Tour of Trims

The folks who lived here before us had…how shall I put this…VASTLY different taste in home decor than we do. It’s…interesting. Dated. Confusing, sometimes, and even a little disturbing. It’s hard to describe, so I’ll let the trims do the talking.

We start in the dining area with the apples. Dang apples…

Not that there’s anything wrong with apples. I rather like them. AS SNACKS. Not on my walls. This particular flavor was carried into the kitchen as well. Yum. At least it was just a wallpaper border, though, and not full on permanent walls of fruit.

Like the kitchen backsplash.

These babies are glued to my kitchen walls. It will take some major effort to make them go away. And while we thought briefly about painting over them with something like this, we soon realized that they are textured and that even if we painted them white, we’d still have white fruits watching us make our sandwiches. Sigh. Major kitchen renovation: 2013. I hope.

Also in the kitchen area is this stenciled lovely:

Flanking both sides of an oversized window. Someone worked hard on this. Also, someone was really into forest green as an accent color. (I’ll provide more evidence of that later.)

Fortunately the living room and family room were untrimmed. One is actually a decent shade of taupe, except for the GIANT WHITE SPACE where a built-in- TV unit used to be. The other was builder-grade off-white. You know the color. It hides dirt because it already looks dirty. Fortunately, that has been remedied already. Before and after photos still to come.

Before we get to the bedrooms, which are beyond all loveliness, let’s stop in the hall bath for a peek at the fishy tiles in the shower:

…followed by my personal favorite, the sailboats:

Please notice homeboy on the left, pulling a Leonardo DiCaprio, much, I’m sure, to the chagrin of his fellow sailors:

Of course, I prefer to pretend he’s Michael Scott pretending to be Leo D. Or, better still, Bill Murray as Bob Wiley:

Somebody call Dr. Leo Marvin.

Next we’ll take some baby steps down the hall (see what I did there?) and into the master bathroom to behold the majesty of this:

Can’t you just smell the mustiness of that bouquet? Mmmm. And don’t worry: those flowers are textured. Peeling floral trim. It’s gonna be a hot trend this fall, I just know it.

Here’s a quick glance of the smallest of the three bedrooms, just because it will not be ignored:

Yes, that is a giant chessboard on the lower half of the wall. Yes, the trim is black. Yes, the white is not actually white but instead that nasty off-white that everyone used in the 80’s. It’s going to be a priming nightmare.

And finally, the room that David and I are temporarily sleeping in, because the master bedroom is still a work in progress. (Again, pics to come.) Fortunately, when we wake up in the morning, we don’t have to see this because it’s behind us:

These beauties, the most depressing irises of all time, go all the way around the room. It’s the sponge paint job that only covers one wall. See?

The thing we DO see first thing in the morning, though, is far worse than the fungal seaweed up top.

That’s right. TINY BLOODY HAND PRINTS. All along the base of the walls. And not just  hands. That would be too simple. No, no, it’s a GARDEN of hands.

Guys. Somebody thought this would be precious. Somebody was SO SO wrong, because this is possibly the ugliest bedroom I’ve ever been in. I don’t know which is worse: the full mutant hand flowers, or the nubby ones by the outlet and window sill. Ugh. They give me the heebies.

So there you have it. Just a handful of reasons why we will be spending a fortune on wallpaper remover and paint over the next several months.

Still to come: the swamp of sadness and the ugliest fireplace ever! Stay tuned!