Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Evening Open Thread: Architectural Digest Goes Behind the Oval Office

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Architectural Digest Goes Behind the Oval Office

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Mostly unrelated: You wouldn’t want to have moved into Jerry Pournelle’s former home without a deep cleaning and possibly an exorcism, but tearing down those bookshelves qualifies as barbarism:

Reader Interactions

191Comments

  3. 3.

    raven

    My wife’s family sold the home their pop built and the new owners demolished all the built in bookshelves and cabinetry.

  4. 4.

    mrmoshpotato

    Architectural Digest Goes Behind the Oval Office

    So they just went out onto the lawn?  Seems weird for an architecture magazine. 😁

  8. 8.

    mrmoshpotato

    WTF?  Is that the same house?  Did they just throw a shell of gray grossness over the original house?  WTF?

  9. 9.

    PIGL

    The evil of banality, one might almost say.

    you see the same in shots of YouTube, influencer homes, and Apartments. Not a book to be seen no art of any interest.

  13. 13.

    Alison Rose

    That indoor after shot looks like a model home in a new subdivision, or maybe the “common area” in a mid apartment complex. Boring and bland and zero personality whatsoever.

  14. 14.

    Alison Rose

    Also, fuck you, Tucker:

    Derek Chauvin is serving 21 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Someone just tried to murder him. If they’d do this to him, they’d do it to you.

    For one thing, he is literally ON CAMERA committing the crime. Unless you simply don’t think it is a crime to murder Black people — and since this is Tucker, that’s quite likely.

    For another, “they” would only “do it” to “you” if “you” happen to also murder someone on camera while they beg for their life and then you act like you did the world a fucking favor and wonder why you got a trial rather than a damn ticker tape parade.

    Christ, what an asshole.

  15. 15.

    Suzanne

    FUCK MODERN FARMHOUSE SO HARD.

    I will admit that I enjoy gawking at HGTV when getting ready in my hotel room when I’m traveling on business, or when I’m getting my nails done, like any true Vagina-American. I also hate it. It makes some of my clients say the stupidest shit.

  16. 16.

    Suzanne

    I also want to note — lest I be accused of elitism — that production home building is a really good thing in some respects. It’s how we built affordable, safe, dignified homes for generations of Americans. It’s the nouveau riche interior design that I hate.

  19. 19.

    schrodingers_cat

    Gray has become the go to color for everything. From cars to interiors. Why? Dismantling those book cases is a crime against good taste.

    I don’t think I have watched a single episode of the Gaines people.

  20. 20.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Alison Rose:

    That indoor after shot looks like a model home in a new subdivision, or maybe the “common area” in a mid apartment complex. Boring and bland and zero personality whatsoever. 

    AKA puketastic!

  21. 21.

    Suzanne

    @Alison Rose: I feel similarly when I watch furniture refinishing videos and someone takes a gorgeous piece of wood furniture and covers it in chalk paint and fake gold leaf. Get fucked.

  22. 22.

    dmsilev

    @Suzanne: Aren’t your clients mostly hospitals and places like that? I’d kind of hope that ‘modern farmhouse’ wouldn’t really be the look they’d be going for.

    I’m sure those hopes are about to be crushed…

  23. 23.

    Suzanne

    @dmsilev: Yes, my clients are primarily healthcare. But color and material palettes sort of cross markets, so I get to hear a lot of dumb shit about the colors someone picked for their kitchen reno.

  25. 25.

    Lyrebird

    @Suzanne: ​

    Yeah I love HGTV, just hate the mentality of stupid get rich quiick schemes (oh I can slap on some grey tile and flip this for so much money! …not) and the [ETA: mindless] following [of] trends.

    But I love HGTV forever. Before it, hotels only had shows I hate, forget about doctor’s offices. Now there is something that IS NOT FOX NEWS and is not soaps and is not talk shows for the waiting room.

    I do cry for the loss of those bookshelvse.

  26. 26.

    Alison Rose

    @Suzanne: I can’t even watch videos like that, because for every one where they actually make the piece look nice by retaining the original charm, there’s like 50 where it looks like some twee Etsy bullshit. I have this lovely three-drawer walnut wood dresser I got at an antique shop I used to haunt constantly (and which sadly closed but you can see some great photos on Yelp), and the coloring is a little faded and weird here and there, but I adore it. One time, a friend said I should paint it white and I was like…you can leave now.

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    I really enjoy video tours of the Oval Office and the White House. I think I like these more than a magazine feature.

    It was cool to learn about the personal touches Biden added.

    I’ve been to Washington a number of times, but never had a chance to do a White House tour.

  30. 30.

    Mike in Pasadena

    @Alison Rose: Tucker thought it terrible that a murderer has to do time and gets into trouble while in the big house? I’ll  shed some tears for the both of them.

    Shocking. Commit murder and “they” will do this to you.

  36. 36.

    frosty

    @schrodingers_cat: ​Yes, gray. So many new cars are Just Plain Gray. No metallic, no metalflake, no depth, just flat gray.

    It’s even worse than the last 20 years: white, black silver. Some red. Occasional blue. Nothing else. Whatever happened to color??

  37. 37.

    ColoradoGuy

    Kind of surprised the new trucks and SUVs around here are colored in what looks like primer gray, but in a high-gloss finish. Looks really weird.

    The go-to color in trucks 20 years older is silver-metallic, so no color there, either.

  40. 40.

