Manolo for the Home

The Beard has been my linkman lately, and he did not disappoint today. His latest find was a pictorial tour of Mike Tyson’s former home on Illicitohio, an awesome (AWESOME!) site that documents the adventures of one anonymous urban explorer. The home has apparently been empty since the 90s and is mostly empty of furniture. It’s fun to look at what Mike Tyson’s decor guru thought was hot and what was left in the house after he decided to leave.

The photos speak for themselves, really. There’s commentary over at Illicitohio if you’re interested in anon’s take on the house and the decor, but I’ll leave you with this thought before presenting a selection of photos: Everything you see, from the furniture to the rugs to the faux plants, was someone’s idea of a real stylin’ pad.

(more…)

Bathroom moisture issues aside, shower curtains seem relatively unimportant. It’s so easy to pick up a plain white or black or blue one at the drugstore and be done with it. But consider that shower curtains are BIG — they take up a lot of space, which means that a boring one creates a huge blah space. If your bathroom is already crazy interesting, then skip the cool curtain. But if your bathroom could use a little oomph, a new shower curtain can really freshen up that space.

Take a cue from these black-on-white stick figures and banish your morning blahs with a little impromptu dance number. They obviously know something we don’t.

I personally wouldn’t combine the Lucky Stripe curtain with the Lucky Stripe bathmat and the Lucky Strip accessories, but YMMV. Altogether it looks a bit too matchy-matchy. Mix it up!

I like this paisley number because it reminds me of wallpaper and scarves and other good things that have nothing to do with your average bathroom. Plus it can go just a touch longer than a plain white shower curtain without needing to be thrown in the washer! It’s win-win!

Like many people of the female persuasion, I love old fashioned bathtubs. I think my love affair with them began when I was tiny enough to be bathed by gentle hands in my great grandmother’s monstrous claw foot tub. How could I not love a bathroom fixture with feet? Put little tootsies on the toilet and I would have been in heaven!

The apartment I lived in before buying my house had a lot going for it. For one thing, it was cheap for the outskirts of Boston. It was relatively huge and had a porch big enough for two chairs, a table, a grill, and my collection of growing things in pots. The main downsides were the flaking floors, the omnipresent funky smell in the bathroom, a freezer that resembled Hoth, the ice planet, no matter how often we defrosted, and the landlord himself, for he was old and dimwitted.

Now I must (for the time being) content myself with a plain, boring, and slightly scratched up built-in tub. If the enamel on it was fresh and white and unblemished, it might not be so bad, but no matter how hard you scrub and sweat and swear, it simply never looks clean. I’d gladly swap it out for this tub of hand-formed and hammered copper!

(more…)

Every now and again, my mailbox is inundated with home decor magazines. Where all of them have converged in recent months is in their liberal use of blue. It’s not just one particular sort of blue, either. There are Greenwich blues and icy blues and cornflower blues and cobalt blues. Light greenish blues seem to be dominating at this time, but there certainly seems to be plenty of room for other competing blues.

Did I mention that other than black, blue is my favorite color? There are millions upon billions of ways one can integrate a color into a home decor scheme. Sometimes it’s hard to decide what to do because there are so many options, but seeing what others have done can be all the inspiration one needs. Below you’ll find some blue interiors that will get your creative juices flowing.

The thought of painting a floor never really occurred to me until just now. As it turns out, The Beard and I have an unfinished floor in the upper story of our home and I’m sorely tempted to start laying down color!

(more…)

I always regarded the novelty plungers Adam Sandler sells in Punch Drunk Love as being fairly ridiculous…until, that is, I stumbled upon the surprisingly wide world of novelty toilet seat covers. You want barbed wire embedded in acrylic? No problem. How about faux marble? It’s out there. Yes, you’ll find everything from roaring tigers to Asian script to leopard print, not to mention fish.

But the fun doesn’t end with fishies, though I must say I do pity the poor things. Below the cut you’ll find several more, er, interesting toilet seats. Me? I like a plain white bathroom where appliances are concerned because I can see that everything is squeaky clean.
(more…)

A hearty thanks to The Manolo for letting me know that Betsey Johnson’s New York apartment was recently estate of the day over at Luxist. Had he not shared this link, I never would have had a chance to see into this Pepto Bismol world that is currently on the market for a cool $3.6 mil.

This is pretty much what I’d imagine Betsy Johnson’s living spaces looking like if you asked me to take a best guess at describing her digs.

I love the jutting sink, and you’ll never hear me saying no to extra cabinet space. The half-concealed toilet? I’m not so sure about that–it brings to mind images of airplanes and Greyhound buses. The bowl seems to be lost in space, like the plumber has temporarily set it down there while he prepares a more fitting spot for it in some other part of the lavatory. Plus, I can’t imagine it would be at all convenient when plumbing repairs are in order.

What say you?

There aren’t many things for the home I would consider swapping The Beard for, but after a long and annoying day, an evening spent lounging in a whirlpool bath sounds a lot better than an evening spent discussing pending bills. He’s lucky that Fuzion baths are built for two.