Home improvements you find tacky

bottlebrush

lawred2 wrote: »

wife and I are a bit like this..

Found some huge ornately framed mirrors in some garden centre in the worst pink and purple you'll ever likely to see..

Sitting there for ages with sale stickers on them.. A bit of good bantered haggling and we walked out with two of them for €50 when the original marked price was somewhere over twice that each..

Repainted the frames and they look fantastic.. Everyone comments on them as soon as they see them

just curious what colour you painted the frames. I have a couple of frames with their original gilt colour together with a matching gilt lamp stand and would love to paint them all but could never decide what colour would match my cream walls?

lawred2

bottlebrush wrote: »

just curious what colour you painted the frames. I have a couple of frames with their original gilt colour together with a matching gilt lamp stand and would love to paint them all but could never decide what colour would match my cream walls?

Struggling to remember off the top of my head but I think it was some variety of chalk paint - possibly a cocoa colour.

Like you we have light cream walls.

lawred2

Yamanoto wrote: »

...by an Elvis fanatic.

how do you unlike something?

Your Face

Framed movie posters.




You c--ts.

Not that one

Decks - How can we provide a nice sheltered cosy area close to food sources for the local rodent population to nest?
Live, love, scream - Mostly in homes with a screaming ma and boisterous kids
Gardens decorations - 12ft by 12ft garden with model windmill, 3 bird houses, rockery corner and plastic decorations
Ceiling mouldings/centrepieces in standard 3 bed semis as highlighted by others

Wibbs

Your Face wrote: »

Framed movie posters.




You c--ts.

Again IMHO depends on the film, the age and if they're originals. Pre say 1970's the images could be interesting in their own right. Plus because back then they weren't "collectors items"/memorabilia and meant to be discarded after the cinema run, they have a patina of their own. Some like the ones produced in Cuba after Castro were designed and printed by some very talented artists. Can go similar for old Eastern Bloc stuff. Hell, Toulouse Lautrec readied up advertising posters and I'd love one of those originals.

Mountainsandh

Came across this article just now on my Facebook and thought of this thread. It reminds me of the grey debate.

(A nice interesting and entertaining website, incidentally, some articles may need a bit of double checking but better than most.)


"How beige took over American homes"
It's a bit long, but the essence of it is that American homes lost their garish character from the 80s in or around the end of nineties into 2000, because of the property boom. Re-styling TV programs came on air because of same boom. The programs were directed at potential sellers, but it made its way into the people's psyche that to be worth anything, your house had to adhere by these selling standards. I think it applies here in Ireland. Not for everyone, as some posts on this thread testify.

Our houses lost their personal worth and touches; they were worth to us only as much as they were worth to others. Our houses were painted beige because beige enabled the prospective buyers we (even unintentionally) were designing for to picture their own lives in our houses. Beige is a blank slate – a canvas upon which anyone’s personality can be painted over. The irony is that beige became the painting itself, because of the media-driven trend towards overwhelming interior neutrality, spurred by the idea that it added concrete value to our asset-houses.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-beige-took-over-american-homes?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page

Deer

I'm off upstairs to do something in my daughters room that will make my eyes bleed. Install a glittery silver light shade and put marble effect contact on her desk. Tacky to me and not my taste at all but she will absolutely love it and any thing to make her study space more appealing to her is fine by me. Hope she gets a nice surprise and I don't mess up the contact.

astrofool

Wibbs wrote: »

*Quality Art Nouveau was about the last gasp of the excessive ornament, hand made, natural and very bourgeois style, in the face of the rise of the machine and futurism. The New Art looking to a past that never existed. It's part of the appeal for me. High Art Deco was more about the machine and futurism, but was just as excessive, hand made and very bourgeois too. I'm a sucker for futurism/modernism TBH. That it has become nostalgic is ironic in of itself. BUt I digress. As effin usual.

I like how you're at peace with liking the futurism/modernism stuff as long it as made by hand "I like the future, as long as I can twiddle some analogue dials to control it" type thing.

I have a friend living at le viaduc et les arcades du lac that would make you insanely jealous

cml387

I have an irrational dislike of those glass lanterns that you see in Meadows and Byrne. They come in all sizes from tiny to telphone booth size.

Also from Meadows and Byrne this monstrosity

198 Euro?????

storker

meeeeh wrote: »

Grecian style pillars.

I've seen these on a semi-d.

Deer

Deer wrote: »

I'm off upstairs to do something in my daughters room that will make my eyes bleed. Install a glittery silver light shade and put marble effect contact on her desk. Tacky to me and not my taste at all but she will absolutely love it and any thing to make her study space more appealing to her is fine by me. Hope she gets a nice surprise and I don't mess up the contact.