    JeanneT

    The first and only time I tried to watch an HGTV show was while in the waiting room of a dentist’s office.  The intro showed a very cozy craftsman bungalow, beautiful wood trim, beams, alcoves, paneling.  I love bungalows, so I was curious to see what they could do to improve it – maybe add an addition?  I literally shrieked in horror when after the commercial break, the scene reopened to a lot scraped clean of any building whatsover.  I will never watch that station again!

  42. 42.

    persistentillusion

    @Alison Rose:

    If you are ever in Louisville, go to Joe Ley’s.  Five floors of antiques from all eras, in what I suspect is a former school.  I happily spent a day there, going from floor to floor

  46. 46.

    Citizen Alan

    @schrodingers_cat: I think the idea is that a potential buyer can look at a Gray wall and imagine whatever color they want to put up themselves whereas they might be turned off by a bolder color scheme and have more trouble visualizing something different. I have friends who basically repainted their entire house gray on the inside before putting it up for sale on the advice of a realtor.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    @dmsilev: I told my boss that I would never again sit in a meeting about colors or signage. My exact quote was, “Whatever day that is, I have to wash my hair that day”.

    I worked on a project once that was a six-story hospital expansion for a top-ten healthcare system. The interiors were fantastic, and the project won a bunch of awards. Part of the project was a new emergency department, and then the old emergency department was going to be converted into an observation unit (which is like halfway between emergency and inpatient, for patients who need up to 24 hours of care). So I went to the first meeting of the observation unit phase, and they had the woman there who was going to be the head of the unit when it opened. The first thing out of her mouth was, “I don’t want any of those colors you have on the new building. They’re terrible. I don’t know who you had pick those colors. I’ve redone three houses.” When we finally got to picking colors, she asked for, no joke, like law-library dark wood everywhere. What we could now call “dark academia”. Appropriate for a bookstore, maybe. Not for a hospital unit that now had no windows.

    I will note that the finishes on that six-story building were maybe the nicest I’ve ever gotten to do in my career.

  49. 49.

    Citizen Alan

    @Alison Rose: Nothing will ever top Hilde “No Mas” Santo-Tomas on Trading Spaces tearing out the built-in bookcases in a century old Craftsman home and then gluing hay to the entirety of one wall!  And, IIRC, doing so after being told that an asthmatic child lived in the household!

  50. 50.

    3Sice

    Neutrals are an easier sell.

    The spec 80s interior for the spec 20s interior is just swapping ugly.

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    @frosty: Whatever happened to color??

     
    Everything goes in and out of trend. Neutrals are a bit less “swingy”. Gray got big because fucken beige (paint color: Navajo White) had been everywhere for a while and people got sick of that, too. And people tend to have strong negative reactions to bold colors that they don’t like. Like, I tend to find blue rooms really off-putting. (I, however, understand how paint works when shopping.)

    My personal least favorite trend is the “accent wall”. It’s like color for those who don’t have the huevos to commit. Paint the room. Or don’t paint the room. To me, accent walls are like the stupid half-tucked-in-shirt thing that young people are trying to tell me makes them look good.

  52. 52.

    Nukular Biskits

    Since this is an open thread, I’ll note that Rev. Donald Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, died today.

    My Bible-thumpin, Christianist governor, Tate Reeves, made note of this on his Twitter account … to which I responded:

    “I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”

    – Misattributed to Mark Twain, but a sentiment to which I agree wholeheartedly in this case. Wildmon was no Christian. He (and the AFA) represent Christian Dominionism.

  53. 53.

    Marc

    I’m amused by the fact that the original owner of the house, the late Jerry Pournelle, now seems to be mostly forgotten. Self-described paleoconservative aerospace research engineer, prolific science fiction writer, early personal computer columnist, and one of the first bloggers.  Definitely the kind of person who would have a house filled with book shelves.

  54. 54.

    Brachiator

     

    @Suzanne:

    When we finally got to picking colors, she asked for, no joke, like law-library dark wood everywhere. What we could now call “dark academia”. Appropriate for a bookstore, maybe. Not for a hospital unit that now had no windows.

    I thought that there was some awareness that colors can affect the mood of patients and visitors and staff.

  57. 57.

    frosty

    @Gin & Tonic: ​The Miata I bought in 1989 was bright blue. Loved it. The Mazda 3 I have now? Dark. Midnight blue with some metalflake – it was the best I could do (see above, white, black, silver, red, sometimes blue

    What I would really like is British Racing Green.

  58. 58.

    Hoppie

    Speaking of houses of semi-famous people (Jerry not Joe), we have a friend whose sister bought Oliver North’s old house in NoVa.  She reported a chin-up bar across a doorway with numerous small dents in the ceiling above it.  I suppose it didn’t really surprise me.

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @Brachiator:

    I thought that there was some awareness that colors can affect the mood of patients and visitors and staff. 

    There is. This lady just…. wanted what she wanted.

    I will note that most of the so-called color “science” is not really great research. It’s a difficult topic on which to do quality research. There is evidence that warm colors stimulate appetite, that cool colors can promote calm, etc. But that doesn’t really say anything about which shades of which colors to use. That research that said that pink made psych patients calm? Discredited. Usually, most people respond well to relatively bright settings with natural light, which changes color throughout the day, and not too much color distortion presented by the interior environment. Other than that, color palettes are more cultural…. tied to places and times and physical environments. Most of the time, in most settings, an interior palette of primarily on-trend neutrals with some mixed-in bolder colors and textures and materials is appropriate.

  61. 61.

