">HomeOwnerNut

Many of you have suggested interior designs, furnishings, and clever trends in your comments to my posts. I thought it high time to offer props and publish the following graphic representations of your ideas.  Keep posting! I get a chuckle out of your remarks and they spark up plenty of ideas.  If they ever start a Do-It-Your-Self Help Group, save me a seat!

Christmas Story Lamp

In response to my post about ugly and/or unusual lamps, Whit and Adam reminisced about the famous lamp from A Christmas Story. I’ve seen copies these lamps on the sets of talk shows for years.

Bath, Boating, and Beyond

I wrote about modern bathtubs recently and Whit recounted the time his friend made a boat into a home bathtub which, oddly enough, leaked.  The bath boat in the image, created by Dutch designer Wieki Somers, is from the design of a real boat–turned inside out and nested on its back. Look at all the images of this remarkable bathtub at Notcot.

A Shaggy Wall Story

In response to my post about trippin’ on 1960’s furniture, Randy brought up the recreational use of shag carpet on the walls of fashionable homes. Consequently, I found photos of a pink shag carpet wall that belonged to Hollywood bombshell Jayne Mansfield (seen here in the tub). You can view the lot of them (mature audiences) on NY make-up artist Darian Darling’s blog.

Far Out, Man

RE: the post on the 60’s, Woplogic says he’s ready to put on his bell-bottomed baby-blue leisure suit, platform shoes with the Buster Brown buckle a-la-Ben Franklin, psychedelic purple paisley print polyester wide-collared, no-top button shirt, and of course, pick out his hair into his best Jimi Hendrix-style afro. Well, I found your shirt, Wop.  But let’s go for the whole thing!

If you feel the least emotionally challenged these days, buy yourself a lamp. Not that shopping therapy really works, but getting a silly, ugly lamp can get you to see the absurdity of taking yourself and your design tastes too seriously. I own an art-deco lamp with Greek nymphs cavorting over archways covered with vines. It’s hideous and lovely, and I’ve had it by my bedside since 1981.

I’d be delighted to own three or four of these, while the rest make me queasy. You decide:

Exhibit 1. Clarence Clemons Designer Lamp

Nothing like some of the Big Man’s tenor sax solo on Springsteen’s The Promised Land to chase the blues away. “Mister I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man, And I believe in a promised land.”

Exhibit 2. Feathered Wings of Jollity

As Clint Eastwood says in a movie, “A man’s gotta know his limits.”  And these are mine. Made from Murano glass (from Venice) and decked with ostrich feathers, it costs only $5,000. So does a tenor saxophone. I know what I want. But if you like it, you can find it at Bond and Bowery.

Exhibit 3. Snakes on an Earthly Plane

If you don’t have the gorgon Medusa in your home, now’s the time to grab this illuminating visage of the Greek chthonic monster. Yes, chthonic is a word; you can look it up.

Exhibit 4. Hanging Out at Home

Uh…I’ll pass. Not interested in having people dangling from nooses in my home. (But there’s no accounting for taste.)

Exhibit 5. Volleywood

In truth, I love ping pong. I have my own Yuki blade and high-spin rubber. But the idea of putting a lamp with 315 table tennis balls in the house seems a bit excessive. According to Home Planet, the lamp casts interesting dot shadows on your wall.

Exhibit 6. Wiener Dog Delight

I’d love one of these. To know me is to love kitsch. I’d put it right beside the doggie treadmill I wrote about earlier this month.

Exhibit 7. Ugg Buttly

While these heavy-duty retro lamps probably sell–and cost much more than a wiener dog lamp–I won’t be carrying a pair out to the car. Buy them for me and I won’t accept the delivery. Come on, people. Enough is enough!