They're incredibly ugly and upset the eye on its journey across time and space. Rather than a placid expanse of uninterrupted white, as the gods intended, the eye confronts unsightly bumps and shadows. It's just wrong. I'm looking at such a ceiling, riddled by chunks of inedible "popcorn", right now. It's wrong, I say.
Yes, the problem is: it is ugly. Also it is a manifestation of not trusting your ceiling to be in visibly good shape, which bodes ill.
a placid expanse of uninterrupted white, as the gods intended
Naw, the gods like exposed beams first, but if some sinner had painted them before you, it is cool to paint them over in several colors, all contrasting with the ceiling.
I don't buy 2.2. For all that they embarrass sellers' agents now, these ceilings were a selling point in the 1980s. I'd be surprised if very many were the work of people spraying glop on the ceiling to cover up problems rather than of people spraying glop on the ceiling to be hip and trendy. Anyway, the house I grew up in had them, and eh. I prefer not to have them, on grounds of their ugliness, but I was surprised by the heavy emphasis realtors gave to their absence (when they were absent) or the cheapness of their removal (when present).
But then realtors were generally surprising; the one who emphasized that one great thing about the house was that it wasn't within walking distance of any shops had us baffled. Way to point out enormous and unfixable flaws in your fabulously expensive product, lady.
The gods certainly did not intend smooth white ceilings, or else those tin stamped ceilings wouldn't be so adorable. I'm starting to believe that one of the greatest sins of the past half-century is fooling us all into believing that floors and ceilings ought not be landscapes for elaborate decoration.
See: I don't think they are inherently ugly. I think they have been tarred by the same brush by association with a lot of ugly stuff we grew up with.
If we'd never seen them, and the trendy hipsters started promoting them, we'd all be awestruck.
6 is sad. I suppose that's true.
Heebie, right though you always are, you have never been righter than you are in 5. Seriously, your elaborate floor should be the showpiece of the room. (Not that I'm going to actually get around to it or anything. But now I understand the potential.)
My friend Chris's popcorn ceiling was purple and had glitter in it.
I think that ceiling traps dust, and how would you ever clean it?
I'd grant the dust-trapping, in addition to the balloon-popping.
I don't think they're bad. I'm pretty indifferent. People who are slavishly devoted to decorating with modern, "clean lines" hate them as excessively busy.
Although 4 is right, and I also don't buy 2.2, they are actually good at camouflaging minor cracks. I'm not sure if that counts as a positive or a negative.
Another draw back is that they make an absolute mess should anything come into contact with them. I had the top bunk in a room with popcorn ceilings, and every time I was less than careful with my head, hands, pillows, books, etc. I was showered with the stuff. Same goes for the results of indoor soccer.
It's fun to find pictures in them when you're lying on your bed in the daytime. A little gnome face! A camel! Angela Lansbury!
14 is particularly true when your balloons are filled with blood.
It's a good thing this shop plays boring baroque music when they put you on hold, because otherwise you wouldn't know what a cultured outfit it is.
For all that they embarrass sellers' agents now, these ceilings were a selling point in the 1980s.
I'm in the final stages of purchasing a home right now, and boy, did the previous owners have all kinds of incredibly bad and immediately dated ideas. It's a teeny-tiny California bungalow, built in the 1920s. It could be charming, in a dilapidated way, but for the fact that the previous owners decided to pretend that their 90-year-old East LA shoebox/bungalow was actually a circa 1992 Phoenix McMansion. So -- they stripped out the original moldings and put in a dropped ceiling with recessed lighting, installed a massive, hideous granite countertop in the kitchen, and turned the bathroom into a Home Depot brushed-steel/frosted glass/simulated stone fantasy.
I feel bad about stripping out the granite countertops and fake stone kitchen floors to replace them with Formica and lino, but I truly can't stand them and can't afford anything nicer.
Never regret tearing out a granite countertop.
Wait, is granite deprecated now? I can't keep up.
Does anyone know about the development of motor skills in infants and young children?