    Suzanne

    @SiubhanDuinne: Chip and Joanna Gaines are the hosts of “Fixer Upper” on HGTV. That launched their empire of “Magnolia Home”…. a line of home decor and furniture, a magazine, a cookbook, etc.

  66. 66.

    dmsilev

    @Hoppie: I know someone who owned a house which used to belong to Enrico Fermi. He said that to him and his family, it was just  you know, home, not any sort of historical object, though there was a workbench in the basement built from surplus Manhattan Project shipping crates, and that was pretty cool.

    (I didn’t ask whether they had tested the wood for any residual radioactivity…)

  69. 69.

    dmsilev

    @Suzanne:

    There is. This lady just…. wanted what she wanted.

    I guess I have to ask: Did she end up getting her way, or did someone manage to either overrule her or talk some sense into her?

    Sounds like it’d be a pretty depressing environment to work in, never mind be a patient in.

  73. 73.

    Suzanne

    @SiubhanDuinne: The original conceit of “Fixer Upper” is that they bought houses that were in disrepair in Waco, TX, and yes, fixed them. So most of those houses were already kind of farmhouse-y and ranch-y. And none of the homes were some masterpiece needing restoration back to, like, their original Queen Anne or Federal architecture. But there’s only so much fucken shiplap and barn doors I can take. And that shit looks at least plausible in Texas, in homes of that era. But it looks wretched on, say, a four-square or brownstone or Mediterranean.

  74. 74.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Mike in Pasadena:

    Correction: Tucker thought it was terrible that a white cop got busted for killing a black man.

    If that cop had killed a fellow white, Tucker would be tripping over his formal hood of office as Grand Imperial Cyclops to blame it on Obama’s justice department.

  75. 75.

    lamh36

    I told my boss Tuesday about the new job Tuesday.  On the same day, I got an email from the new job with my “official offer”…and I was like…huh?

    After I skim the “new” offer, realized the offer amount was different! the offer pay went up $6.8K a year!
    Thx Biden 😂

    Told my coworkers yesterday and they were very supportive (at least to my face, so…).

    Now that I’ve told the folks at work, it feels really real.

    trying to compile a list of what I want in an apartment for my move to Cali.   since majority of my work initially will be telework, I’d like either an office or office nook with maybe a very nice view since i’ll be sitting there all day…hmm

    The raise for fed employers signed into law by Biden, means the difference between looking for a 1bdrom vs a studio.  So now I can look at 1bdrooms.

  76. 76.

    Scout211

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Maine’s top election official rules Trump ineligible for 2024 primary ballot

    With an important caveat:

    However, Bellows’ office said her decision would not be enforced until the courts weigh in, “given the compressed timeframe, the novel constitutional questions involved, the importance of this case, and impending ballot preparation deadlines.”

  79. 79.

    eclare

    Looking at my legal pad yellow walls (they were that color when I bought my house) with a new appreciation.  They are not gray.

  80. 80.

    mvr

    @WaterGirl: Moral of the story: be careful who you sell to.

    We have an old (1914) foursquare that we have somewhat restored including recreating a period appropriate bathroom down to the details of the tile, scavenging all sorts of plumbing parts along the way.  I have often contemplated putting a conservation easement on it even if it would reduce the market value of the house.  Obviously though, no one does those so this is just my pride daydreaming.

  81. 81.

    Scout211

    @lamh36: trying to compile a list of what I want in an apartment for my move to Cali.

    Welcome soon to NorCal!

    Edited to delete text.

  82. 82.

    Suzanne

    @dmsilev:

    I guess I have to ask: Did she end up getting her way, or did someone manage to either overrule her or talk some sense into her? 

    We had to have some convos with her about how we don’t put real wood finish in hospitals because it’s porous and refinishing isn’t going to happen, how there are rules about lighting levels, and how the facilities team had adopted the finishes from the big six-story project as standards (after literally years of very hard work selecting, testing, mocking up, etc.). And how it was simply not going to happen that this one department was going to be different from everything else we had just done. But what we ended up doing was like an inverted version of the palette…. so where we had multiple shades of a material, we went with the darkest color as the “field” color and the lighter colors as the accents.

    HGTV has convinced everyone that they’re experts on interior design, and it’s really difficult for honest-to-God interior designers — who do a lot more than pick out colors in their jobs — to deal with tactfully.

  83. 83.

    Brachiator

    @Suzanne:

    I will note that most of the so-called color “science” is not really great research. It’s a difficult topic on which to do quality research.

    Oh yeah. I can imagine that this is tough.

    But I am also thinking about this as someone who had a couple of hospital stays in 2023, and a stay in a physical rehabilitation facility.

    The hospital was a newish wing of the Kaiser Permanente facility.

    And also people are different, but I would have gone nuts in a room with dark colors or dark wood paneling.

  86. 86.

    CliosFanBoy

    When my wife and I sold our Cape Cod in 2019 the buyer was a flipper, and he ripped out the kitchen cabinets made from real cherry wood to put in pressed wood crap ones. UGH.

  88. 88.

    Subsole

    @Suzanne: What colors did you pick for the hospital?

    Also, yes, by all means, let’s turn the observation unit into a dim, windowless dungeon…

    I could almost see that dark wood approach for the L&D, because cozy nest. But even then, you want, like, really upscale hotel. Not bookstore. 

  91. 91.

    CliosFanBoy

    I’d like the inside of the Pournelle house, but only if they hadn’t ripped out all those beautiful wood book shelves!

  92. 92.