I wouldn't have been keen on the contact, but when I was a kid everything either had pink feathers on it, was lit with fairy lights, had glitter or sparkle, was fluffy, and had a Barbie motif until I was 12. Then I moved onto the more sophisticated Hello Kitty.

She'll love it.

Mountainsandh

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Candie, could I be on the show as an in studio commentator ?
I'm very good at spitting and getting red in the face, I can be very stubborn and judgmental, and if recording can allow for a certain timing on a monthly basis, I think I could very much channel my inner Katie Hopkins for dramatic confrontations (studio safer in that regard). Plus I'm French, so viewers could happily suggest I just go back to where I came from.

You're DEFINITELY hired!

Start practicing your sneering before we set you on Ronan and Mary, who think their purple Smeg is the last word in contemporary kitchen style. And who painted their hall grey :P

Sleepy

I've spent the last 6 months removing much of what was mentioned in this thread from our fixer upper

Stuff I've sorted so far:
Pea Green Matt Emulsion plastered onto the kitchen cabinets, splashback tiles and appliances.
Lino on the stairs and landing.
A mix-and-match bathroom suite of pink bath and basin with a white toilet.
Cheap, early 00's laminate flooring.
An uneven, arabesque tile and lino combo, floor in the kitchen / diner.
An oven powered by a plug coming up through the counter-top and inserted in the socket built into the splashback :eek:
Brass door handles that had been "fixed" in place with 1/2 inch bolts.
Home-made shelving in a utility room that would put a junior cert woodwork student to shame.
"Structural" wallpaper - it was literally holding the skimcoat up in the older part of the ground floor!

Still to go:
The cheap white PVC door
The misted aluminium double-glazed windows with faux-georgian bars
- both of the above in an architectural conservation area requiring the original front door and sash windows to be kept - not going to be cheap to get right
Both front and back gardens full of clutter, astro-turf and palm trees (in North County Dublin.
An attic that has zero insulation.
A downstairs bathroom with a shower cubicle that clearly has tiling over regular plasterboard (instead of the water resistant bathroom grade).
Stippled ceilings in most rooms.
Putting some cabiinets into the utility room (ripped out the old stuff and just have some old shelving units we brought from our rental in there for now)

Toots

Ugh this thread reminds me that my living room/kitchen needs repainted and I'm dreading it.

Stuff I hate in houses:

Floor tiles so shiny they're practically reflective (nothing like running the daily risk of being killed by your kitchen or toilet floor)
Net curtains
Textured paint on walls
Those swirly patterns on ceilings - stippling wouldn't be my taste, but definitely not as bad as the swirls and fans
Feckin doileys on the back of armchairs
Those weird fluffy covers on the toilet lid - gross, like a sponge for sh*t particles to gather
Cornicing and ceiling roses
Period features in general (unless original to the house)

Winterlong

Toots wrote: »

Those weird fluffy covers on the toilet lid - gross, like a sponge for sh*t particles to gather

Reading this brought back a whole bunch of bad memories that I thought had been blacked out.

Wibbs

astrofool wrote: »

I like how you're at peace with liking the futurism/modernism stuff as long it as made by hand "I like the future, as long as I can twiddle some analogue dials to control it" type thing.

Yeah, I love that contradiction.

KKkitty

That sticker stuff to give the frosted glass effect is horrendous. Get proper frosted windows ffs.

meeeeh

I think lino, stick on foil, even plastic windows and similar are usually more budgeting issue. I always find choices that are not consequence of budgeting restraints more unforgiving.

Maybe against the popular taste, I absolutely hate country style kitchens. Especially cream ones, I don't care how much money is thrown at them, how good the finish is, they are all awful.

Zaph

Toots wrote: »

Those swirly patterns on ceilings - stippling wouldn't be my taste, but definitely not as bad as the swirls and fans

I knew I forgot something when I was giving out about our house's previous owners - for some insane reason they did that with two of the rooms. The house was built in the mid-80s, and I understand that they bought it sometime in the 90s. But their taste in decor was pure 70s tack. And I can't even say they were old, they were younger than me.

Toots wrote: »

Feckin doileys on the back of armchairs

I think you'll find they're called antimacassars. I don't really know why I know that. :pac:

HeidiHeidi

Sleepy wrote: »

I've spent the last 6 months removing much of what was mentioned in this thread from our fixer upper

Stuff I've sorted so far:
Pea Green Matt Emulsion plastered onto the kitchen cabinets, splashback tiles and appliances.
Lino on the stairs and landing.
A mix-and-match bathroom suite of pink bath and basin with a white toilet.
Cheap, early 00's laminate flooring.
An uneven, arabesque tile and lino combo, floor in the kitchen / diner.
An oven powered by a plug coming up through the counter-top and inserted in the socket built into the splashback :eek:
Brass door handles that had been "fixed" in place with 1/2 inch bolts.
Home-made shelving in a utility room that would put a junior cert woodwork student to shame.
"Structural" wallpaper - it was literally holding the skimcoat up in the older part of the ground floor!