I've just been over at my aunt's house, taking care of her 1 evil cat and 1 nice cat while she's out of town. Her house is a very vernacular little post-Craftsman 2-bedroom, and pretty much the whole place is popcorned. It looks alright, I suppose, if you dig that kind of thing, but mostly because there's not much "character" to the rest of the house, so it doesn't clash with anything.
Someone decided, at some point, to do a little popcorning of the ceiling at my crumbling Victorian manse. Except they only did one room, and they left a big strip of regular sheetrock down the middle of the ceiling. So fucking bizarre. And it just looks weird next to the dark woodwork.
They're deprecated? Too hard, so stuff breaks when you drop it, or just considered ugly?
I have vague plans to do something to our kitchen one of these years, but given that its main flaw is that only one adult can stand in it at a time, fretting too much about the dated tiles and wobbly countertops is something I can't quite get around to.
21: In a gossipy maternal sense, or in a peer reviewed sense? Because if you want the first, there's nothing for developing manual skills in a nineteenmonth old like handing her a good Fisher Price truck.
In a peer-reviewed sense. I suppose (SIGH) I should go to the library, or other parts of the internet, or something.
14,16: See also: textured walls, hazards to clumsy infants and young children. (upon preview also to 21)
OT:
||
I just received a rhyming work-related semi-spam.
'Twas nearly 2010, and all through the day
Folks solved old problems using brand-new ways
It's an important thought, and it seems just enormous
But there must be a surefire solution to application performance.
...and it goes on from there.
|>
I don't have a problem with granite in other people's houses, but it's ridiculous to put an enormous slab of granite in my* ticky tacky, shoebox-sized kitchen. This is a house that wants an orange Formica countertop, trust me. Possibly also a harvest gold refrigerator, but no one seems to make those anymore. I'll have to settle for bright white.
* well, not "my" yet.
29: no, 18 actually made perfect sense. It was 19 that confused me.
I have heard (and observed) that infants and young children develop motor skills at widely varying rates.
Does that help?
26: there's nothing for developing manual skills in a nineteenmonth old like handing her a good Fisher Price truck.
And now she's a lesbian. Good job.
I don't like granite countertops because they are so closely tied to the late nineties, early 2000s housing boom, when arrivistes didn't know what to do with their HELOC money and looked to Home Depot to tell them.
I don't like granite countertops because they're found nowhere in the Bible.
The thing to do with that countertop is to barter it away. Of course, the challenge there is finding the person who has something you're willing to take for granite.
You could grind it up and pave your driveway with it.
32: I do get snottily (but mostly privately) pleased with myself when I give butch presents to little girls and they're greeted as the Best Toy Ever. These electronics kits, while a little forbiddingly educational looking, have serious play value -- I gave one to a very girly seven-year-old of my acquaintance, and after an initial 'what the hell is that?' reaction, she and her bigger sister took to it like a pair of ducks to circuit design.
Your next pair of ducks might like some play canals and locks.
Granite countertops aren't worth the money to install, sure. But seriously, what's so wrong with them? They're easy to clean, can be fabricated to have nice lines, and can then look perfectly nice if one chooses the right stone. They are, in short, very nearly the opposite of popcorn ceilings. And opposition to granite, then, strikes me as little more than a backlash against the homeowner-hyper-consumerism of the 90s and 00s. Which backlash is fine as far it goes, but it need not go so far as discarding all granite as a material for all countertops in all situations. (Though, all of that said, it seems like jms is right.)
Yeah, when I mention to people I'm planning to get rid of the granite countertops I'm mostly met with horror at the waste and the probable depreciation of the value of the house. There's not much I can do about the depreciation issue, although I do doubt that granite, though theoretically valuable, actually adds much value when it is objectively as ugly as it is in this case. The waste does bother me -- it seems to be custom-cut to fit the kitchen, so I doubt it's reusable. Maybe a monument manufacturer would like to have it.
38: Oooo. The nineteenmonth old truck recipient will be three in only (counts on fingers) seventeen months. At which point she may need toy canals.
40: I would be wondering if there was some cheap way to cover it -- stick a laminate on top of the granite, if that'd be cheaper than new countertops? Ripping it out seems like a hassle, and the next owner of the house might like them.
