50 Shades of Gray
By I like looking at interior design magazines. Looking, only looking. I’ve tried reading them and just can’t. They’re all written in this incredibly assholish, un-self-aware manner. I understand why most of the homes featured in these magazines belong to the moneyed elite–they’re the ones who have the moolah to buy the gorgeous stuff and hire the talented designers and architects. Fair enough. What bugs me is that there seems to be no acknowledgement that people who–hello!–aren’t wealthy may appreciate good design, too.
And, really, why the heck isn’t there a “design on a budget” or “design for the real world” publication out there? It seems to me that that is a niche that absolutely needs filling. I may like looking at homes that feature $500 cabinet pulls imported from Italy, but the truth is I would *never* be that decadent and anal about my own interior design choices, even if I could afford to be!
Fashion and interior design are two art forms I love desperately, but they are so wed to such toxic forms of snobbery I feel completely alienated from them. It’s really depressing.
And with that whiny intro, let me share with you my new show, “Decoratin’ with Poor People.” It’s just like “Duck Dynasty,” except I am not rich and my beard is more luxurious than any Duck patriarch’s.
My current home has a huge room on the upper floor that I am trying to turn into a lounge/playroom. I’m doing this on a fairly meager budget. We never have the furniture to fill the houses we live in, so I am starting mostly from scratch. I had a coffee table to use and that’s about it.
It was exciting but daunting to create a look from scratch, especially knowing I couldn’t just go nuts and purchase a bunch of fancy, expensive stuff to fill the space. I thought I’d use a pair of chairs as a jumping off point. So I found some fairly simple, “gray” ones for a steal online, but couldn’t imagine doing an entire sitting area in a boring neutral, so I decided to start with a gray palette, then *pop* the gray with yellow and lavender. I mean, what’s sunnier and poppier than yellow?
It was a decent enough idea; it didn’t quite turn the way I planned, however. All the “gray” things I bought to fill out the room were from completely different families of the color. The chairs were a mushroomy gray, the tables, were…purple; there’s no other way to say it. A gray-purple, yes, but still…purple. The “gray” chevron carpet I bought is, well, blue. I mean, I understand that grays often have a slight undertone of green or blue or brown or whatever, but none of the purchases I made were what I would refer to as an actual “gray.”
To make matters more comical, the “yellow” chevron pillows I bought to match the lemony lamps I purchased earlier bear no resemblance to the color yellow. Instead they are a deep goldenrod. I honestly have no idea where people get their sense of color from. Sheesh.
Is this a disaster? Hardly. These colors are all work together in the end: nothing clashes. Plus, I’m not a matchy-matchy person. But I really would have preferred to have felt less surprised by my choices.
Anyway, back to my original point…Sure there are beautiful homes out there, decorated by professionals, owned by nattily-dressed couples who probably have another home. But do any of these homes have a sitting area with a giant inflatable ball in it? No. Hence, I am best interior designer in the world.