    CliosFanBoy

    I still want a car in British racing green. I am sick of grey, silver, whites, “midnight blue”, etc.

  94. 94.

    Suzanne

    @Brachiator:

    And also people are different, but I would have gone nuts in a room with dark colors or dark wood paneling.

    You’re not that different. Most people can’t deal with dark colors for too long. This is how gray got so popular…. everyone was kind of looking for another light neutral after a couple of decades of The Tyranny of Beige.

  96. 96.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @CliosFanBoy:

    That happens here constantly.  Flippers, totally into the fucking Gaines crap, take historic homes, gut them on the inside and turn them into what I call Neo-Doctors Office.

    They have the warmth of a surgical ward.

    What’s worse is half the time they paint the brick and of course they paint it FUCKING WHITE WITH BLACK TRIM!  There’s a female developer based out of York PA of all places who brags about this shit she inflicts here in Denver.  She’s also lucky I’m not king.

    The Gaines’ are lucky I’m not king.

  97. 97.

    Suzanne

    @Subsole: The color palette was mostly neutrals with a really high-texture approach. Like, one of the flooring materials was a performance vinyl tile with a texture that made it look like unbleached linen (and grippier for patients walking around in hospital socks). Each level was a little bit different, too, with some accent materials like mosaic tile and backlit 3-form at strategic locations. It was awesome (probably totaled 300 interior materials/colors). The interior designer ended up leaving that firm and going to work for Herman Miller (now MillerKnoll).

  98. 98.

    rekoob

    Nothing against the current Oval Office, but I worked as a Legislative Aide in the Maryland General Assembly in the early/mid-80s. Harry Hughes was the Governor, and the reception rooms were in a Wedgwood blue with bright yellow damask upholstery and window treatments. Always liked that combination. I’m also fond of International Orange (think Golden Gate Bridge) when appropriate. My parents had a little niche in the kitchen that had a very pleasant cantaloupe-color as a background. If I ever get to paint a front door again, it will be in Taos Blue.

  99. 99.

    frosty

    @Gin & Tonic: My son’s 2008 Mazda 3 is “Phantom Blue Mica”. It’s gorgeous, it goes from blue to cyan depending on which way the sun hits it. If I have to repaint mine it would be my second choice after BRG.

  105. 105.

    Another Scott

    @Suzanne: What gets me about the fix-em-up shows is that all of them have the need to do “Open Concept”, and one of them let the cat out of the bag that they do so is because male viewers like the destruction of tearing out a wall.

    I’m sure all the folks who had to set up home offices during the pandemic love, love, love being in a giant room with the kids watching Sponge Bob and the noisy dishwasher running, and the dog barking, and all the rest, while they’re trying to have a Zoom call with their colleagues…

    One show I miss was one of the very early flipper shows where some greenhorns with $$$ in their eyes from the “easy money” in flipping would have this no-nonsense blonde woman expert come in to help them (as a sounding board) and she would warn them that they’d never get their money back by putting in gator hide counter tops in the kitchen and silk wallpaper in the basement and ripping out walls and all the other stupid stuff they wanted to do to get “top price”.  Most of them ignored her, of course.  That one at least seemed a little realistic, so, of course, it only lasted a couple of seasons.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  106. 106.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Suzanne:

    I told my boss that I would never again sit in a meeting about colors or signage. My exact quote was, “Whatever day that is, I have to wash my hair that day”.

    Be careful what you wish for… “While you were washing your hair done, the client decided to use Comic Sans for all signage.”

  107. 107.

    frosty

    @mvr:We have a 1923 foursquare with what is probably the original clawfoot tub. I wanted to get rid of it and get a shower that was easier to get in and out of as we get older but because of the location of the windows, doors, toilet, and sink there wasn’t a five-foot space of wall where we could put it. So the original fixture was conserved whether we wanted to or not!

    I need to find an architect who can design an expansion of our first floor half bath so we can put in a shower and maybe stay in this house after the stairs get to be too much.

  108. 108.

    Suzanne

    @UncleEbeneezer: What kills me about the gray wood is that it makes sense in a specific context: wood reclaimed from old barns that has been sitting out in the sun for years is generally gray-ish in tone. So it looks appropriate in farmhouses and those sorts of rural buildings, in certain parts of the country where that happens. But, of course, now it’s everywhere, like corporate conference rooms and trendy douchebag poke restaurants, and it looks like shit.

  109. 109.

    frosty

    @Alison Rose: ​Cali is an abomination. I never heard it from anyone when I lived there in the 70s. SoCal and NorCal are fine. Or Calif if you’re old school.

  110. 110.

    Suzanne

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    “While you were washing your hair done, the client decided to use Comic Sans for all signage.” 

    I don’t give a shit anymore. I used to get emotionally invested and now I really don’t.

    My current project uses a shade of blue that is probably halfway in between royal and navy blue as an orientation color, and pale gray headwalls. I hate them both. But I’m not writing the check!

  111. 111.

    Barbara

    @Another Scott: I call the Joanna Gaines “open concept” designs the modern hotel lobby approach to residential design.  It’s hard for me to imagine how anyone could get their homework or any kind of work done, or even have a private phone conversation.

    If I had to pick one of these shows as my favorite, it’s the Property Brothers.  They have different iterations, but the latest is to take the owner’s current home and reconfigure it so that they don’t feel the need to move.

    Those who are working with the people who will actually live there usually do a better job because they can design to the owner’s specific tastes.  Those who are flipping have to try to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible, so they tend to have very generic design choices.