I saw those at a dinner for my civil engineering prof (naturally). His kids were playing with it and it took all the discipline I could muster not to elbow them out of the way.
Orange formica?
I haven't done the research yet to be honest, but I'll take suggestions! I thought formica would look good because it's bright. I haven't costed it out though. Butcher block is relatively affordable and looks pretty, but I think it's high maintenance and also I'm not sure it wouldn't be out of place in my funny little house. Tile is a real possibility, except I hate cleaning grout.
Train sets are bad like that. I was occasionally guilty of speaking sharply to my children when they were interfering with a particularly elaborate Brio layout.
46: I'm a big fan of butcher block (natural materials, yay!), but yeah, any choice is going to be a function of the house. It's funny because it's so small? So that grand sweeping gestures seem silly?
My mom's house, a 2-bedroom "cottage" in NH, has a butcher's block-topped central kitchen island - not very high maintenance, as you put a cutting board on it anyway. Just keep the nutjobs your brother people from treating the entire counter-top as giant cutting board and you're cool.
Have nothing you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. Further, ornament is crime. This is clearly neither useful, nor beautiful, and it's certainly pointless ornament. Find your inner Robert Moses and tarmac the fucker.
Also, it "covers up things". Great. Go blissfully unaware of approaching ceilingfail. Fault-evident design is good, especially when the failure cases involve falling on your head and gallons of your above neighbour's used bathwater. (This happened to me - three times - but only one of them involved bad ceiling cover. That one did end with water pouring from a live light fitting, though...)
47: Oh yeah. We ended up with a big Lego Duplo train set (not the electric) to which I kept buying more switches and track. It dominated our "play" room for a long, long time as I explored all the topological possibilities.
Although 4 is right, and I also don't buy 2.2, they are actually good at camouflaging minor cracks.
Indeed they are, and people who don't think that's a reason for their popularity are insufficiently cynical. So there!
Ben! I in fact know some stuff about motor and sensory development in infants young children. Give me more specifics about what you want to know and I can probably point you in a useful direction. (Email or here, whatever.)
When we were in Arizona for Christmas we stopped by the place where we lived when I was little. The current owners actually have it fixed up pretty nicely, which is a pleasant change from the dilapidated state it's been in on some previous visits we've made since we sold it. Some of the residents between us and the current owners made some really dubious choices, including painting the big old vigas in the master bedroom, the oldest part of the house, which had been natural wood. Someone (I'm not sure if it was the same people or not) also painted the wall in the kitchen that had been exposed masonry. Once stuff like that is painted it's impossible to get the paint off, so there's no way to go back to how we had it. The current owners painted the wall in the kitchen a different color, as part of repainting all the interior walls with a new and kind of weird color scheme. I don't think they did anything more to the vigas, but the paint is of course still on them.
we stopped by the place where we lived when I was little
teo, this is curious: has your family somehow maintained a relationship with successive owners, or do you just stop by one day, explain the situation, and ask to be let in?
If so, that's cool. I loved the house previous to my current one, and when I stopped by there several months later to pick up any stray mail that might not have been forwarded, was horrified/fascinated by the changes I could see. So soon! In three months you've cut down that tree and those bushes?! Are you crazy? And what on earth have you done to the foyer? Are you removing the porch for god's sake? You're not going to remove the terra cotta tiles in the kitchen, are you? Etc.
has your family somehow maintained a relationship with successive owners, or do you just stop by one day, explain the situation, and ask to be let in?
The latter, at least for recent visits. The situation is rather complicated, though, due to a variety of conditions that don't apply to most houses.
Indeed they are, and people who don't think that's a reason for their popularity are insufficiently cynical. So there!
What you call insufficient cynicism, I call the spirit of Christmas. Plus, you know, if you get a home inspector worth his salt he'll spot the cracks regardless.
Re: granite countertops, I harbor some antipathy towards them for the reasons Megan cites, and yet it turns out that I quite like the granite countertops in the house we bought. Fairly unobtrusive (no doubt this is color- and size-dependent), no need for trivets, and great for keeping pastry cold as you roll it out. I haven't brought a Geiger counter home to see just how uranium-rich they are, though.
a variety of conditions that don't apply to most houses
The graveyard in the unfinished basement?