Still to go:
The cheap white PVC door
The misted aluminium double-glazed windows with faux-georgian bars
- both of the above in an architectural conservation area requiring the original front door and sash windows to be kept - not going to be cheap to get right
Both front and back gardens full of clutter, astro-turf and palm trees (in North County Dublin.
An attic that has zero insulation.
A downstairs bathroom with a shower cubicle that clearly has tiling over regular plasterboard (instead of the water resistant bathroom grade).
Stippled ceilings in most rooms.
Putting some cabiinets into the utility room (ripped out the old stuff and just have some old shelving units we brought from our rental in there for now)

Christ, I hope you got that house cheap :eek:

freshpopcorn

The one style of kitchen I don't like is a white or white glass finished kitchen. It always looks clinical to me.

lawred2

freshpopcorn wrote: »

The one style of kitchen I don't like is a white or white glass finished kitchen. It always looks clinical to me.

Not really tacky though is it!?

sabat

Audrey fckng Hepburn prints, those floor lamps that go across the room in a big arc, damask wallpaper, bare pine, coving, anything that says "keep something and something something" on it...

cml387

There was a fashion once for carpet in bathrooms.:eek:

ScrubsfanChris

Used to work summers with my dad. We once pulled up an old carpet to find underneath a gorgeous mahogany hardwood floor, the kind of thing that nowadays would cost a small fortune. Bit of tlc and it would have looked amazing. Owner was having none of it and went ahead with her new patterned carpet.

Think pretty much everything has already been mentioned.

meeeeh

ScrubsfanChris wrote: »

Used to work summers with my dad. We once pulled up an old carpet to find underneath a gorgeous mahogany hardwood floor, the kind of thing that nowadays would cost a small fortune. Bit of tlc and it would have looked amazing. Owner was having none of it and went ahead with her new patterned carpet.

Think pretty much everything has already been mentioned.

I remember reading one of those renovation articles years ago. The owner got gorgeous parquet flooring from someone who used it for fire in fireplace. She also found a tapestry that owner wouldn't sell because her cat slept on it. Eventually she swapped it for a cat bed. The tapestry was later on a display in national gallery (not in Ireland) as great example of baroque art in the country. Ok it's a small country not know for its baroque art but still the cat had expensive taste.

_Brian

_Brian wrote: »

What !!
what's the problem with decks

They belong on ships!

the_pen_turner

_Brian wrote: »

What !!
what's the problem with decks

horrid things.
full of rats
covered in green crap and really slippery
fall apart and rot in a few years

WoolyJumper

I don't if its still going but anyone remember that show 60 minute make over on a few years back? Absolute terror for the "feature wall" school of design. The amazing part of the show wasn't the fact they could do make over in 60 minutes, it was how much wall paper, cushions, mirrors, tables, lamps, and general shiny tat they could fit into the typical tiny British 3 bed Semi.

freshpopcorn

freshpopcorn wrote: »

The one style of kitchen I don't like is a white or white glass finished kitchen. It always looks clinical to me.

It probably will be in about twenty years time!

KKkitty

The problem with most of interior design is that people may live in a veritable shoebox but think when it comes to decor that anything will suit.

meeeeh

WoolyJumper wrote: »

I don't if its still going but anyone remember that show 60 minute make over on a few years back? Absolute terror for the "feature wall" school of design. The amazing part of the show wasn't the fact they could do make over in 60 minutes, it was how much wall paper, cushions, mirrors, tables, lamps, and general shiny tat they could fit into the typical tiny British 3 bed Semi.

The finish of some stuff was absolutely dreadful too.

Your Face

Wibbs wrote: »

Again IMHO depends on the film, the age and if they're originals. Pre say 1970's the images could be interesting in their own right. Plus because back then they weren't "collectors items"/memorabilia and meant to be discarded after the cinema run, they have a patina of their own. Some like the ones produced in Cuba after Castro were designed and printed by some very talented artists. Can go similar for old Eastern Bloc stuff. Hell, Toulouse Lautrec readied up advertising posters and I'd love one of those originals.

Seems like a choice between either tackiness or pretentiousness.

Graces7

In this rental, I spent a day boxing up and hiding away ornaments, etc etc. So much sheer clutter.

But the owner loved that and when I leave, all the bits will revert to their original place.