    Even though Joanna Gaines is working with a specific owner, she still favors very generic design choices and colors, or maybe that is just representative of the people she works with. I have pretty much stopped watch, having reached saturation point some time ago.

  112. 112.

    eversor

    Young’s use kindles not books.  Books are for old white bow tied conservative white men like George Will or people that want to status symbol over their political stan of the day.

  113. 113.

    Scout211

    @Alison Rose: Sorry, I deleted the part of my comment that you responded to.  I decided after I typed it that telling someone to say California and not “Cali” didn’t sound very welcoming.

    But it’s true that only non-Californians call our state Cali.

    ETA: it took me many months to learn how to say New Orleans like someone who actually lived there.  Moving to a new part of the country always has a steep learning curve.

  114. 114.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’ll go you one better. I have no idea who the “Gaines people” are.

    It appears they’ve gone from making dog food to making houses look like regurgitated dog food.

    Re Jerry Pournelle, his politics were pretty awful, his SF was for the most part mediocre except for the collaborations with Larry Niven, whose politics were roughly as awful but was a far far better writer.

    (FWIW, IMO and just FTR: N&P’s Lucifer’s Hammer is a first-rate novel with some really clever touches, snappy dialogue and compelling action, for the first half – but after intermission careens screechingly off the rails down a cliff face of blatantly rightwing political diatribe. I tend to credit Niven with most of the good things in the first half but consider the omnipresent bile of the second to be a joint and probably mutually reinforcing activity.)​

  115. 115.

    Suzanne

    @Barbara: I like the Property Brothers because one of them is hot. (Yes, I know they’re identical twins. But only one of them is hot.)

    “Open concept” is another thing that has been absolutely flogged to death. Mies van der Rohe and Corbu and Frank Lloyd Wright (etc etc etc) spent so much effort refining proportions and sight lines and making their spaces flow. In the vast majority of contemporary homes, all of that careful attention is gone, and the house is just this giant, ill-proportioned barn of space that is inhumane, expensive to heat and cool, difficult to furnish, hell to live in.

  116. 116.

    Hoppie

    @Scout211: I always (well almost always) welcome being informed if I am fauxing the pas.

    I think it is very welcoming to let somebody new in on the local scene.  Using “Cali” is just such a cringe I would feel guilty NOT warning against it.  Different strokes, I guess.

  117. 117.

    PatrickG

    @lamh36: congrats on the pay bump! Once you’re out here maybe we can celebrate with a Balloon Juice meetup. What better way to realize what a horrible mistake you’ve made, right

    PS my wife “works” at the state building right across the street from the federal building in SF, but she’s mostly remote.

  119. 119.

    CarolPW

    @frosty:

    Our 1920’s Craftsman had the original clawfoot tub, original toilet, and fantastic tiny multicolored pastel tiles on the floor. They had also turned a gigantic adjacent walk-in linen closet into a shower room. Nothing but a shower stall and a small tiled space in front of it. It was fantastic.

  120. 120.

    Gvg

    @Suzanne: I like having kitchens that are somewhat open to the living room so you can cook but still be involved with a family or watch the same movie, have a big party. You do have to be careful though. Walls have uses. They are where we put cabinets to hold things and closets. My first small house had the kitchen dining and living area with no walls. It kept it from being claustrophobic and mostly worked BUT, there were not enough cabinets and only about 4 feet of counter. When I redid the kitchen cabinets I improved it some. If I had been staying I would have added a wheeled island too. Not enough cabinets meant I had to buy small size of dry goods which is less economical for instance. Counter space shortages are serious in kitchens and are caused by builders not caring. Problem I have again that I will have to fix again with graph paper and planning.

  123. 123.

    Quiltingfool

    @Suzanne:

    But there’s only so much fucken shiplap and barn doors I can take. And that shit looks at least plausible in Texas, in homes of that era. But it looks wretched on, say, a four-square or brownstone or Mediterranean.

    Testify, Sister!  Shiplap looks like someone decided outdoor siding would look fabulous indoors.  And who wouldn’t want a cumbersome barn door on rails in the dining room!  Gack!  Pocket doors, people!

    I confess I do like the look of a weathered brick wall inside the house (my husband does not agree), but only in some situations.

    Also:  People who deliberately rip out oak trim in Craftsman houses should be forced to live in a cardboard refrigerator box.  Sorry, not sorry.

    If I had oodles of money, I would build a Craftsman or Princess Anne house, and have custom oak trim everywhere.  And leaded or stained glass.  And wood floors.

  125. 125.

    mvr

    @frosty: Yeah there is the “what happens when I get older?” issue for the clawfoot (which was among the scavenged bathroom items that took the place of the 50s through 80s melange that had replaced the original bathroom).

    When we were working on the bathroom for about a year I put up a shower head over the basement floor drain in the laundry room. That’s my plan B after my plan A which is to be lucky enough not to have trouble with the tub as I age.  So far so good.

  126. 126.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Uncle Cosmo: I agree.  Your reference to MTHWS reminded me of the Mote in God’s Eye (it’s cited there as you no doubt know). Larry Niven is a great writer. Pournelle, not so much.

  127. 127.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    What’s that old saying: “as Maine goes, so goes America”

  128. 128.

    MomSense

    After the ordeal last week with the storm and not having power and internet, I was not happy to find that we lost power today as well.  Just came back on thank goodness.

