Shawn: All this DayGlo pastel mixed with the acrylic palm frond theme — it’s like a Saved By The Bell set was left standing all these years. I’m guessing hotel here, but not just any hotel; this is a serious tourist trap named The Crystal Reef or the Dolphin Lagoon, complete with a clam shell pink courtyard fountain and a King Triton sculpture in the lobby. We’re talking the likely setting for a nudist retreat. I am heartened by the fact that the vertical blinds, beside tables, and lamps are shell pink also — that’s a cohesive commitment to a decor motif, though I feel like the floral bedspread should have some sort of marine pattern to fully complete the effect. Hyper-nervous insomniac/minimalist that I am, I’m not convinced that I could actually sleep in this setting without an eye mask, but maybe they’re showing a double feature of Creature From The Haunted Sea and The Mermaids of Tiburon in the rec room?

File Under:Bedroom Terrors

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Richard: My mother used to say that wisdom comes with age. My mother also used to say that orange is a wonderful color for a bedroom and that gauchos are perfectly acceptable for Sunday church services, so she’s been proven wrong before.

This photo pretty much destroys her wisdom/age hypothesis.

Now, on the plus side, I give daddy-o a clap for using so much white in a dungeon/kitchenette. That takes some serious cojones. He also earns big-ups for painting his ceiling a darker color than the walls — an advanced move, and not for the faint of heart. The built-ins by the fridge look good too, and if the queens on HGTV are any gauge to go by (hint: they’re not), they’ll boost his pad’s resale value. Which is great, because any potential buyer looking at those off-kilter free-standing shelves, the random unframed mirror leaning precariously on the floor, and folding chairs nabbed from the Our Lady of Perpetual Succor garage sale is bound to lowball his first offer.

But put all that aside a moment. What I want to know is why anyone would post a sexpic to Manhunt or Boyhunt or Bearhunt or whatever and advertise the fact that they’ve got crabs. Distinctly unwise.

File Under:Dens From Hell | Kitchen Kitsch

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Richard: Oh, youth. They try so hard. First Lady Gaga and then Lady Lambert, and now this Lady Fledgling Student of Architecture. (At least I think he’s an architecture student. If I could see his glasses, I’d know for sure.)

It’s obvious that LFSA is a fan of German culture: note the prominent Heineken banner, which he swiped from an Oktoberfest display when the hot bartender he’s secretly in love with stepped out for a piss. This became a design centerpiece for our Bauhaus-frau — something around which he attempted to create a sleek, Euro look for his attic atelier.

Unfortunately, jamming a lot of minimalism into one room kind of defeats the point. The bland walls, the raw mirrors, that sad Philadelphia Phillies banner, the austere futon frame: TOO MUCH, I SAY. When finishing a project, decorators should always take a good, long look at their work and set fire to one thing before leaving the room. That philosophy was good enough for Coco Chanel, and it should be good enough for anyone at Penn State.

Parting thought #1: If LFSA is trying to clue mom into his 420 habit, that shrunken skull-head lava lamp will do the trick just fine. And speaking of tricks…

Parting thought #2: PENMANSHIP CLASS. Invest in one.

File Under:Bedroom Terrors

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