Jungle Red Writers: Home decor

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Is this a dorm room or a hotel suite?

INGRID THOFT

Have you seen that video that's gone viral? The one that shows a tricked out dorm room at the University of Mississippi? Or maybe you've seen the ads from Home Goods and Marshalls that show shopping sprees that transform average dorm rooms into spaces worthy of a magazine spread?

There's no comparison between the dorms of my day and newly built offerings, like the Hub at Tucson at the University of Arizona, Tucson, which features a roof-top pool, grilling gazebo, hammocks, en-suite baths, walk-in closets, and in-room laundry. The desire for luxury seems to be extending to the decorating done by students themselves; fancy headboards, wall stencils, and drapes are just some of the additions that never occurred to me back in the day.

How about a rooftop pool to go with your room?

My first dorm room was a triple on the 12th floor of Rubin Hall at NYU. The location was amazing: the corner of Fifth Avenue and 10th Street. The interior had less to recommend it, although the rooms did have en-suite baths because the building started its life as a hotel. I remember distinctly the green and purple duvet cover that I had purchased from IKEA and a few matching toss pillows, which seemed quite "House and Garden" at the time. There was no coordination between me and my roommates; the room looked like three separate people had moved in together.

Personalized wall stencils are all the rage

My sophomore year room was at Wellesley in the eaves of a building overlooking a lake. The view was nice, if we craned our necks, and my duvet cover came with me, as well as my poster of Michael Jordan featuring a William Blake quote: "No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings." Junior and senior years I had a single room and "decorated" them both with posters and personal items, but at the end of the day, those rooms looked like what they were: dorm rooms temporarily occupied by a student.

How about a mood board for your room?

I have mixed feelings about the trend of transforming dorm rooms into luxury hotel suites. Aside from the expense poured into these projects—which immediately broadcasts a student's financial standing—I worry that college students will have a rude awakening when they enter the real world and discover that replicating their college living quarters will be financially ruinous. And wasn't it nice when the only difference between your room and your neighbor's was the choice of posters or duvet covers?

My favorite college dorm story is that of my sister and her sophomore room at the University of Pennsylvania. When she got her room lottery number at the end of freshman year, she studied the layouts of the various dorms and zeroed in on the room that she wanted. She even visited the room once she'd claimed it, bringing her tape measure so she could figure out the best furniture arrangement. Home for the summer, she fantasized about her roomy room and looked forward to returning to school.

The kind of room I remember!

When she threw open the dorm room door in September, she discovered that over the summer Penn had done renovations—and cut her dorm room in half. She still could arrange her furniture as she liked, but only if the room were tipped on its side, since it did have quite a high ceiling! The best laid plans, foiled by Campus Housing!

What do you think? Should dorm rooms be luxurious? Should kids deck out their rooms like the Ritz?

Monday, June 13, 2016

On Deck(oration)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Surprised to see me at the helm again? Rhys, poor thing, is trapped in Tuscany, recovering from a grueling week heading up a writers' workshop there by drinking Chianti and eating cinghiale y crostini al tartufo. Let's all take a moment to feel sorry for Rhys.

The Spode Hunt ware

Okay, enough of that. Today I want to talk about home decoration, a topic we rarely touch on here at JRW, because we A) have been living in our homes so long we have all the comfy chairs right where we want them and B) barely have the time to make our beds, let alone repaint the living room. But I'm sure I'm not the only one to get the urge to shake things up every now and then. I do it seasonally, since I am the Queen of Slipcovers.

Now it's summer, I'm going to be replacing the green damask slipcovers on the living room chairs with white-on-white striped cotton covers. I have a whole box of pillow covers that come out in June as well - white and pale green and yellow instead of green-and-maroon and red-and-brown. The Spode hunt china with its autumnal colors goes back inside the china cupboard, and I display the Canton Rose instead - all bright and light. I'll put away the wool and plush throws and replace them with cotton ones, because this is Maine, and we're going to need to wrap up some nights, even in August!

Smoke stains and water damage!

In the parlour, the winter slipcovers of dark crimson not-really-velvet get swapped for coral and geranium, and the pillows will lighten up as well. For the rest of the downstairs - the library, the kitchen and the family room - it's mostly just summer flowers to evoke the season. We inherited a burnt orange wall-to-wall carpet in the family room that would cost a fortune to replace, so we've decorated around it with cream and brown. There's not much of a way to summer-fy those colors, so I just close my eyes until fall comes round again.

No swords indoors.

Usually, the hot-weather, cold-weather change out, combined with several subscriptions to home decor magazines, is enough to satisfy. (Ross calls shelter magazines Playboy for women: "They're full of beautiful, desirable things that will never be yours.") But this year, I've gotten a real itch. I want to paint my kitchen.

We "did" the kitchen in 1994, right after we moved in. We tore down a crumbling plaster wall and had it drywalled, had the wooden floor refinished and glossed up, and painted the doorways, window frames and chair rails a deep green. I hung lincrusta wallpaper to echo the pressed tin ceiling in the foyer and covered the center panels of the (original 1920s) cupboard doors with a bright floral Waverly print. We replaced the old hanging lights with bright sealed brass and had under-counter lights installed. And then we stopped.

Peeling lincrusta. The edge of the door's not so great, either.