  130. 130.

    cmorenc

    We are the second owners of a well-designed southern-style house that we had toured when it was brand-new on the annual Raleigh “parade of homes” in 1993 – charming as the layout and structural design were, i recall being aghast at whoever did the interior color  design and show furniture – which screamed “jersey mafia wife decor”.  Well, the original buyer fortunately had the imagination and taste to see the potential and completely redo the interior aesthetics – and when we bought the house from them in 2005, we were wise enough to not fuck it up – they could move back in tomorrow, and the inside would be exactly as they left it.

    Only thing we were forced to redo is the original generous-depth open front  porch across the entire width of the house was originally boat-deck style varnished pine flooring, which alas was not really durable for outdoor use and had become too damaged to repair from weather exposure and the lady of the house’s obsessively frequent refinishing sanded down to the nailheads.  And so we replaced the wood (not some composite) and painted it grey (a traditional color for southern front porches).  But other than the forced replacing of the flooring, the porch too is exactly as they left it, right down to the four rocking chairs they included with the house

    If it ain’t fucked up, don’t fuck it up.

  131. 131.

    NotMax

    Trivia::

    Ed Wynn’s house on Long Island had a hidden room behind a bookcase.

    @Uncle Cosmo

    Their collaboration I most enjoyed was Footfall.

    Dave Langford reviewed Footfall for White Dwarf #71, and stated that “Their flaws are blockbuster flaws: momentum takes 100 pages to build, several of the teeming characters are dispensable, and megadeaths are glossed over. […] All the same, I read most of it twice and ran out of adrenalin.” Source

  132. 132.

    frosty

    @CarolPW: ​We took the walk-in linen closet, and the closet from one of the bedrooms, tore out the walls, and used the space for a hallway to the Master Bedroom in the addition we added to the back of the house. It was the perfect size for a 36″ hallway.
    The architect designed the addition at an angle so we kept all the windows in the original house useable – “light on two sides of every room.”​

  133. 133.

    Hoppie

    @Uncle Cosmo: So many memories.  I remember chatting with Larry at our party at Nolacon, and his bragging that readers could not tell who had written which parts of the collaborations.  So I asked innocently ”so maybe you wrote the passage in ‘Mote’ explaining why ships’ engineers were still Scottish?”

    It was milliseconds before he hollered “That was Jerry! That was Jerry!”

  134. 134.

    Suzanne

    @Gvg: The last house I lived in in Arizona had one big open living/dining/kitchen. It was nice when we had friends over. I hated it on a daily basis, though. I don’t think cooking and TV watching/video game playing are compatible activities, and it bred a lot of resentment. And I usually find that the dining areas in those arrangements are terrible places. They’re usually not even alcoves, they’re just “a wide spot in the hallway”.

    We bought a 1920s Craftsman foursquare in 2020 and previous owners did a lot of dumb shit to it. We’re in the years-long process of undoing those terrible decisions. One of the bad decisions was narrowing the openings between entryway/living room and living/dining. We reopened those to their original width, and it feels much better. (We found the original blueprints, so we know. Sadly, the original pocket doors are gone.)

    There’s a whole spectrum of enclosure between “open concept” and “rabbit warren”. I am enjoying having some walls, because I have amassed a little collection of art items and I am thrilled to hang them.

  137. 137.

    Jackie

    @Barbara: Based on Suzanne’s proclivity for well-groomed men, I’m guessing Drew. Even though he sports a beard, he keeps it well trimmed.

    I, on the other hand, think Jonathan is the cutest lol

    edited I see Suzanne prefers Jonathan lol

  138. 138.

    Suzanne

    @Jackie: Jonathan is well-groomed without being uptight. He takes care of himself. Drew looks like he feels Catholic guilt. Not hot.

  139. 139.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Suzanne: “Open concept” is another thing that has been absolutely flogged to death…

    Don’t get me started on “open office.” Bemused Senior referred to it as “like working in a bus station.”

  141. 141.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: ​My nephew bought a 1930s craftsman style house in the Greenfield neighborhood from the second owner — who renovated it after the original owners had lived there for nearly 70 years. They kept all the original details, including the pocket doors, but modernized the kitchen and refinished the floors. It is so pretty and pristine, but it’s very small.

  142. 142.

    Suzanne

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: Open office, of course, sucks.

    The thing that makes me crazy, though, is that what people really want at work cannot be built. They want to see everything but have no one see them, they want quiet but to make noise, they want “connectivity” and “collaboration” but also singular concentration. I have had to have this discussion with so many clients about how there are some things we can do around the edges…. but that sound goes two directions, and if you can see them, they can see you.

  143. 143.

    Scout211

    A question for all you design and renovation show aficionados: Wallpaper?! Really?! The shows are actually telling the viewers how gorgeous and trendy wallpaper is now. Everyone is adding wallpaper for a “pop.”  Oh no, they will not hook me again!

    I got hooked into the wallpaper renaissance of the 90s and truly, utterly, disgustingly regretted it for the next decade in our previous home.  It takes roughly 3 years before you start hating it with a passion.  Removing it, removing the paste residue, re-texturing the walls and then painting them takes forever and is a lot of work. If you hate a paint color, you just repaint it. Easy peasy.

    No more forking wallpaper!  Don’t get hooked like I did.  The recovery is brutal.

  144. 144.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Suzanne: Offices with doors that can be closed seems right to me.  My pet peeve is mid-level executives who extol the virtues of the open office.  Collaboration, my foot.  They should just admit it’s cheaper.

  145. 145.