JMS, as a compromise have you considered Granite printed Formica?
Doesn't formica scratch up easily over time? The advantage of non-plastic types of countertops is that the normal wear and tear just naturally ages the surface, in a way that's not displeasing (to me). Whereas scratches in a formica surface are a drag.
61.last: They do generally increase the coefficient of friction.
62: Exactly. How are you supposed to swoop and wing your way through life with scratched formica? It's like lumpy linoleum.
Ceilings should be smooth. That is all.
Note: Wood ceilings excepted.
Also, in case it's not clear from 64: no wallpaper on ceilings.
OT: I know this comes up time and again, but I see that I have a bunch of built-up friend requests on Facebook from people whose names I do not recognize. Twice I've written nicely to such people to ask them who they are, please, as they have some connection to something or other, but lo, I'm drawing a blank as to their identity; they do not respond. Have I been rude in so asking? We'll see if this third one, with a middle name of "Princess," does.
I'm just wondering if it doesn't seem reasonable to think that friend requesters should provide a line or two explaining who they are. Or maybe this is a generic test: if you're my type of friend, friend-requestee, you will not be bothered that you might not know who I am. If you are so bothered, you are not a friend for me.
I just don't get it. Do people send out friend requests willy-nilly to people they have some very tangential connection with, whether they've ever met or not? This seems like spamming to me.
65.last: No murals either. Fuck's sake.
Twice I've written nicely to such people to ask them who they are, please, as they have some connection to something or other, but lo, I'm drawing a blank as to their identity; they do not respond.
I've done this to a whole bunch of people, because most of my Facebook friends are Unfogged people (I don't really know a lot of FB users in real life), and even people whose names I've been told, I tend to forget in favor of their usernames (like, I'm pretty sure I 'know' your name from emails, but I don't think I'd remember it if you friended me unexpectedly.) I always feel terribly apologetic -- forgetting your (whoever 'you' is in that case) name doesn't mean I'm not fond of you, just that I'm really not very bright.
But everyone's answered me and explained who they are, so I'm not sure what's happening to you.
65: Heebie mentioned stamped tin, which I love. I don't know that I'd install it someplace, but apartments with stamped tin ceilings are really nifty.
Is that also verboten?
You aren't ruling out ceiling mirrors, are you?
You were contemplating non-flat ceiling mirrors? That's a context in which carnivalesque distortion seems as if it could go terribly wrong.
Also, ceilings with complicated plaster moldings and central medallions aren't flat. But yet they rock.
But everyone's answered me and explained who they are, so I'm not sure what's happening to you.
Well, the two I've asked for more information from are people apparently in the book trade, and I may well know them, or their posts, from bookselling discussion lists in which they post under their shop names, but I don't know their personal names. I don't know why they don't answer. Perhaps I've done something egregious in not being able to connect their personal names with their shop names. You might see why that would concern me.
This third person apparently graduated in my college class. I may have known her tangentially back then, but now she has what sounds like an adopted name. I just asked her whether we'd known each other.
There are a couple of other friend requests from people who apparently have a handful of friends in common with me, but I have no idea who the person is. Not sure what to do there.
I haven't really figured out whether Facebook is a nostalgic, old-friends sort of network for me, or a professional one.
66: It's perplexing. I just acquiesced to being friended by a former student-paper colleague, whom I had run into at a bar. Then he suggested his friend, who happened to be with him at the bar, and who would have some claim to being a potential business contact. But then I had to message former colleague's current employer, a long-time real-life friend, to tell him that I had friended his employee, so he should be discrete about his posts, especially to my wall. A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
The only winning move is not to play.
I love hearing that, but I've also missed out on gatherings that were planned entirely through Facebook. Technology is the devil.
I've also missed out on gatherings that were planned entirely through Facebook
It takes some work to be on Facebook for purely prudential reasons. I can't tell you whether it's worth it.
