Decor Crimes: Get the Look

country kitchen: wood units

Shaker kitchen: wood-effect units with fake tongue-and-groove panelling (Genuine Shaker furniture is pictured.)

It’s really, really dated. The kitchen’s from the 80s! (Your House Made Perfect)

I’d like to contemporize this kitchen. Those tiles aren’t really me. (Escape to the Country)

We want a contemporary country kitchen. (My Dream Derelict Home. It’s the same old island plus bright white units.)

I think what we’re looking for is "period modern", if that makes any sense. (Man on Escape to the Country. Alastair Appleton translated it as “period property with open-plan kitchen”.)

Modernish but not too modern, because this 60s bungalow has got a bit of a cottagey feel. (Homes under the Hammer)

I’m all about colour. (Contestant on The Great Interior Design Challenge. She painted everything grey.)

Martin Roberts: What are your plans for this house?
Buyer: To put back as many original features as possible.
(He probably means “Put in an inappropriate wooden regency-style fire surround and a wood-burning stove”. Does nobody know what the word "original" means? Homes under the Hammer)

Another Homes under the Hammer buyer thinks he’s “restored” his terraced house by stripping all the woodwork. The Girls’ Own Annual 1920 moans that if you buy an olde-worlde cottage the beams will be covered in layers of whitewash. And all the doors, window-sills etc will be painted cream. GOA advises you to strip it all.

“Victorian” restoration with fitted carpet, walls and wood painted navy, and a faux-Tudor fireplace.

So many people buy period homes and ‘love the character’, and then run scared and find it easier to buy everything new from a shop and decide period features are not ‘practical for modern life.’ (Via FB)

Why do so many people make a grand house look like a cottage? (Via FB)

Apparently big renovation projects get you lots of followers on Instagram. And I suppose a "restoration show" would not sell the furniture, fabric, wallpaper and paint colours that are currently on the market.

More here, and links to the rest.

Get the Look II

Dickensian

Stylist strips a genuinely retro room from the 60s and replaces all the décor with “the retro look”. “Now it’s a sophisticated retro living room.” There’s a pale sideboard, and an oval coffee table. (Britain’s Ugliest Rooms)

Dear ebay – there is no such thing as “Art Deco Nouveau Victorian”, or "vintage retro Art Deco Edwardian style", for that matter.

Oh, so a 1791 building containing jukebox, baseball photos, a fibreglass rhino & Egyptian cat is "Dickensian"? (Douglas Murphy ‏@entschwindet)

Exposed stone and olde beames – Victorian? The Victorians would have a fit.

industrial chic (Joss & Main) metal pendant lights made for the market and given distressed paint effects (“Channel the loft look with this industrial-inspired lighting selection.”)

contemporary classics, polished Parisian (more styles offered by Joss & Main)

Weathered and Worn: industrial chic décor for the whole home
The Treasure Trove: accents brimming with country charm (they include a distressed chest and a wire dressmaker’s dummy made as an item of furniture)
Seaside Soiree: coastal cookware and serveware (aqua crockery, copper pans)
A Rustic Welcome: industrial-style hallway refreshers (“reclaimed” wood and an antique-looking mailbox)
All from Joss & Main

Pacific Lifestyle (John Lewis – it’s a copper lantern)

Zoe on Money for Nothing, on decorating a utility chest of drawers: "slightly more traditional, more heritage, more arts and crafts design... masculine, and kind of audacious, and making a statement." (It’s a vaguely Art Nouveau flowers, leaves and fruit design.)

Seven urban warehouse boutique style family homes over four floors

Classic retro with an industrial twist – passionate about mid-century and simple retro designs – with a bit of kitsch thrown in – how you can make them appealing and attractive now... (French Collection)

It’s that shabby chateau look we’re all looking for. (Mark Franks)

The furnishing and appointments of the room were of that style which is believed to be oriental by quite a large number of people. (Edgar Wallace)


I am to dress like a German Milkmaid, a Romanian flower-seller, and an Edwardian rapscallion without invoking "cultural appropriation". (A model explains her “style”. A German responded that they don’t have milkmaids in Germany – it’s all done by machine.)

Time to quote this George du Maurier heroine again:

Fair Client: "I want it to be nice and baronial, Queen Anne and Elizabethan, and all that; kind of quaint and Nuremburgy you know—regular Old English, with French windows opening to the lawn, and Venetian blinds, and sort of Swiss balconies, and a loggia. But I'm sure you know what I mean!" (Punch, November 29, 1890).

More here.

Get the Look 2

The 60s were all about colour

Yes, I’m addicted to property and makeover programmes. You don’t need to know any design history, just throw around words like cottage, rustic, country, original, shabby, Victorian, French farmhouse. As somebody said, the French wouldn’t recognise it. And it all seems to mean “paint everything grey”.


If you want to “preserve the character” of your older home, strip back the fireplace to a hole in the wall (and call it an inglenook), and install a woodburning stove. Remove ALL other original features. “Preserve the Victorian character” seems to mean “remove all Victorian characteristics”. (And “Victorian” seems to mean “olde worlde and rustic”.)

The 17th century Shakers wouldn’t recognise a “Shaker kitchen”, either, and nor would the 70s designers who revived the look.

“30s-style, inspired by..., reflects the...”
“It’s shabby chateau!”
“French farmhouse, rustic probably” (some carved wood).
“Love the kitchen, it’s got the country modern feel.”

“They’ve reclaimed these floorboards from a Victorian church.”
“Right – quite rustic!”

“It’s got a cottage feel to it.” (Escape to the Country)
“The 60s were all about colour!” (Great Interior Design Challenge has never heard of Op Art.)
“It’s glamorous, opulent, classic, shabby chic, French rustic.” (Great Interior Design Challenge)

“The new bathroom is elegant and captures a period feel.” (Homes under the Hammer)
“It’s kind of vintage but modern and relevant.” (Homes under the Hammer)
“It’s not cottagey, but it’s got that old-fashioned look to it.” (Homes under the Hammer)

“The kitchen is sympathetic to the style of the property.” (Escape to the Country But it’s not IN the style of the property.)

“But don’t get carried away too much, or you’ll end up living in a museum, and you don’t want that.” (Nick Knowles’ Original Features)
“I want to be faithful to the period (1900), but not so it’s like a museum, maybe a modern twist on the 1920s.” (Homes under the Hammer So that’s “completely unfaithful to the period”, then.)

A B&B in Bath has a “subdued, minimalist style”, with whitewashed walls, sisal carpets, oriental vases and crystal chandeliers (and you can get a "standard king-sized" room). (The Times Feb 2014 Yes, it’s a chandelier, but it’s a subdued chandelier.)

“The council is poised to knock down 16 houses in Dalston Lane thought to date from 1807 and replace them with new buildings in ‘heritage likeness’.” (Hackney Gazette, January 2014 The terrace was reprieved, and an organisation has offered to do the renovation. Hackney Council has turned down the offer. Aug 2014)

“Design is cyclical. Look how retro design is back in vogue. What we have done is take designs that have served us well over the years and remodelled them and they look very current now.  Nothing came close to the popularity of the daisy-chain patterned fabric designed by Pat Albeck, which arrived in 1964… her daughter-in-law has reworked the design for a teapot.” (John Lewis spokesman, Times, April 2014. They couldn’t quiiiiiite bring themselves to revive the original. The “reworked” design on the teapot looks nothing like the original Daisychain.) More here, and links to more about decor.

Pat Albeck's Daisychain fabric