If you had a kazillion dollars...

[sholio]

... you too could live in a house furnished entirely in white fur and driftwood!

rachelmanija and I found this site of showcase homes and now we can't stop mocking it.

For example, appreciate this house which looks like relatively normal minimalist design at first glance but reveals new depths of bonkers the more you scroll down. The giant skulls! The ladder to nowhere! The bag covered with eyes! The incomprehensible taps in the bathroom! (Evenings are punctuated by screams as guests and residents try to figure out how to take a bath without scalding themselves.)

And let's not overlook the little girl's room in which the only decoration is a four-foot-high portrait of a parakeet that looks like it's planning to eat you as soon as the lights go out.

Elsewhere in Bonkers Designville, what do you want in a house with three kids? Three white sofas!

I also appreciate the hallway bench that looks like it came straight out of an airport waiting area. "My client loved it the moment she saw it and understood what I was trying to evoke," says the associated quote from the designer. Yes, and what you're evoking is "I just missed my connecting flight to Belgium."

Also, storing your plants in the fireplace is apparently a thing. (The fireplace is also a useful space in which to store your driftwood!)

And the children's rooms continue to be nightmare fuel, as evidenced by this house in which some poor little girl gets to do homework while staring directly into the eyes of Judgmental Barbie from a foot and a half away. Also, what could be better as a design element in a small child's bedroom than a tippy and breakable vase full of sticks? (At least this child has actual toys, unlike the one with the hungry parakeet.)

Comments

[yhlee]

Holy shit, you weren't kidding about Judgmental Barbie...

[sholio]

It would be bad enough on the wall, but it's literally AT EYE LEVEL and 2 feet in front of the chair. What even.

[ginger_rude]

Eep.

[sholio]

Someone paid a lot of money to do this to their houses!

[aelfgyfu_mead]

WOW.

[sholio]

WORDS FAIL ME.

[rachelmanija]

The airport bench is a download, not a link.

I can't decide if my "favorite" is the ladder to nowhere, the parakeet from hell, or the skull sitting ON THE SOFA.

[sholio]

Huh, it works like a link for me! Maybe it's a browser/filetype issue? I'll check in another browser.

I can't decide if my "favorite" is the ladder to nowhere, the parakeet from hell, or the skull sitting ON THE SOFA.

I wonder how many times a day she has to yell at her kids to stay off the ladder and get out of the giant shallow dish of glass balls.

[rachelmanija]

It's a link in Chrome and a download in Safari. Weird.

I forgot about the dish of glass balls!

[sholio]

It's a link in Chrome and a download in Safari. Weird.

Huh, yeah, I just discovered that. My best guess is that the site I'm linking to has packaged the normal JPG file in a weird file type (when I download from Chrome, it downloads as a "webm", whatever that is) that Chrome recognizes but Safari doesn't. INTERNET, WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.

I forgot about the dish of glass balls!

I also just noticed when I went back to look at something else on that page (the bonkers parakeet house) that there's a chair in the first living room picture that's shaped like a hand cupping your ass.

[conuly]

They only have to fall off once to learn to be more careful on the random ladder. Ask me how I know....

[rachelmanija]

I found one headlined "It's Cancer Season - Here's How to Decorate Like the Water Sign." It took me a moment to read the second part...

[sholio]

It's the disease trend of the season! Don't be left behind! And look forward to Spring 2020: cholera!

[sholio]

THE GIFTS UNDER $50 PAGE

"It may sound like an overstatement to suggest that fun, creative, genuinely interesting gifts under $50 abound in a way that gifts under $25 simply do not. But it’s true."

And then they proceed to showcase an entire page of $50 gifts that mainly fall into the categories of "expensive scented candles," "weird looking vases," and "decor items that look like they were made from thrift store cookie tins."

ETA: This Christmas I'm giving my loved ones a $38 towel that says "Wish You Were Here". I bet they won't wish I'd spent that money on literally anything else!

[rachelmanija]

It's like a catalogue of every awful gift I've ever gotten from relatives I only ever see at Christmas.

[sholio]

I KNOW RIGHT??