But then I had to message former colleague's current employer, a long-time real-life friend, to tell him that I had friended his employee, so he should be discrete about his posts, especially to my wall. A strange game.
Sounds like you to need to "keep him limp"--i.e., only grant access to your limited profile.
77: Yeah, I'm behind on getting that kind of stuff set up to the degree of specification necessary for my various kinds of FB friends. I just have all the privacy settings maxed out.
jms, if Habitat for Humanity (or something similar) exists where you live, call and ask them if they want the granite and any other material or fixtures you're uninstalling. They're world-class reusers and recyclers.
53: That's happened at a couple of places I've lived (former residents showing up to look around.) It seems perfectly normal to me, although I am enough of a true Minnesotan to find the idea of inflicting my beastly society upon unsuspecting subsequent-residents of my own former abodes so unsettling that I have never actually done it myself.
The house where I spent my adolescence has been undergoing major renovations for a few years (the fellow who bought it from my folx is a little bit eccentric on that score). So at some point I will definitely have to inflict my beastly s. on people there.
I just have all the privacy settings maxed out.
Spoken like a gentleman who would really just rather not, overall.
I have a feeling a lot of people on Facebook do this, actually. Either that or they just never say anything.
Once, when I hadn't been on Facebook very long, I had a friend request from someone - the name looked vaguely familiar but I didn't think I knew her. Anyway, I sent her a message and we had a little discussion and it turned out that I'd bought something from her on eBay a couple of years earlier, so when Facebook offered to find all of her email contacts, I'd popped up.
I've also had a few from people I don't know, but we have a lot of friends in common from various HE/parenting email lists - they obviously see that we have several mutual friends and think they might know me too. I ignore them.
And if anyone has had a friend request from Attila Thehun - my apologies, that's my father.
82: various HE/parenting email lists
High-explosive parenting? Seems drastic, but I don't have kids myself, so I can't judge.
82.last: You father sometimes uses your Facebook account?
21: I know some stuff, if you're still around
To return to an earlier point in the discussion--I thought the whole purpose of butcher block counter tops was so that the whole surface became one enormous cutting board. At least that's how I used my wonderful seventies vintage designy-but-not-really rolling wood cart thing that I inherited from my great aunt--that is, until the arrival of new housemates with Large Kitchen Furniture necessitated putting my cart away. I just scrubbed it down and kept it oiled with fancy jojoba oil and it seemed to do just fine.
I do not care for popcorn ceilings. They are sharp and I object to large household surfaces that can puncture you if you touch them. And--anecdata!--my father popcorned a ceiling at the family house so that prospective buyers would not see some minor, non-structural cracks.
Ceilings should be smooth. That is all.
Except when you're on mushrooms. Then it's "popcorn ceilings, hooray!"
OT:
Hey, what movie should Buck and I go to tomorrow? Avatar, because despite questionable racial politics, it'll at least be awesome!!1!!? Or is there something playing that actually doesn't suck?
I've heard that Up in the Air is good.
I want to see Sherlock Holmes, but that's more for Robert Downey Jr than anything else. Well, it's only because of Robert Downey Jr, to be honest.
88: Up in the Air is good, if bittersweet. Definitely not the movie to see if you just want to escape for a couple of hours. Sherlock Holmes fits that bill much better, and it doesn't suck.
Fantastic Mr. Fox would also be a good choice, although that depends on your tolerance for Wes Anderson and/or twee.
I think Sherlock Holmes would probably send me into a conniption fit of nerdish crabbiness. And no sense wasting Mr. Fox on a night we won't have the kids with us. Up In The Air is sounding good.
Sherlock Holmes dragged a little bit in the middle. It didn't exactly suck, parts were quite enjoyable, but it definitely helps to be enough of a fan to get into all the nods to various debates within the Holmesophile community. Or if you are really into movies where the gay subtext is so pronounced that you might as well just drop the "sub-".
Avatar really is fun, though of course racist. I was going to avoid Holmes as a purist but enough people have liked it that I suppose I should give it a try. Escapism is becoming increasingly appealing to me.
