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When it comes to creating a one-of-a-kind home, some people have little regard for the emotional well-being of their neighbors. A quick 911 call after hours will handle a neighbor with a blistering stereo system. But what number can you call when your neighbor has a brutally loud paint job?

You’re lucky if you live in a residential conclave where there are homeowners’ association decorating caveats. Not everyone does, however. If you find yourself stuck next to a neighbor who believes that painting their home like a bilious gallbladder is a tasteful thing, you may be really stuck. In this market moving is not so easy.

Hello Kitty, goodbye sanity

Photo by House Logic

In 1960, Shintaro Tsuji created the now-legendary Hello, Kitty line of plastic purses. Today, there are 22,000 products lines in this motif. Let us hope that this is the only such home. I’m not recommending arson, but I’d certainly understand the impulse,

Purple rain, ugly residential pain

Photo by Country Joy Crafts

Several manufacturers make plum colored vinyl siding colors, but you’ve got to get out the buckets and  brushes to create something like this. It reminds me of the artificial color used in grape Popsicles. As I recall, the hue stayed on your tongue for the entire summer.

The sum-of-all-fears motif

Photo by Handiman Club

This theme combines all the elements of a metal roof patina, distressed shutter effects and contrasting flesh-tone paint. Unfortunately, they should never have been combined. Witness the tragic characteristics of a do-it-yourself exterior painting effort done while under the influence.

A bad idea executed to perfection

Photo by Recentering El Pueblo

I love the cottage and pueblo look you find in Arizona and California. I do not like the look that says, “Help, we’re trapped inside by creatures that eat brain cells.”  An appropriate façade for Solano Prison is not necessary an apt exterior for residential Santa Ana. If you can find a door bell, for heaven’s sake don’t ring it!

Here we are again, at the end of an excellent year for celebrating the most dubious of home improvements. We’ve seen revolting home interiors, botched paint jobs, grotesque house exteriors and raunchy furniture. As the year closes up like puckering lips under the mistletoe, let’s dump out the foulest examples and say good riddance, 2011!

The ugliest fence

Photo by Rick's Fencing

There are lots of contenders but few winners. Oregon’s Rick’s Fencing chose this Corvallis fence as the worst of the year in its annual contest. If good fences make good neighbors, avoid living next door to this place. The homeowner (mercifully unnamed here) won “100 feet of free fencing materials” from Rick’s.

Arresting door of the year

Photo by New Jersey.com

Ohio police officer Michael Cleary submitted this photo to New Jersey.com’s annual ugly door contest. One voter remarked: “I expect that door to open and Liberace to be standing there.” Since Liberace passed in 1987, I reckon he would easily look better than the door. If this photo isn’t enough to induce vomiting, watch five minutes of any movie with Ashton Kutcher.

Tackiest lamp of the year

Photo by Find Great Stuff

A Tennessee woman created this lamp for a single Gatlinburg man in the hopes of keeping him warm on winter nights. I’d prefer setting a bonfire on the sofa and singing “Tenting Tonight”  to my ferret.

Fixer-urper

Photo by Milwaukee Rennaisance

The wood may still be salvageable underneath the siding in this most-foul of outdoor treatments. I’d recommend running a jackhammer across the surface and then dynamiting the rest of the place.

Worst carpet of the decade

Photo by Las Vegas Carpets

Earlier this year, I ran a retrospective of ugly carpets from Vegas. This is what you call a “throw rug”; you roll it up and throw it in the dumpster.

Here’s to a New Year luxuriant in décor and dazzling with fine taste. But I doubt it!