    Suzanne

    @Scout211: There are some gorgeous wallpapers and fabric wall coverings out there….. but I’m with you on that. I know myself and I could never make that kind of commitment. In a home, if you want a fabulous showy design, get some fancy draperies, or pillows, or reupholster a bench or club chair. Maybe buy a tapestry or something.

    This spring’s project is finishing staining all of the restored stairs and woodwork in our entryway, and then having the terrible carpet removed from the entryway and having tile put down. I have been waging war on the carpet that was here when we moved in…. the entryway is the last of it.

  147. 147.

    Suzanne

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: Offices with doors that close are less spatially efficient and most of them would not get windows. So it takes more square footage for the same quantity of employees. That makes it a really tough sell.

  148. 148.

    Alison Rose

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I do kind of feel like both spellings get used in the US interchangeably. When I was younger, I used to do “theatre” and “centre” and such because I was such an Anglophile. But then I realized that was a little too obnoxious, even for me.

     

    @Scout211: Or maybe it’s EXTRA welcoming because you’re making sure they don’t get the stink-eye from someone when they get here :P I say this as a former resident of San Francisco who almost chewed someone out on the street for saying Frisco.

  149. 149.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Suzanne: I recall when Adobe built their HQ in San Jose it was designed with offices.  I don’t know whether that approach has survived.

    I repeat, just admit open office is cheaper. At least that way you’re not lying to the employees.

  151. 151.

    Suzanne

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: I’m in agreement. I think everyone knows it is cheaper, though.

    “Openness”, defined as a lack of physical barriers and visual interruptions, is easily the most prevalent theme in common place-making. In almost every spatial condition. It’s tied to deeper values about society, especially in concepts of “transparency” and equality and flattening of hierarchy (that thing we pretend that we don’t have). So, if you look at space as reflecting defined relationships between people, it’s pretty easy to see why these types of offices feel so appealing at first. It’s only later, once you try to work in them, that they feel unfunctional and bad.

  152. 152.

    Tehanu

    @frosty:  I’m glad somebody else has noticed this awful drabness!  Parking lots and highways and streets full of nothing but gray, black, white, “silver”, more gray, off-white… it’s so dreary. I think too many people have bought into the idea that “classy” people (read:  the rich) don’t have bright colors and if they imitate them, others will think they’re rich too. It’s the worst kind of status-seeking.

    @Matt McIrvin:  I dated Larry Niven in my long-ago youth. He was a nice enough guy but I broke up with him because, well, I didn’t like his books, although I concede that he is, or was, a pretty good writer. It was only later that I realized what a bullet I’d dodged, when he started ranting about how we should spread rumors in Latino communities that organs were being harvested illegally in hospitals “to reduce hospital costs.”  [Insert classic New Yorker cartoon caption here.]

  153. 153.

    sab

    @WaterGirl: I sold my parents’ house to the next door neighbors and they tore it down and salvaged nothing: oak and wrought iron staircase railing, 1920 vintage carved golden oak panelling all through the first floor, glass fronted cabimets in the butler’s pantry.

    They tried to sell the lot as part of their for sale house (an “estate”) and got no bites on either, so the sold the now empty lot for half what they paid for it, and their house is still on the market.

    I hope they have a couple of years living next to a construction site. The city is offering 15 year real estate tax abatement for new construction, and people do seem to be building on vacant lots and side yards all over the place.

  154. 154.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Suzanne: I agree.  Those ideals are worthy.  Alas, the distinction between theory and practice once again rears its head.

    I admit I am not suited to be a corporate executive. My reaction to the disconnect between high-sounding words and practical reality, what I perceive as hypocrisy, is perhaps a bit over sensitive.

    Bemused Senior was more forthright. She loathed it.

  155. 155.

    Ohio Mom

    @Suzanne: Thank you for the grippy floors. Every time I go someplace with smooth marble floors (the upscale mall near me, the hospital satellite building housing my rheumatologist come immediately to mind), I am amazed they decided to court broken hips and limbs.

  157. 157.

    frosty

    @Scout211: ​I paid a handyman to strip the wallpaper in our second (1939) house. The previous owners must have not liked the pattern in one of the bedrooms because they PAINTED OVER THE WALLPAPER!!! He told us it wouldn’t be easy when he gave us the price. He had to cover the floor with plastic because the steamer had to essentially soak everything to get it off. I was happy to pay whatever it took.​

  160. 160.

    frosty

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: Right. And the executives have offices with doors that close. Collaboration for thee, not me.

    Once in my 40-odd year career I had an office with both a door and a window. It lasted almost ten years and then it was back to Cubicle World.

  161. 161.

    Suzanne

    @Ohio Mom: The grippy floors are cool, but they require a lot more maintenance to keep looking good. Normal mopping doesn’t cut it, you need a ride-on scrubber. High-traffic places like shopping malls and airport terminals generally can’t provide that kind of maintenance over the course of the day.

    I just bought SuzMom a pair of Hokas with grippy soles. Because, as you note, slickness abounds.

  162. 162.

    frosty

    @Suzanne: Living room, dining room, front hall and stairs all had mauve wall-to-wall when we moved in. It’s all gone except for the stairs because they need carpentry for the risers and treads.

    Some of the floors are refinished. Southern Yellow Pine – it’s basically the subfloor that you can see from the basement. Looks good, though!

  163. 163.

    Another Scott

    @Scout211: The Home Town folks in Mississippi did a show where they had some local printer make some custom block print for them.  They used that as the backsplash behind the stove.

    I can understand them stretching their dollars (they had almost no budget early on), but a custom paper backsplash?  Really??