We went to see the Holmes film on Boxing Day. It was OK -- entertaining and fun in bits, annoying in bits. Downey does a lot of mugging at the camera and overacting, imho, but Jude Law is surprisingly good in it. The fight scenes have caused a bit of a buzz in the 'western martial arts' community, but I wasn't that impressed by them, tbh. However, on the plus side, Kelly Reilly is in it ...
I think Sherlock Holmes would probably send me into a conniption fit of nerdish crabbiness.
Saiselgy's claim that the fisticuffs are more prominent in the movie because that's what movies are good at, and Holmes is described as an avid boxer in the stories, struck me as really weak.
97: Yes, the stories also describe him asking Dr. Watson to bring his revolver to most of the encounters where there's likely to be a bit of claret spilt.
It's a shame that this movie's existence means that we probably won't ever get to see Daniel Day-Lewis as Holmes, though the two have always seemed to me to share a certain aquiline, bohemian eccentricity and intensity.
My mom just saw Up in the Air and liked it a lot.
Avatar. For the entirely-invented-yet-viable language, and the sexy blue people. Plus awesome.
86: I thought the whole purpose of butcher block counter tops was so that the whole surface became one enormous cutting board. At least that's how I used my wonderful seventies vintage designy-but-not-really rolling wood cart thing
I have a rolling wooden cart thing -- cool! -- very heavy, with 4-inch-thick butcher block, and yeah, you'd think so. But when I inherited it from its previous owner, it was a bit grody, and I had to more or less sand it down. So in the end I find it best to restrict the cutting to a (large!) cutting board. My rolling cart thing doesn't have locking wheels anyway, which puzzles me to no end: hard to chop on that, then, isn't it, when it threatens to float away.
with 4-inch-thick butcher block s/b with 4-inch-thick butcher block top
I never ever would have chosen granite counters with matching granite floors, either. But since we're stuck with them, consider this selling point: They never, ever ever show dirt. At least ours don't. You can run a damp paper towel in front of the coffee pot and it will turn dark brown, and yet the counter seems splendidly clean to the naked eye.
It's basically a wait-till-it's-sticky approach to cleaning, although maybe Jammies would disapprove of that. If it gets cleaned more often since he moved in, (which is likely), I can't tell.
Sherlock Holmes was a decently entertaining movie, so long as you don't have much invested in the original stories. But I could watch Robert Downey Jr. overact the process of eating an orange, and I too thought Jude Law was surprisingly good in it, so.
I do want to see Up in the Air.
|>
I guess I hadn't paid attention because leaves can hang on trees for a long time, or something but an hour ago, sitting in the school park, I checked out those clumps and they are mistletoe. Most of the clumps I saw were basketball size and up.
Ovoid leaves with loys of white translucent berries, sorry. Still kinda pretty
I could fill a pickup truck from one tree, and a semi-load from the block. I stopped counting a six baseball size clumps on my front ash.
|>
I posted a picture to the pool of what I did on the ceiling of my kids' room. Really it was just to hide the cracks.
104: Watson also kept Holmes from going full-out coke-head. The man was a rock.
However, on the plus side, Kelly Reilly is in it ...
She is really lovely, isn't she? The Times was more or less right when it said that Watson was engaged to "a page and a half of poorly written dialog," but that wasn't her fault. (I liked the movie, by the way. It was ridiculous, but charming and fun. And I would like to bite RD Jr.)
Holmes is not only an accomplished boxer, but a practitioner of the mysterious Japanese art of baritsu. And he can bend a poker with his bare hands. He's not exactly Nero Wolfe.
I saw Avatar and it was pretty fun, although as I'm moderately phobic about heights I spent a good part of the movie looking away.
I'm going to see the Sherlock Holmes movie, but it is going to piss me off because I've got the books half-memorized. Like with the Lord of the Rings.
107: SP, you and your crack-hiding tricks are just awful beyond words, I tell you.
(That is, terrific. I bet the boys love it. The star-shaped stars are kind of hokey, though, dad. Are they to cover the potholes?)
The whole thing sort of evolved from buying a pack of the hokey stars, so by the time it was going to be a star chart they were already partially in place. The size of them somewhat corresponds to magnitude, at least for the biggest ones.
