Kohler: The good, the bad, and the ugly
By Never teh BrideEvery manufacturer of everything everywhere has hits and misses. Now I’m cool with Kohler — The Beard and I just basically fell into imposed brand loyalty because all of the faucets and sinks in the house are Kohlers. That’s all right, though, because everything (thankfully!) is to my liking. It would pain me to have to have to replace perfectly functional fixtures.
Yet, as in all things, there is balance in the house of Kohler. For every win, there is a loss. For every extreme, there is something that can be defined as squarely middle of the road.
The good:
Kohler’s Crimson Topaz reminds me of the time I spent living in Costa Rica, if only because my mother’s friend’s sink was full of flowers, just like this one. I suppose it’s not in keeping with everyone’s tastes, but it’s quite in line with mine…provided it’s housed in a bathroom otherwise devoid of devoid of girly stuff.
The bad(ish):
I almost like this…I want to like it, but I just can’t get past the fact that the Kohler Tellieur looks like it belongs in a restaurant bathroom. Or maybe I’m just not modern and/or hip enough to appreciate it?
The (seriously) ugly:
You know your personal style is pretty firmly established when you’re seriously considering theKohler Zanzibar sink. I have to admit that I do love animal prints, but if your home has enough of them to warrant this sink then you and I need to have a serious talk.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:39 am
I’m reacting the same way as you are to all three. In fact, I’m wondering if there’s a version of that first one in lilac, because I’m thinking of using that color in our upstairs bathroom with a lot of very white tile. Anything, though, would be better than the attempt to ‘class up’ the room someone did once upon a time. They took a very countryish, rustic style bathroom and fitted it out with lots of fake gilt and bad faux marble, and a shower liner of Venetian gondoliers in gold. Ick. Oh, and none of it has aged well.
Speaking of gold, I think the biggest problem with the third one isn’t the animal print. It isn’t the gold. It’s the fact that they combined animal print, gold, and flowers in the same damn sink. Any one of the above could work nicely. Either the flowers or the animal print could have worked with the gold…but they stuck all three together when any two of the above would be on the verge of bad taste. And then they didn’t go far enough to make it gloriously Vegas-tacky. They stopped just shy of that point and wound up with merely tacky.
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I actually like the Tellieur for a Eastern influence powder room. Could be very yin and yang. But that Zanzibar is psychotic and bi-poplar. There is no excuse for this combination.
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I feel like you guys, I think. I’m not opposed to animal prints — even in bathrooms — but mixing it up like that is just…ick. It puts the whole thing over the edge.