Each to her own.

Wibbs

Your Face wrote: »

Seems like a choice between either tackiness or pretentiousness.

Not really.

Cokezero

For some reason I really dislike corner l shaped couches, the ones that are recliner and brown corduroy material. Usually found in a very small sitting room.
Red accents in sitting rooms or kitchens.

Live life love

Photo collages- just pick 1/2 nice ones!

Crushed velvet in tiny spaces looks so fussy

__Alex__

mansize wrote: »

non white bathroom sets

mansize wrote: »

No! Not even blue!

mansize wrote: »

The walls etc fine just not the toilet sink bath

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWoWHzq21tA

__Alex__

r3nu4l wrote: »

No problem with muting walls at all, it's the way the sheeple are all running to grey as their colour of choice (or should I say, the colour of the industry's choice) at the moment, rather than coming up with their own ideas... No original thought at all.

Edit. I especially hate the indiscriminate use of the colour. The amount of people using grey in tiny rooms in their house or rooms that are already dark and poorly lit anyway, is abysmal

I love grey, always have. As evidenced by my clothing. And I loved that my apartment kitchen has grey cabinets when I moved in. So can easily envisaging painting a wall grey. Some people might genuinely like it. Even if they saw it somewhere, well, everyone gets their inspiration from somewhere. I have little time for 'sheeple' accusations, we none of us live in a vacuum. Anything anyone wants for their house, they have likely seen demonstrated elsewhere. That might be a current fad but that doesn't mean a person won't intrepret the fad in a classy way.

r3nu4l wrote: »

However, add I said, most of what I've seen had been painted walls with no attempt to make the photos or at Pop out which is the whole point behind the use of grey.

Or just liking the colour?

well spoken man

Cream plastic windows.....looks very chavvy.....

__Alex__

Piriz wrote: »

the more I look at it the more I like it, the kitchen is nice in its unique way, I could handle the bathroom too..


395k tho.. would you like frills with that?

Yeah the kitchen is quite nice! Impractical floor tiles though.

Your Face wrote: »

Framed movie posters.




You c--ts.

No way, man, there are so many amazing movie posters from down the years. Some are genuine art.

Wibbs wrote: »

Again IMHO depends on the film, the age and if they're originals. Pre say 1970's the images could be interesting in their own right. Plus because back then they weren't "collectors items"/memorabilia and meant to be discarded after the cinema run, they have a patina of their own. Some like the ones produced in Cuba after Castro were designed and printed by some very talented artists. Can go similar for old Eastern Bloc stuff. Hell, Toulouse Lautrec readied up advertising posters and I'd love one of those originals.

Not just pre-1970s, almost every decade produces interesting film posters.

__Alex__

Wavy mirrors.

https://www.google.ie/search?q=wavy+mirror&client=firefox-b-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjv1IXGlqPSAhXmC8AKHflfDUQQ_AUICCgB&biw=1366&bih=659

Irish Stones

I don't live in Ireland but visit your country very often and the thing I really don't like is the amount of ships and horses paintings on the Irish homes walls!
Absolutely unbearable!

lawred2

Irish Stones wrote: »

I don't live in Ireland but visit your country very often and the thing I really don't like is the amount of ships and horses paintings on the Irish homes walls!
Absolutely unbearable!

rented in a place where it was wall to wall pictures of horses

overlooked Leopardstown racecourse so was somewhat contextual but still - I hated all of them

HeidiHeidi

Remember when it was a thing to have horse brasses all over the fireplace wall in your sitting room?

HeidiHeidi

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Remember when it was a thing to have horse brasses all over the fireplace wall in your sitting room?

With a matching brass box for the logs.

Could understand that trend for people who , live in the countryside, or have horses, but in a semi d...

KKkitty

Anything taxidermy style is horrific. A neighbour had a pheasant in a glass case on Facebook yesterday. Giving it away for free too.

Widdershins

KKkitty wrote: »

Anything taxidermy style is horrific. A neighbour had a pheasant in a glass case on Facebook yesterday. Giving it away for free too.

Dita Von Teese is fond of taxidermy.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VWGskxpdjWo/maxresdefault.jpg

Aglomerado

KKkitty wrote: »

Anything taxidermy style is horrific. A neighbour had a pheasant in a glass case on Facebook yesterday. Giving it away for free too.

Back in the 80s there was a house near where I was growing up where a taxidermist lived.
His house had a large picture window looking out onto the street. In which there was a full sized DEER.

meeeeh

Widdershins wrote: »

Dita Von Teese is fond of taxidermy.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VWGskxpdjWo/maxresdefault.jpg

That looks cool.

A lot of things can look well if you know how to style them. I don't have the skills.