    (grocho-roll-eyes.gif)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  165. 165.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tehanu: I have a different theory about why all cars are in neutral colors today: Those cars are the only ones the dealers have on the lot.

    I drive a gray car. I *know* the manufacturer makes that model in red and blue. But to get one of those, I would have had to order ahead and wait months, but the dealer had white, black and gray ones I could drive off the lot immediately. I’d already had white cars and black cars, so I went for what little variety I could manage.

    And why do they only stock those cars? I think it’s not because people actually like these cars the most–it’s because those colors are the least likely to be a deal-breaker. If you want a red car, you probably won’t buy a blue one. But a neutral color will be an acceptable second choice. If they’re going to buy a limited number of cars to have on the lot, they’re going to want the ones with the least chance of being unacceptable.

    As for that business with Larry Niven proposing we spread organ-harvesting rumors, I remember it struck me as a weird case of projection–since Niven had, himself, been oddly fascinated with the danger of organ-harvesting for decades, and wrote it into multiple stories.

  166. 166.

    Suzanne

    @Alison Rose: I know. My personal room (home office/library/Peloton room) has lots of bookshelves.

    How can some hot sexy man throw you up against the wall and pull your hair and ravish you if you don’t have any walls? Asking for a friend.

  167. 167.

    Alison Rose

    @Suzanne: That friend being me from 15 years ago?

    But also, like…I feel like those homes where the whole main living area — living room, dining area, family room, kitchen — is just one big space makes you feel like you’re in a mini Ikea.

  169. 169.

    wjca

    @Citizen Alan:  I have friends who basically repainted their entire house gray on the inside before putting it up for sale on the advice of a realtor.  [Emphasis added]

    And there’s the problem right there.  I had the misfortune to buy a house owned by a pair of realtors.  All you need to know is that the dining room had wall-to-wall, white, pile carpeting.  Painting walls grey is a mere peccadillio.

  171. 171.

    wjca

    @Marc: the late Jerry Pournelle, now seems to be mostly forgotten. Self-described paleoconservative aerospace research engineer, prolific science fiction writer, early personal computer columnist, and one of the first bloggers.

    And, sadly, a real (albeit minor) scum in person.

  172. 172.

    hotshoe

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    I’ve never spoken “Cali” out loud, but I use it whenever I want to refer to Cali as a whole, when I don’t want to emphasize the difference between NorCal and SoCal.

    Grew up in LA,  moved to SF, now live somewhere in the boonies in between … it’s all fine!

  175. 175.

    wjca

    @WaterGirl:

    Pile carpeting is carpet where fibers stick up.  Which means a) sliding chairs is essentially impossible (because the legs sink into the pile and stick), and b) trying to clean up anything is also impossible (because whatever spills gets down into the pile where you can’t get at it).  Pile carpet in a living room, or maybe a bedroom, can work.  But in a dining room???

  176. 176.

    Suzanne

    @Alison Rose:

    I feel like those homes where the whole main living area — living room, dining area, family room, kitchen — is just one big space makes you feel like you’re in a mini Ikea. 

    I feel like these homes are absolutely tyrannical to keep clean and de-cluttered. They look great in photos and bad in real life. You know what you need for one of these houses? A housewife.

  180. 180.

    Scout211

    @UncleEbeneezer: I’ve lived in CA for 24 years and have NEVER heard ANYONE say “Cali.”

    I’ve lived in California for almost twice that long and have never heard anyone who lives here call it “Cali.”  But I definitely have heard people who don’t live here call it “Cali” or write it that way.

    I guess it might be worth it to let people know ahead of time what the acceptable nomenclature for referencing their new state is before they move here.  But they will figure it out once they get here.

  181. 181.

    SectionH

    @Scout211: Yes, whenever I have heard it or read it, which is at least several times, I deduced the miscreant had never been anywhere near California.  I am an arriviste myself, but never committed that sin.  And the granddaughter was born here, at least.

    (sorry all, this is Hoppie posting on SectionH’s machine inadvertently)

  182. 182.

    Scout211

    @Suzanne: I feel like these homes are absolutely tyrannical to keep clean and de-cluttered.

    It’s also a puzzle how to redecorate one space in an open floor plan design. You have to redecorate the whole damned thing.

    We built our home 16 years ago with universal design and it is really great as we age.  It’s not an open floor plan but more like a semi-open floor plan in the main living area. The interior needs to be repainted but I realized that there is no possible way to paint different rooms different paint colors in the main living area.  There are no clear spaces or even designated walls that don’t blend into the next space.  You could paint an accent wall but even that can look odd in an open or semi-open main living area floor plan. It’s kind of frustrating for someone who used to like to change the look of a room by painting it a different color. 

  186. 186.

    like a metaphor

    What I can’t stand is the (non)color “greige”.  I guess it’s for people who think beige is too loud.

  187. 187.

    Geminid

    I think of “Cali” as truck driver lingo. At least, the friend I heard the word from was a long haul driver. That’s how I first heard of “Flag,” for Flagstaff.

  189. 189.

    Connor

    @wjca:

    And, sadly, a real (albeit minor) scum in person.

    The alcohol consumption didn’t help. Jerry said a lot of things while drinking that he would apologize for later. It was a fairly regular pattern at conventions and LASFS meetings.

  190. 190.

    wjca

    @Connor: At least when I knew him (mid-1970s) he was noxious drunk or sober.  And never showed the least contrition — perhaps because he was never otherwise in my observation.

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