Amusingly, the gifts under $25 are actually much better! You can get teapots, journals, planters shaped like kitties, a tiny waffle maker that I actually kinda want, and this set of cheese-stabbing implements that look like they should be used on Mrs. Peacock in the library.

[leesa_perrie]

Oh please someone buy me those cheese-stabbing implements stat!!! I'm not telling you what I want them for... :D :D

(Yeah, nothing dodgy about them at all!)

[leesa_perrie]

I can't decide between that hold anything mirrored tray (that will constantly need dusting/polishing) or the leopard teapot that, even as someone who likes leopards, I wouldn't give house room to...

Or maybe the female shape vases? Hmm, Dad would like them, not so sure Mum would though!!! :D :D

[sushiflop]

"Each candle promises to “ward off negative energy and promote good vibes”—an exciting proposition, and an assuredly fragrant one, too."

this is my favorite sentence lmaooooo

[recessional]

I kind of love that house, although I would need everything to be tinted/accented with burnt reds and burnt yellows.

I'm not sure what this says about me.

(Yes I would still have the skulls.) (Actually let me correct myself: I would have more skulls, and it would include animal skulls. Also the parakeet would be something I would not do myself but okay, sure, if my little girl wanted a giant pink parakeet she could have it.) (My sister's room is even pinker than that.)

Also, and I will stop editing this comment now: the plants-in-fireplace thing started as a "so your house has a fireplace and you don't want to spend a jillion dollars getting RID of it, how do you make it not just A Gaping Hole in your living-room?" thing, in decorating, leading to a trend of blocking it up and putting Visual Interest in the space.

Again, I kinda like it. *HANDS*

[sholio]

Honestly, I think the main thing that makes that house bizarre to me is not that it has skulls and other eclectic design elements, it's the contrast between the skulls in parts of the house and the white minimalism elsewhere -- it's the mismatch that reads wrong, like the odd items are just there to be odd conversation pieces instead of things that have personal meaning for the owner. I kinda feel like if the entire house was cluttered with weird in the way that parts of it seem to want to be, it would actually be really fascinating and inviting.

YMMV, obviously!

ETA: One thing I do really appreciate about that house is that it has a lot more personality than some of the others do.

[recessional]

I wonder how much of that comes down to how things are photographed, too. I mean I am already assuming that it was Totally Cleaned Up and Perfectly Tidied for the photographs (the text insists that her kids are in and out and "the doors never stop swinging" and you just cannot maintain a house in that state if that's a true statement even with an actual MAID XD), so.

It has the kind of minimalism that I kind of would like to achieve someday that seems to be from there being enough space that everything HAS a place, but also allows for empty and clear spaces that appear to be (to me) meant to be that, which is visually soothing for me. It's actually an ongoing struggle for me to have things functional (the stuff I need accessible and to hand) while also not being visually cluttered in a way that makes my brain tired and anxious.

I am also, lbr, COMPLETELY UNABASHEDLY in love with shit like the master bed light fixtures and the weird taps (and mason-jar cups): I don't know why, but I love them. XD I just can't AFFORD them, and they really do look REALLY out of place/ugly if they're not a consistent design choice all the way through a space, you know? So I don't even have as many as I'd like, because I've yet to be able to do over a whole space that way and afford it.

There are ways in which I am the most hipster, except that I am unironically enthusiastic about it and I hear hipsters aren't allowed to be like that.

[lunabee34]

So much white. I've already gotten that place dirty just by looking at it. LOL

[maplemood]

Elsewhere in Bonkers Designville, what do you want in a house with three kids? Three white sofas!

That's the part that's just unbelievable to me. I mean, I'd assume that if you can pay to have your house designed like that you can also pay someone to constantly clean your three white sofas, but still...

[glorious_spoon]

OH MY GOD, those are amazing

The children's rooms especially. I get that it's staged (...or, I really, REALLY hope it is...), but it makes me want to post pictures of my child's bedroom, which is lovingly decorated with torn Disney stickers everywhere she can reach. I mean, I kind of love the kid's room in a weird way, but it doesn't really look like a room that any child actually sleeps in.

I just... I have so much trouble believing that any human being, let alone a human being with children in their house, lives like this. The random breakable things in inconvenient locations! Why?

/I have cats and children though, so.

