Growing up, I never once encountered plastic furniture covers. My grandparents, who had the most chic furnishings my little girl mind could envision, sat directly on their couches and chairs, ate meals off their dining room table, and walked on their lovely Oriental rugs. Plastic furniture covers were something you saw on TV shows about elderly people with ridiculous pretensions. Furthermore, the furnishings under said covers were never as nice as my grandparents’ stuff. Thus, I concluded it was an affectation used for comedic effect in fiction.

Oh, how wrong I was. The images below both came from a listing I found via It’s Lovely! I’ll Take it!, which means that someone out there is still protecting the integrity of their furniture from rogue butt prints and spills.

I wonder if it comes off in summertime, when bare, sunburned legs are most likely to be thrust into the agony zone by the amazing adhesive properties of smooth plastic…

Those two-part covers must take a while to put on, what with at least six dining room chairs. Then when company is coming, they have to come off! And when company leaves, it’s time to put them back on again. It’s exhausting keeping furniture this clean!

For those who have known someone with plastic furniture covers, I must ask whether there is an unspoken hierarchy of visitors. Do professionals stopping by for whatever reason get to sit on bare chairs? What about relatives that one sees all the time? Or is the privilege reserved for relatives and loved ones who don’t visit often? I am curious because I would be much more embarrassed to have people see my plastic covers than to have them see a small stain or bit of schmutz on the couch.

As you can probably imagine, I subscribe to a lot of magazines that focus on the making of a home. I adore being given a window into the houses of people with a lot more money, time, and creativity than I happen to have right now because I’m inspired to make my own house that much nicer and more comfortable. More often than not, however, I’m dismayed to learn that the individual being interviewed did not choose his or her own color schemes, furniture, and accessories, but rather employed the services of a professional who chose everything. How, I wonder, does that help the rest of us who have aspirations of chicness, but not the money to outsource our homes?

That’s why I was pleased to read this piece of advice from Mimi Reilly in Real Life Decorating:

“You’ve got to have a sense of yourself,” she says, “what makes you happy, what makes you tick. And then you have to make the leap: You have to trust yourself.”

In an interview, Reilly shared other, more specific tips like “Keep things a little quirky” and “Focus on the details,” but that first quote just nails it for me. Last week in the comments, the lovely class-factotum brought up the difference between being fashionable and being stylish. When you have a sense of yourself and you trust in that sense, stylishness will inevitably follow. You may not always be fashionable, but who cares about that?

Let’s say you want to integrate the side table below into your generally old fashioned decor…

Ask yourself if you love it, if you’ll use it, and if you think it will look sharp in the spot you’d like to put it. If the answer is yes to all three, but you’re worried about whether or not other people will like it or approve of it, worry no more. Trust yourself and your sensibilities, and YOU will create a home YOU adore. That’s what’s really important, right? You, after all, are the one who has to live there!

Director Roland Emmerich bought a house in the Knightsbridge district of London, only to find out that his new ‘hood was a little staid for his tastes. Presumably to ensure that he wasn’t unduly influenced by the relative conservatism of his neighbors, he (according to a slideshow in the NY Times) “instructed the designer, John Teall, of Flux Interiors, to make it so that ‘when the neighbors peek in, they might want to call the police or something.’ A taxidermy zebra faces the living room, which reflects his predilection for art with a political edge.”

Ooh, cheeky. I rather like the dolls in the fireplace.

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Trends bug me. A lot. For one thing, keeping up with what’s “in” takes a lot of dough when you’re talking about home decor. It’s way easier to dress fashionably on a budget than it is to keep one’s house completely up to date. Most of us just can’t afford to update our accessories, upholstery, furniture, and fixtures every couple of years. Then there’s the fact that almost every trend will be trendy again in a few decades. True story: My grandparents had this bizarre abstract mirrored wallpaper when I was a tot, and I would kill to find it again!

Thus, I tend to take the trends I read about in all of the home decor magazines I subscribe to with a grain of salt. The way I see it, if you stay true to your own style, you’ll be comfortable in your own home and said home will be trendy every couple of decades, no matter what you do to it. How’s that for low maintenance? The trick is to wait until whatever you like is hot, and then capitalize on that by buying a bunch of it or ganking other people’s ideas while there’s plenty of stuff and ideas to be had.

Below the cut are three trends I *can* get behind, mostly because you can take them and make them your own. It was super easy to find manifestations of each that I liked — and if you like them, click on the pics for more info.

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You’d think that the most expensive home on earth would cost more than a mere $500 million. Oddly enough, La Leopolda, with its proximity to Monte Carlo, its spectacular view of the sea, and its sprawling grounds tended by 50 gardeners, is the most expensive home in the world and just recently fetched a cool £250,000,000, paid by an oil rich oligarch said to be worth $23,500,000,000.

To be exact, I’m talking about Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, 41, and his 25-year-old oil heiress chippy, Daria Zhukova. Apparently, Abramovich has a real thing for properties along the Riviera and is snapping them up faster than you can say “Cabana boy party!”

Now, I don’t know about you, but judging by the fact that La Leopolda was previously sold to Bill Gates for a mere $76 million makes me wonder why Abramovich paid so much for this stately structure originally built for Belgian king Leopolds’ mistresses. Does he want to monopolize the French Riviera? Is he overcompensating for something?

It does look rather nice, all told. Housing prices trending like they do, I can’t imagine it will continue to be worth its current princely sum, so I am rolling my pennies in preparation for the next time La Leopolda goes into the market.

I buy my flour in bulk from King Arthur Flour, which means I get a new catalog in the mail every month. It never ceases to amaze me how many one-off gadgets and appliances are sold by a company that ostensibly caters to series bakers.

The most recent example of flagrant pointless was the peanut butter and jelly spreader. It has a spreader on each end so you can avoid contaminating your peanut butter with jelly and vice versa. I personally prefer to use a knife in the PB and a spoon in the J, but that’s just me. I’d watch out if you’re using a runny jam, lest you find your fingers gunked up by sweet stuff when you turn it over to scoop your nut butter.

Then there’s the S’mores maker, which unfortunately did not come from King Arthur Flour. Back in my day — I can’t believe I just wrote that — we used a plate if we wanted to microwave up some s’mores. I’m guessing moms prefer washing a plate to scrubbing the defibrillator hands of an anthropomorphized…something.

Who buys these things, anyway?

Fancy living in an igloo, but hate the cold? Consider foam instead of ice if you’re planning on building a house from scratch. The high-density expanded polystyrene foam used to build dome homes is apparently a great insulator, meaning increased energy efficiency and lower heating and cooling bills.

Your neighbors might balk a little at your well-rounded domicile, but I bet they’ll want their own dome homes when you tell them that Styrofoam brings with it benefits that wood and metal just can’t match. It doesn’t rust or attract wood-hungry bugs, it will still be standing after an earthquake or typhoon, and the materials cost just under $30,000. As for transportation and assembly…you do have to figure those into the final price.

Other benefits?

• Great air circulation
• Formaldehyde free
• Shape helps to dissipate wind energy
• No posts or beams to collapse
• No deforestation

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I’m running short on time today while my to-do list is getting bigger and bigger and bigger, so I thought I’d present you with some snapshots of interiors that I find particularly inspiring in their use of color, their elegance, and their originality. Enjoy!

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