Manolo for the Home

Channel 4 recently polled ten thousand people to determine which British buildings are despised the most. Twelve structures were chosen, spanning a variety of locales, and I can’t help but agree with those who were polled. Tastes may change, but I’m not surprised that many of these hated buildings are boxy, gray, and otherwise extremely drab.

Crown House, in Kidderminster, is a prime example of blah architecture. It once housed the Inland Revenue, but to me it looks like the yawn-worthy dormitory buildings I lived in while at university.

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Modernization was the buzzword — if they indeed had buzzwords — in the pre- and post second world war years. Design, architecture, and urban development bordered on futuristic during the Mid-Century Modern (MCM) period, yet the philosophy incorporated natural shapes, simplicity, and democratic design.

I’m not always a fan of modern design because I think too much of it is what it is because its creators were hoping to attain the right look, I do like MCM homes. When done right, form and function balanced each other out. There’s no bulk for bulk’s sake — spaces and furniture were (and still are) designed to be open, accessible, functional, and pleasant.

Mid-Century Modern Furniture describes the MCM movement thusly:

A time when new technology combined with the sensibilities of the day allowed for a myriad of possibilities. The result: an “honest” design philosophy that has withstood the test of time. Fifty years later, the works of these groundbreaking architects and designers, including George Nelson, Charles and Ray Eames, Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Jens Risom, Florence Knoll, Isamu Noguchi, Jean Prouve, and Verner Panton among others, are more popular than ever.

Plus, you can’t beat the colors…oh, how I love the colors!

I hate to admit it, but I’ve always kind of hated textured walls. They drive me a little crazy, partly because my eye wants to see patterns even though there aren’t any actual patterns there. They’re also hard as heck to get really clean. I know this because I have six younger siblings, and I watched them turn my father’s walls into something less than lovely.

On the other hand, adding a little texture to a wall or ceiling is a great way to camouflage voids, dents, dings, and other imperfections if you’re not keen on making actual repairs. Adding texture can be easy and it can be difficult — there’s textured paint, textured wallpaper, stuccos, drywall compounds, and fabrics.

There’s also this. The SS-Seesaw panels from Inhabit are designed to expand in any direction with an automatic pattern repeat. They’re visually interesting and they have an actual pattern? I’d say ’sign me up’ if I wasn’t so fond of a nice smooth wall. I’m also a touch lazy when it comes right down to it, and slapping on a coat of pretty paint is so easy.

Or maybe it’s because I grew up in a house that had walls that could rip the skin right off of a misplaced elbow?

If you’re a tea connoisseur like The Beard — or a tea cup connoisseur — how can you not love these “ted lights” from Domestic Construction? Besides the fact that they’re uberclever, they’re also just retro enough to be chic while still being subtle enough to blend into a modern space. Then again, a group of them would make a great focal point for a countryish space.

I’m not quite sure how one can acquire them outside of going to Brooklyn and knocking on the door with checkbook in hand. Domestic Construction appears to be a studio rather than a store, but apparently those local to the NYC area can buy some of their unique wares at Ricky’s.

Sucks to be the rest of us, I guess!

I like furniture like this Blue Dot Bonnie sofa and Clyde loveseat…in a showroom or on the pages of a magazine, that is. It’s fun to imagine buying a thoroughly modern house and decorating with futuristic furnishings, but I’ve always gravitated toward a countryish aesthetic because the associated furniture tends to look comfortable and inviting. Whether or not it is…that’s an entirely different story.

For all I know, this sofa is a dream to sit on, but it simply does not make me want to “take a load off.” When confronted with seating like this, I tend to park myself on the very edge and sit up very straight. It almost looks as if it belongs in the lobby of a rather nice hotel where it’s understood that while people do need to sit down, they won’t be sitting down very long.

I look at this sofa and can’t help but wonder: When does design trump comfort? Does it ever?

I just happened upon a The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Staging your Home, which is how you know some concept has officially entered the collective consciousness. Naturally, there’s also a Home Staging for Dummies.

I only saw a single staged home when searching for properties around Boston, and I was more than a bit surprised. I saw many, many houses that looked like the owners (or previous owners) hadn’t even bothered to run a dust cloth over the windowsills. Personally, I was mortified when I couldn’t really even tidy up when showing my old apartment. Yes, I could clean the cat hair out of the corners, but the mountains of boxes made staging utterly impossible. However, the apartment was in a desirable area and cheap to boot, so it was snapped up quickly.