[sheron]

wow these are terrible! D: there's at least one piece in each composition which turns it from "okay I guess" to "#NOPE" for me

[madripoor_rose]

Oh my god, it's Catalog Living only for real?!

https://catalogliving.net/

[mecurtin]

That was exactly what I was thinking! It's COMPLETELY the Catalog Living aesthetic!

[madripoor_rose]

Gary and Elaine would totally have their own HGTV show these days, too. I miss that blog.

[lilacsigil]

It's a galah! A very common, very very loud bird! Also, they can live for something like 80 years, so I hope they're prepared to keep that paining up for a long, long time!

[ratcreature]

That is horrid.

I don't think it's really "minimalist" design though if you have useless vases with decorative flowers littered everywhere.

My brother has a very light couch with non-removable cover fabric, despite having two kids an two large dogs (though to be fair, the dogs came after the couch), and it's by now a stained light couch, covered in washable blankets. So people do make these ill advised choices...

[leesa_perrie]

Giant skulls - there's even a cushion skull in one of the photos!! What is that about?! The parakeet is not a friendly looking parakeet (poor kid) and the ladders, well, clearly you never know when a ladder might be needed at short notice, lol! And as for the bath taps? Only geniuses allowed, it would seem!! :D

Three kids and white sofas? Oh yeah, like that's a match made in heaven!! *rolls eyes*

Though lol at 'the airport waiting area' and 'just missed my flight' comments, because that's exactly what it looks like!! And I have no idea why you'd want to store plants there! Or store firewood instead of, I don't know, using it!!

Yet another poor kid with nightmares! Many dolls look creepy to me anyway, this one is pure evil! But hey, the kid can get his/her own back by tipping over that breakable jar, just for fun!! :D

Sometimes, when I watch TV shows about building and/or decorating houses, I go 'yes, that's nice', but more often I'm left wondering what planet they're from, and how an earth is any of that actually practical?!

The only thing I've seen so far that I'd love in my house is this utility room where the washer and dryer where lifted off the ground so you didn't have to bend to put washing in/out (so a good half metre off the ground), with a couple of nifty shelves that pulled out for the washing basket to sit on!! Now that is clever and I want one!!!! But I'd have to buy another house, no room here for anything fancy and downright useful as that!

[oracne]

I...kinda like some of that. BECAUSE it's wacky.

[sholio]

I do honestly enjoy the bonkers-ness. Most of it's not my personal aesthetic, but I would totally have some of these items in my home. :D

[krait]

I really like the wall with the collection of seascapes. Would absolutely have that in my house (if I had a big enough house, and enough money to buy 17 seascape paintings) and admire it every day.

[krait]

Ahahahaha!

"The vintage shearling TeVe chairs by Alf Svensson in the girls' room were a perfect example of playing with soft, warm textures and more sleek materials, and the scale is perfect for the children," says Mulholland. "We found them through 1stdibs through a dealer in Sweden."

If only I had the kind of money where importing vintage chairs from Sweden (in a hard-to-wash material, in a light colour!) was a reasonable decorating move. O.o

[sholio]

For your KIDS, too! These are some of the least child-friendly child's rooms I can imagine.

[krait]

I know, right?! (And I just noticed I left 'for your kids' off my sentence about the chairs; that was really the most baffling part. As a chair for your own bedroom, where you're going to sit on it to put on your shoes maybe five minutes a day? Sure, it looks cosy and the height could be convenient! But for kids? Bonkers.)

I am also laughing at this bit:

Her favorite thing about the space is the sense of ease you feel when you walk in—"Mi casa y su casa."

My house and your house, huh? Okay, when do I move in?

[sophia_sol]

What gets to me the most about all these houses is how much COLD WHITE is everywhere, on all of the walls and more! It really comes across to me as making the whole look for each house be uninviting and sterile, however interesting/bonkers any other design elements might be.

[viridian5]

My brother's kitchen ended up being infested with black mold so he had to remodel anyway, but he decided to go with light gray walls, medium gray stone counter tops with some glittery specks, dark gray cabinets, and stainless steel appliances. It looks so cold and unwelcoming. Hilariously, he's now angry that the appliances his wife's mother had installed in the house in the early '00s actually worked better than the expensive new stuff does.