jalpuna's How Did Thou Pow a Brown Cow?, a funny first-date story. "Who's family is nuttier? The game goes like this: You tell me that your mom is addicted to Prozac, I say that some uncle I'd never met tried to kidnap me on the day of my father's funeral when I was 11. Your turn! Ahh, silence."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2006-04-12 08:42 am (UTC)At least she didn't paint her kitchen midnight blue and papays yellow. (Though I still think that was a really cool color combination, even if everyone who ever saw it thought it was awful).
no subject
on 2006-04-12 04:35 pm (UTC)Yep, white may bore people, but colors can drive them away. So sad.
I still have mostly hand-me-downs. But mine are pretty, though. (she likes to pretend)