Twenty-two years later... the lincrusta has started peeling off. One of the glass light fixtures had been broken, thanks to a kid playing with a sword. There's water stains on the drywall and the ceiling (we got the leak fixed but didn't repaint downstairs.) The wooden floor is worn and scuffed. There are smoke stains on the cupboard above the stove that can't be scrubbed off. But mostly, it just looks dated. Too busy, too much color and pattern, too floral, too late-eighties/early nineties.

My inspiration! (From Pinterest, of course)

So I want to redo it in black and white. Strip off the lincrusta and paint the walls, doors, windowsills and cupboards in white. We have a black-fronted oven and dishwasher, and the original iron hinges and pulls on the cupboards, which I think will pop against glossy white. Maybe replace the laminate counter top with something glossy and black, if we can do it ourselves. (Youngest's ongoing boarding school expenses mean we have a pretty limited budget.) Keep the overhead lights, but spray over the bright 80's brass with an oil-rubbed bronze finish.

Of course, you all see the biggest problem I have with starting a kitchen re-do: I still have to deliver a book! In the meanwhile, I'll continue to cut out pictures from magazines and price materials at the local stores. How about you, Reds? Any real - or dream - decorating you'd like to do?

I don't see any spaghetti sauce or cat hair, do you?

LUCY BURDETTE: Julia, you astonish and amaze me! I do the absolute minimum, that is take off the flannel bedspread and wool blanket on our bed and replace with a bright yellow and green quilt.

Though come to think of it, we finally had to throw out a rug under the kitchen table which had faded to an ugly tan (lots of sun!) And then the chair cushions had to go--not only because blue paisley didn't match anything, but also because the foam cushions were pushing out on all sides. I had some new cushions made by a seamstress on Etsy. I wish I'd gotten something a little darker to hide spaghetti sauce and cat hair, but other than that, we're thrilled.

HALLIE EPHRON: Lincrusta?! Had to look it up. TWO sets of dishes? And Julia, you could write for one of those dirty magazines.

Susan's tea-themed summer pillows.

We moved into our house 40 years ago, redid the kitchen, put on addition 10 years later, and beyond that have patched the paint and Elmers-glued the wallpaper seams. But I do have a pale gray set of slip covers for my couch that I have never (maybe once) used. Since the dark green it usually wears is fading (and you would too, after more than 25 years) maybe it's time to pull them out. Problem is they make the couch look literally like the elephant in the room.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Wow, switching out dishes? That's so Martha Stewart! We take off the beds' down comforters and put on cotton quilts, and switch out all the wool/velvet cushions for cotton in the bedrooms and living room. That's about it. Don't get any home decor mags, but I'm a fan of decor8 and a few other design blogs. Right now I'm working on a gallery wall with a new piece of art Noel and Kiddo had framed for me for Mother's Day by art duo Faile, titled, "A Call to Adventure." I love it — makes me think of a sort of mad Mary Poppins.

Hank's winter pillows...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Love it! Oh, we have lincrusta on our hallway walls..it's so great and subtle. We change too, in the spring. Er, summer. Er, soon. Our winter slipcovers (soft loden green velvet) get changed to crisp white canvas. The pillows get changed ,too--here are winter--and summer (just the covers for now...I'll change them. Soon. Really.). And we change dishes, too..the winter wreaths with luscious grapes and apples and plums to the summer wreaths with summery flowers and pale green stripes. The only sad part--when the pool opens next week , the ducks leave. To every thing, turn turn turn..

...and her summer covers!

Who else wants Debs' fabulous leather sofa? I'm swooning.

RHYS BOWEN: Julia... Is it something about your part of the country that turns everyone into Martha Stewart's? Two sets of dishes? I have two sets. One good, for company, one everyday for us. And I change decor as I move from our California house (John's family antiques) to our Arizona condo (my choice light and airy Scandinavian, I.e. IKEA). We've done odd bits of upgrading in our CA home over the years... Replaced ugly brown doors with white ones, redone our bedroom, my study, but I have some projects planned if I ever find time for them: new hall floor desperately needed. Present one old and cracked tiles. Scrap that awful popcorn stuff off all ceilings. Major job. Repaint interior, put crown molding and recessed lights into living room. Replace kitchen counters. Replace downstairs bath. Ideally I'd like to leave these in the hands of a capable person, go away and come back to find them all finished! Luckily I'm still in Italy, too far from home to want to rush out and change the pillows!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I love JRW. I'm always learning new things. Today it's that our the anaglypta wallpaper below the chair rail in our living and dining room is actually a type, or brand, of lincrusta. Who knew? It was put in by the contractor who flipped our old house back in 1994 or so, and we like it and have never redone it. Unfortunately, one of our cats likes it, too. As a scratching post. We have three or four places now that we have to keep blocked off. Another project to tackle. (Repairing wallpaper, not getting rid of cat...)
As for the seasonal flip, we change duvets for cotton quilts, velvet cushions on the sofa for summer woven, winter for summer runner on the dining room table, and that's about it. Oh, we put away the furry throws in the living room, too. And I love to completely change out the cushions on my front porch swings, but so far they are all still in the attic... Here's the summer living room decor.

JULIA: I have to confess, the Spode and the Canton Rose are only two of my sets of china. I also have an old ironware and gold set for twelve and a blue-and white Royal Dalton set for eight. This is why I could never live in a tiny house...I'd have to choose between my china and Ross. And I'm not sure which would win out.

Readers, are you swapping things out for the season? Or, like me, do you have a yearning for a BIG redo (but first I'll finish the book! I promise!) Send me your pics and I'll put them up on the front page!