Decorating Trends - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I love home decorating. 

I love poring over Country Style and House and Garden magazines.

I can lose myself in Pinterest for days, searching for white kitchens, rustic dining tables and farmhouse gardens. 

A quirky little home wares store will suck me in like a vacuum cleaner sucking up a fluff bunny.

And for the last two and half years, I have wallowed in design and decorating ideas because we have been working towards building our own new home.

I love, love, love home decorating and decor daydreaming.

But there are a few trends that I just don't understand. Some that I abhor. I know it's simply a matter of taste but the decorating recesses of my mind are full to overflowing and I have to speak out! 

These are my personal ickies:

The butler’s pantry where the sink, the dishwasher and the oven all live. 
What on earth is the kitchen for??? 
Who wants to spend hours cooking and cleaning up in a dark and pokey little space when you have a lovely large, open kitchen to work in? 
Of course, if there's a real live butler hanging out in the pantry doing all the work, that changes my opinion completely...

At the other end of the crazy kitchen spectrum is the outdoor kitchen, fully-equipped with Taj-ma-barbeque and fridge and sink and dinner sets and wine glasses and napkins. 
Come on! How many kitchens can you use at once? 
And what’s wrong with a rusty, dusty barbie propped up against the back wall and keeping it simple? I've never met a person (or dog) who doesn't love a sausage and sauce sanga. 
And don't get me started on having to clean two cooktops, two fridges, two sinks ...

Orange. 

Nobody really wants to decorate their home in orange. 

Except for my mum and dad in the seventies. They splashed it around like it was going out of fashion. And, pretty soon, it was! 

If you want a touch of orange, fill the fruit bowl with mandarins ... buy a bunch of gerberas ... plant some marigolds in a window box. But don't plaster the walls with orange mosaic tiles or cover the kitchen benches in orange Laminex. (Really, Mum, don't!)

Don't even buy an orange cushion. 

I mean it.

Toss it out of your shopping basket. 

Now. 

Buy something blue or green or yellow, even. 
But not orange. 

The home theatre. 
Okay, if you’re a soiree-holding kind of person, I can see how this might be quite nice. ‘Do join us in theatre at 8pm for a delightful  evening of light classical music, pink champagne and muted laughter.’ 
But a room for just watching the tellie? 
It’s like having a room dedicated to just thinking, or just  knitting, or just reading. 

Oh, hang on. A room for just reading sounds brilliant! 

They even have a name for it.

LIBRARY!!!

Those fires that hang from the ceiling like some sort of overgrown cocoon. 
They look a little bit scary in a sci-fi sort of way. 
And they look daft. Even if you’re going for the hipster dufus look.
My husband, the Great Dane, thinks they're cool. Then again,  he tucks his T-shirt into his jeans and still thinks 'Smokey and the Bandit' is the best movie EVER!!! 
Cocoon fireplaces are just not right. And you can't tell me that someone's kid won't swing from it and burn their derriere before wrenching the whole contraption out of the ceiling. 

Rectangular free-standing baths. 
They give me the creeps. 
Too much like sarcophagi. 
As soon as I see one, I start developing a murder mystery plot where someone dies in the bath. Not terribly uplifting. 

Toilets that open onto en suites that open onto the master bedroom.
I dig the bathtub that looks straight across to the bed (unless it’s a sarcophagus tub!). But the toilet with no solid door between the user and the bedroom…

Think about it!

It’s not good.

For anybody.

So what do I love? 

White.

Floorboards.

High ceilings and exposed beams.

Big windows and French doors and natural light.

Wide verandas made for lazing and sipping coffee and reading a book and chatting with friends over a glass of wine.

Hills hoist clotheslines.
Fresh flowers.

Book shelves filled with well-thumbed books.

Gardens filled with blossom trees.

Log fires that are anchored in the wall or on the ground and don’t look like they’re about to split apart and launch an oversized cockroach or cicada into your lounge room that will then bite your head off and spit it out into a sarcophagus-shaped bathtub.

Feel free to disagree. 
Except on the orange thing!

What do you love in a home?

What gives you the ickies?

You can go here to my Pinterest page to see some of my home decorating fantasies.

My Thermos, My Husband and I

I bought a new thermos. It’s a Georg Jensen design. Truly beautiful. Truly marvellous.  It’s shiny and sleek and has a wonderful curve in its body. It has an ergonomic handle and a perfect-pour spout. It’s called a Beak Thermos Jug and has been inspired by the shape and pride of the Emperor Penguin. Made from stainless steel, it has a sense of permanency about it. ‘I will stand by your side, night and day, year in, year out, keeping your coffee hot, for as long as you need me!’ it seems to declare. So it’s good looking and reliable.  Dreamy, eh?

If I sound like I’m in love, it’s because I am.

And if you think I’m bonkers, I have it on good authority that I’m not. Kevin McCloud says so!

My idol Kevin (of ‘Grand Designs’ fame) has many lovely ideas but this is the one that has stuck in my mind and makes a lot of sense: The things you touch most should be of the highest quality possible. 

This includes taps, door handles, banisters, light switches, locks. A more exhaustive list might also include  cutlery, thermoses, ballpoint pens, bed linen and husbands. Nobody wants to touch a husband of poor quality, do they?

Which brings me back to being in love. You see, I have two great loves in my life. My Beak thermos and my husband. Oddly, both are Danish.

We had a hiccup during the week which saw my husband, the Great Dane, ending up in hospital for two nights. He’s never spent a night in hospital before. He wasn’t even born in a hospital. (No, he was not born under a tree or in a Viking long boat. He was born at home, as were his siblings and many other children in Denmark in the 1960’s.) So it was a bit of a surprise when a trip to the doctor’s ended in an admission to hospital.  

You see, the Great Dane’s made of sturdy stuff and has a sense of permanency about him. He has promised to stand by my side, night and day, year in, year out, for as long as I need him.  He’s good looking and reliable.  He is the Beak thermos of the human world.

So when, suddenly, he ended up in a hospital bed with drips and monitors and a very ugly blue gown, I was bemused. Bemused might sound like a shallow feeling. Perhaps, I should first have felt concerned, traumatised, deeply sympathetic … I did feel a touch of these things but, honestly, the strongest emotion was bemusement. 

Don't get me wrong. I do not take this man for granted. I'm delighted that he's my husband and tell him so often. It’s just that I can’t imagine a world without him. I can't even imagine him not being strong and healthy and happy and funny. It just doesn't seem possible.

The Great Dane is home now and all is well. He and the Beak thermos are neck-a-neck in the sturdiness stakes once more. But our little flutter with mortality has given me cause to reflect: Have I given the same quality of companionship to the Great Dane as he has given to me? Have I been kind enough, engaging enough, funny enough, loving enough? Have I brought real joy to his life as he has to mine?

And these reflections have driven me to develop my own ideas regarding choice and quality.

I still agree with Kevin: The things you touch most should be of the highest quality possible. 

But I think a more important maxim would be this: The manner in which we touch another’s life should be of the highest quality possible.

Thank you Great Dane for living your own life by this maxim. You’re a Danish design classic.