Richard: Oh, the French. So highfalutin’ with their gilt and their mirrors and their alabaster ladies on recamiers showing their dirty pillows to a nation of men who couldn’t care less. They often try to hide their Frenchness. They chew gum. They wear athletic gear dans la rue. But we can see them, dreaming quietly of croque-monsieurs and waiting for America to stumble so they can chastise us for being backward. But Frenchie here and his compatriots have plenty of problems of their own — and not just the will-we-ban-headscarves-or-won’t-we kind.

The lighting? Quelle harsh. See the shadows those table lamps throw on the ceiling? Do you know what that kind of uplighting is good for? Ghost stories. Is Monsieur trying to tell a ghost story on Le Manhunts? Probably non.

The flooring is fine but vexing and maybe a tad Dynasty: The Later Years. Is it marble tile? Marblized crepes? French taste confuses our eyes almost as much as it confuses our gaydar. But the one thing in the room that has to go — apart from le welcome mat — is those shelves for the bibelots. Please, Jean-Luc, leave that sort of thing to your dear departed Monsieur Cocteau, who wrote le livre on wall decor.

Then again, this could be a variant, like the California francophile. Which would explain the color of that wall and the absence of a certain quelquechose that most Frenchmen keep close at hand.

File Under:Fucked Up Foyers

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Shawn: I’ve been watching the first season of Charlie’s Angels recently (conclusion: I am Kelly), and if there’s one defining element to mid-’70s decor, it’s that everything is yellow.  A jaundiced hue permeates every component of a space, from wall phones to wallpaper. The entire tableau screams swingin’ ’70s seduction. Dig the ornate lacquer headboard, perfectly shaped to allow leverage for grasping palms. The matching nightstand — with mood-setting wine flutes and sex toy — is so bow-chick-a-bow-wow that I feel like Richard Bolla and Bambi Woods should be turning up any minute. Everything else?: dark, glossy mustard for the drapes, bedspread, and robe, complemented by a daffodil shade for the walls. Good times, I’m sure, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to politely decline; with my translucent skin tone, I’ll look like a human Hep C billboard in this scene, and I don’t wanna rock the boat.

File Under:Bedroom Terrors

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Richard: Aaaaaand last but not least: Bachelor Number Three!

Bachelor Number Three enjoys pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, and long walks in the woods to his private deer stand. And rest assured, gentlemen, he’s not getting down from there until he shoots something! This amateur furrier has already begun work on a squirrel-tail coat — could it fit you?

In his spare time, Bachelor Number three enjoys mixing and matching plaids and creating batik pillow cases based on the cave paintings of Lascaux. He’s ready to shoot that poison arrow through your ha-ha-ha-heart — but will our contestant squeal like a piggie for Bachelor Number Three…?

(Side note: That carpet looks like wet, month-old pizza covered in algae pepperoni. I can smell it from here.)

File Under:Bedroom Terrors

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Richard: Okay, yes: to you and me, this room looks pretty bad. Terrible, even. In fact, I wouldn’t shy away from phrases like “vomit-inducing” or “the worst thing I have ever seen in my entire life, including dreams, Jersey Shore, and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone starring Molly Ringwald.”

But this room wasn’t built for you or me. It was built by and for blind people. And to Stevie Wonder, this room is like paradise times ten. Just look at all that texture: tile floors, wood-plank doors, brick entertainment credenzas (well, potential credenzas). Imagine the joy of touching that linoleum-ish insert way in the back, which is probably a backsplash for a jacuzzi, or maybe an enema filling station. And then there’s the decor: terracotta, bromeliads, wacko veneer, and a microfiber spooge cover defending the integrity of a vintage 80s sofa. So many things for fingers to enjoy.

I still don’t understand how a blind person managed to hang all those portraits of St. Dymphna so straight, but I’m intrigued by the crazypants-on-crystal meth OCD arrangement of the clocks, which lead the eye (of a sighted person) to a rifle, which lead, in turn, to an oversized topsy-turvy kit for pot growers. Surely, Martha Stewart would piddle herself. Then, she would roll a fatty.

Remember that scene from Aria when Beverly D’Angelo took all that ecstasy and roamed the halls of the Madonna Inn, rubbing her jugs on the walls and shit? Can you imagine how good she would have felt in this room?   

File Under:Living Room Wreckage

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David: Amidst the soul-sucking sense of squalor there is a pittance of design sensibility shining through this golden disaster. I’ll call it Taxi Cab Chic. The bright yellow wall made even more emphatic (if that’s possible) through its contrast with the exposed black (!) mattress (where does one even find a black mattress?) and the (devil-may-care) Venetian blind shield. It’s all quite magical in a Martin Scorsese sorta way. Too, as fate would have it, confirming my delineation: a checkerboard fedora, which, along with the occupant’s ‘hitchhike’ gesture seems to paraphrase Travis Bickle, when he said: “I think someone should just take this room and just… just flush it down the fuckin’ toilet.”

File Under:Bedroom Terrors

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