Ugly wallpaper & more
We wrap up 2023 with a column of potpourri – a mini-rant about wallpaper and a shout-out to the designer of my new website.
To begin:
Some time ago, while I was looking at some old family photos, I was astonished by the ugliness of the wallpaper in the farmhouse of my dad’s parents.
The pattern resembled large cabbages.
Large, ugly, cabbages.
While rehabbing the rooms of several old houses, my wife and I have stripped lots of wallpaper and paged through many books of replacement rolls, so I am aware that a lot of wallpaper is ugly. Apparently ugliness comes with the territory.
Not just passively ugly but aggressively ugly.
In-your-face ugly.
So, though I was astonished by the ugliness of the wallpaper in my grandparents’ farmhouse, I was certain that they did not have exceptionally bad taste in wallpaper.
They were simply following a fad of the times. They bought what they could get from Sears & Roebuck or Montgomery Ward or wherever.
That impression was reinforced recently when a friend posted some old photos on Facebook – old photos of family members standing or reclining in rooms with seriously ugly wallpaper.
All those photos, too, were taken in the 1950s. Maybe that was the heyday of ugly wallpaper.
At least in this country.
N.T. “Tom” Wright, an eminent New Testament scholar, has been making educational videos for the last couple of years.
Some of these are recorded in what I assume is an Anglican church parlor, most likely in Oxford. Or maybe it’s a room in Tom’s home. Wherever it is, the room has several “Victorian” design elements, including an elaborate fireplace – and fiercely ugly wallpaper.
It’s hard to concentrate on what Tom is saying when in the background you can see – in one degree of focus or another, depending on how the shot is framed – wallpaper that shouts to the world “UGLY!”
OK, maybe in the UK it’s the height of fashion and considered lovely. Sorry, not to me.
I know this is not even near top of the list of world concerns. Still, I must utter a small prayer, “Lord, save us from ugly wallpaper.”
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From the ugly to the … words fail.
Several walls of rooms in the Aloft Hotels chain feature, uh, whimsical wallpaper.
There’s a repeating horizontal pattern of two images: one row of an abandoned gas station and one row of an empty strip mall.
Appearing randomly among them are such entertainingly out-of-place things as a drink-slurping dinosaur, a giraffe and flying saucers.
The quirky wallpaper is part of the hotels’ “different by design” theme. The design is relentlessly hip, a looney triumph of design over function and sense.
And there are no grab bars in the toilet area. How in the world do they get away with that? Apparently by saying it’s not a restroom designed for wheelchair users. Sheesh. Don’t even young hipsters need something to help them up?
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My new website comes from Anna Spencer, proprietor of Anna Spencer Creative Media & Design. She’s easy to work with, knowledgeable and affordable. I highly recommend her to you.
She even taught me how to use a new piece of software – no easy task, for sure.
Check her out at https://www.annaspencercreativemediadesign.com.
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Making resolutions for the new year? Here are a couple to try.
1. Be kind to yourself.
2. Be kind to others.
Doing those thing will help make your new year happy.