Hoo boy, where to start, where to start.
When my father visited the house we now live in for the first time, before we entered the building, our estate agent told us not to pay attention to the decoration. It's a good thing he did too, because we were blown away when he opened the door. You see, the current owners had... odd tastes in decoration. Just to name what comes to mind, going room by room:
Living Room:
- A decorative fountain in the middle of the living room.
- A large collection of salt and pepper shakers in glass displays covering over half of the wall surface of the living room. (Easily a hundred pairs)
- A fireplace in the living room and a fake electronic fireplace in the main hallway, both of which could be seen from the hall.
- Table legs glued to the ceiling at an angle (the owner explained the concept, that it was as though the above neighbor's table was sinking through the ceiling)
- A rope glued in a spiral to the living room ceiling, giving the image of a sun.
Hallway:
- Shelves every step of the way, in fact, I don't recall seeing anywhere in the house a square foot of wall not including a shelf, most of which were covered by various knicknacks (some of which should have been put away before opening the house to the public. I'm looking at you, breast-shaped mug.)
- Bead curtains in the place of doors on all closets.
Kitchen and dining room:
- Dining room painted with green and yellow horizontal stripes, save for one wall painted in an impossibly elaborate mosaic that must have taken hours and hours.
- More shelves, of course.
Laundry Room:
- Painted hot pink, all I got to say.
Master Bedroom:
- Entire master bedroom painted dark navy blue.
- Canopy bed whose canopy was made of wood and reached about two feet down from the ceiling.
- Shag carpeting
Extra Bedroom #1 (pretty large)
- Apparently seldom used office space.
- Much empty space.
- Wallpaper on two walls featuring a large waterfall (a separate but identical one on each wall.
- Non-matching color on opposite walls (I don't recall the color.)
- Ceiling split in four triangles by wood moldings, with each triangle being painted a different color.
Extra Bedroom #2 (much smaller)
- HUGE kids' bunk bed taking over half the room. The room looked so tiny because of it.
- Teddy bear wallpaper, clearly a remainder from the room being used as a nursery.
There was more to it, but those are what I still remember, five years after the fact. It was very, very colorful, very loud, and very far from matching.
When we bought the house from them (the layout was great, the advantages was great, the place was well cared-for despite being garish and had some pretty clever features and a lot of storage), the owners seemed to think we loved their decoration and that we'd keep it intact. Of course, as soon as we moved in, all that madness was torn down and replaced with more normal stuff.
Another one of the houses we visited claimed to have three bedrooms. The third "bedroom" had the right size and furniture, but it had no walls and was open directly to the hallway on two sides. I don't even know how to describe it.
Ah, memories, memories.