If I were starting from scratch and had a drop ceiling, I might do something like this instead.
Am I the only one who keeps misreading the post title as "Gravity-defying fluffy mike gravel"?
Kelly Reilly has, apparently, been in approximately one gazillion movies. But I have seen none of them. Which might explain why my just-closed google search represents the first I've ever seen of her. Lovely indeed, much better than a popcorn ceiling or even a well-fabricated granite countertop.
114: Whoa.
Meanwhile, I have to say that Rbt. Downey Jr. always seemed kind of baby-faced and pudgy to me. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Jude Law, on the other hand ....
a practitioner of the mysterious Japanese art of baritsu
Which was actually a fairly well documented hybrid of Boxing, Jujitsu, Canne and Savate, created in London, by a railway engineer called Barton-Wright.
re: 109
Yes, I think she's rather lovely. It's a bit of 'Troy' casting [where you cast someone conspicuously more beautiful than the nominal female lead, in a supporting role].
where you cast someone conspicuously more beautiful than the nominal female lead, in a supporting role
"Conspicuously more beautiful" seems to be a matter of taste here.
I agree with essear. Google image search may be playing me false, but I'm not seeing it.
To my knowledge I've only seen McAdams moving in Slings and Arrows, aside from various previews.
(I mention this because I think it's subtler than saying that I don't own a tv.)
Rachel McAdams is gorgeous, but I felt like the make-up artists did her a disservice in the film. Smoky eyes + magenta lipstick = not as lovely as she usually is. Whereas Kelly Reilly was always perfectly made up.
I own a TV and a Wii. The sword fighting game has a nice feature where, like in a bad action movie, you are attacked by what would be an overwhelming swarm if the swarm members didn't surround you and then attack one by one.
It's a bit of 'Troy' casting [where you cast someone conspicuously more beautiful than the nominal female lead, in a supporting role].
You mean Jude Law, right?
To my knowledge I've only seen McAdams moving in Slings and Arrows,
OMG, Ben, does this mean you haven't seen The Notebook, which is like, the bestest film ever?
He's not exactly Nero Wolfe.
Some of us have read The Black Mountain.
Up In The Air, like the Wii swordfighting game, is good.
Popcorn ceilings, like Rachel McAdams, are full of asbestos.
130 cont'd: Though I hope you're not remarking on Jude Law's masculinity. Then we might have to have words.
Lovely indeed, much better than a popcorn ceiling or even a well-fabricated granite countertop
I do hope that 'built like a well-fabricated granite countertop' is not going to replace 'built like a brick outhouse.'
The other difficulty with popcorn ceilings is trying to paint them.
"Built like a popcorn ceiling" would be, uh, interesting.
I kind of love Rachel McAdams. Also she's the meanest of the Mean Girls.
133: I like my women like I like my ceilings: high-arched and narrow in the beam.
135: how do you stand on decorative trim?
Robert Downey Jr. is like a rugby player or a construction worker, except that his tools are the mechanisims that trigger human emotion.
Popcorn ceilings are just fine if you happen to live in a 40s-80s ranch house where they were a part of the original decor. Unfortunately, a lot of homeowners in the 50s-90s ruined older homes with those ceilings, where they really are just hideous.
I think granite countertops are mostly deprecated because they are so reminiscent of cheezy flipper remodels from the housing boom -- you might as well call them HELOC counters. I wonder if they have the same resonance outside of CA. That said, I'm finding my old-home period appropriate wooden countertops extremely annoying, partially because I used an eco-friendly sealant that turns out to not be doing the job correctly. Give me some better functionality, please. They look nice, though.
138.last: We have formica. It seems to work very well except that whenever I leave bananas on it, they turn brown in a week or so.
re: 121
What?! McAdams is perfectly fine, in a sort of vanilla-y way and all that, but Reilly is genuinely striking looking.
re: 126
That too, yeah.
We are watching the musical Can-Can. My aunt informs us that in the original scandalous dance, it was done without underwear.