Why stage? According to a study conducted by Realtor Joy Valentine, staged homes tend to sell more quickly than their un-staged counterparts. Even better, the average difference between the sale price and the list price is 6.3%, versus a paltry 1.6% for unstaged homes. That means mo’ money. It’s pretty easy, too, when you consider the basic rules: declutter, let there be light, give a good first impression, show off your trendiest and more beautiful stuff, make rooms look bigger, and hide life’s detritus.

You are, after all, selling a HOUSE not a HOME, and there’s a big difference between the two. My mother-in-law had a beautiful house filled with fabulous antiques that really enhanced the space from the point of view of someone living in the house. But her house didn’t sell until she took the advice of her Realtor and put all those wonderful pieces in storage. He said, and I quote loosely, that people coming to see the house were gushing over her antiques and forgetting all about scrutinizing the structure housing them. Oops!

Here are some basic staging tips from About.com:

• Arrange sparse pieces of furniture in an appealing grouping known as a vignette
• Showcase a generous usage of soft fabrics such as silk, lambswool, satin
• Display unusual knickknacks in units of 1, 3 or 5
• Drape window coverings with simple lines
• Add unique elements to shelving, bookcases and fireplace mantels, which draw attention to predetermined areas

If your furniture isn’t that hot, pick the best pieces and stow the rest. If you don’t have any high-end knickknacks, pick the funkiest, hippest ones that will have mass appeal–think a kitschy vintage glass elephant statue, not a penis-shaped lava lamp. Frankly, I try to keep my kitchen and living room at a staged home level of neatness all the time because, hey, I never know when the Queen or Patrick Stewart might drop by.

Whatever you do, for goodness sakes don’t “chop” your pillows. That was considered cool for about a week until someone finally had the guts to tell the San Francisco staging company that started it all that chopped pillows look ridonculous.

I like things that look like other things, and this Bradbury & Bradbury Atomic Age wallpaper fits the bill. When I look at it, I see beautiful bolts of cloth…but that might just be the sewing enthusiast in me. The cool thing is, as I see it, that the patterns I drool over when shopping for fabric are being translated into wall coverings and ceramics and more. Or maybe it’s happening the other way around, with the decor sweeping onto the scene first and changing the direction that everything else is taking.

That’s one of my favorite things about design in general–really amazing colors and patterns eventually show up everywhere. When you find a piece of furniture or a yard of fabric that just strikes you as being oh so right for the times or the season or the political climate or whatever, chances are good that it will eventually inspire the people making clothes, housewares, jewelry, linens, and so on.

If safety is your first concern, why can’t beauty be a close second?

Back in the day, I lived in a grand old New York City apartment in a part of Brooklyn teeming with gang activity. That’s why the rent was so cheap, of course. We had multiple locks on the doors and one of those little chain things that’s supposed to let you chat safely with people you don’t know — even though it’s painfully obvious that one good shove would rip it right out of the wall.

The clever security device above was designed by Oleg Morev (of Art. Lebedev Studio) as part of ThinkGeek’s annual April Fools catalog, but I don’t care that it wasn’t real. I don’t care that I live in a safer-than-safe suburban neighborhood. I don’t care that I’m shite at solving mazes unless I run them backwards. I want one anyway!

Amsterdam based designer Monique Goossens creates playful, homey art pieces that are delightful in their unexpectedness.

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find out much about Ms. Goossens. Her web site is nothing more than a placeholder for what I imagine will be some wonderful content. For now, I’ve placed some photos of her lovely stuff below the cut.

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My favorite area in Disney’s Epcot Center was always the little alcove I liked to call Morocco World. Being the Epcot was generally boring as dirt, I had to latch on to something. Now they have characters from Aladdin prancing around and things like Test Track right across the way, so I wonder if quite so many kiddies will lose themselves in the geometric patterns and abstract design found in that pavilion.

I was reminded of all this when perusing You Love Me & It’s Heavenly, as the future Mrs. Cruz posted some images from Zara Home. Putting aside for the moment that this shop apparently limits the sale of its wares to *sniff* a great many places other than the US, I’m tremendously in love with their showcase rooms.

If Moroccan influences just aren’t your bag, there’s still plenty to see. In fact, a quick tour of the Zara Home web site reveals design elements borrowed from just about everywhere. Stark, cold whites can be found next to browns reminiscent of safaris gone by. Then there are tropical greens, vivid pinks, and muted, modern grays.

Americans, as I mentioned earlier, are plain out of luck for now, so all I can do is look longingly at the web site, cross my fingers, and hope that Zara Home makes its way to this part of the globe.