Decor Quotes

Mansion house

Don’t buy big just because you can. McMansions are so aesthetically awful, ecologically offensive, and ostentatious. Do you really need eight bedrooms? (Males, Nails, Sample Sales by Stephanie Pearson)

I know you like shape, form, colour and texture! (Great Interior Design Challenge)

There’s a strong luxury presence out there – especially at the classic end. (Manufacturer of de luxe bedroom furniture on BBC Breakfast. Think he means "rich people".)

It is all the more shocking when you see the miserable-looking 1920's and 30's art-deco houses that the upper-middle class have traded for their former elegant 19th century residences. (eupedia.com forum on the way immigrants live in Brussels’ 19th century centre while the rich have moved out to the suburbs: the city is just “the wrong way round”. Because of course 19th century houses ought to be inhabited by rich people, and it’s all wrong that they are forced to live in ghastly Art Deco monstrosities.)

Entering Dromborg Castle is like stepping into the past. The interior has exquisite details, including hand-carved moldings, fluted columns, high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, and antique lighting. The master suite has an appointments suitable for a lord and lady of the manor, complete with two dressing rooms, Tudor arches, marble tubs, and a sitting room. A chapel, men’s lounge, map room and wine cellar help complete the illusion. (time.com describes a nouveau riche home, Feb 2012)

With his black-walnut furniture, his jig-saw and turning-lathe methods of decoration, his lincrusta-walton and pressed terracotta, his chromos, wax flowers, hoop skirts, chokers, side whiskers and pantalettes, went a horrific revival of mock modesty inspired by the dying efforts of the old formulated religious thought. (Are You A Bromide? Gelett Burgess on mid-Victorian décor and attitudes.)

his jig-saw and turning-lathe methods of decoration: fretwork, often produced by amateurs

lincrusta-walton: patent shiny embossed wallpaper

pressed terracotta: bricks with decorative moulding

chromos: gaudily coloured and sentimental chromolithograph prints

hoop skirts: crinolines

pantalettes: lacy trousers to conceal women’s ankles and more

More here and links to the rest.