Well, ttaM, as I said, it's possible that GIS is playing me wrong. I'm willing to listen to, or look at, a case for your side.
Kelly Reilly is striking but somehow I don't find it very compelling, if that makes sense. Rachel McAdams is totally conventionally pretty, but I think she pulls off great roles.
Rachel McAdams is totally conventionally pretty, but I think she pulls off great roles.
Is the "but" in that sentence supposed to have its normal English meaning? Because if so, I'm not sure I'd agree with what's implied.
Does the popcorn ceiling appreciably alter the acoustics, is what I want to know.
except that his tools are the mechanisims that trigger human emotion
I never thought he was very adept in use of his tools.
Granite countertops can work okay in larger homes with a more open floor plan; it may be that the latter was in style with the 90s flipper remodels. And yet an open floor plan can be quite nice. The first thing I'd do in the house I currently occupy would be to knock out the wall between kitchen and dining room, put in a half-wall of sorts, an island between the two rooms. What would I put on that? It would depend a great deal on my budget. Butcher block, or stone of some sort. Natural materials, baby.
The first thing I'd do in the house I currently occupy would be to knock out the wall between kitchen and dining room
The second thing would be to ask for my spouse's opinion about remodeling.
Is the "but" in that sentence supposed to have its normal English meaning?
No. Well, sort of, in that conventionally pretty people rise above their level of their acting incompetence. So while she is conventionally pretty, I like her for the kind of roles she pulls off.
We're planning an addition that would be very functional for our purposes but very unpractical for resale purposes, and so makes me slightly commitment-phobic that we're somewhat locking ourselves down for several decades.
Like, it creates a totally interior room with no windows. Where we would put the musical instruments and the TV, so, great, but who else would want a totally interior room with no windows? It could have windows, but they'd have to face the train side of the house, which would be really noisy.
re: 144
http://blogfile.paran.com/BLOG_887569/200907/1246769252_kelly-reilly03.jpg
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01181/arts-graphics-2007_1181708a.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lweymjmz4GY/SwuBiqqXzuI/AAAAAAAALLg/FQjzMK4uDWE/s1600/kelly_reilly.jpg
or here with Stephen Frears [and Judi Dench]:
The case rests, m'lud.
151: We're planning an addition that would be very functional for our purposes but very unpractical for resale purposes
A "Perfect Strangers" theme room with a ceramic mural of Cousin Balki?
151 -- Just go to the happy place where your home is a consumption good and a way to avoid having a landlord, not an investment. That's where I've been living for a while and it's just fine.
Also, presumably you're creating another room that does have usable windows, right? And you could conceivably noiseproof the train-facing window, I guess.
Or, just call it a Panic Room or a windowless sex grotto and you're good to go.
Just go to the happy place where your home is a consumption good
Like right above a termite nest?
152: it's called a 'media room'. Unless you're butchering the rest of your house in order to create it, I sincerely doubt your resale value would be materially negatively impacted.
We would indeedy be creating a windowful room. I think an interior room will work just fine for musical instruments and the TV and some bean bags and bookshelves, and so will be very useful for us.
158: The resale value will definitely not go up commeasurate with the cost of the addition, I'm pretty sure.
Heebie, be sure to incorporate a faraday cage in your sex grotto--no eavesdropping!
Although we're starting to do more serious research into it in January, so really what the hell do I know.
160: oh, well sure. That's true of most renovations, though.
160 -- You're probably right, but the same is pretty much true for every major home project except maybe outdoor decks (unless you're doing it yourself JRoth style). And you will see some increase in value. So just write off the delta to the cost you're willing to pay to have a decadent bean-bag TV grotto and go for it.
Heebie, be sure to incorporate a faraday cage in your sex grotto--no eavesdropping!
I'm pretty sure over at some point over the next few years I'm going to royally screw myself over by talking shit about someone while the baby moniter is broadcasting my conversation into the living room.
It's already almost happened a few times, but all I was complaining about was: 1. the chocolate toffee that Jammies' mom leaves out and I can't control myself around, and 2. how $30 of i-tunes gift cards was a thoughtful gift for Jammies' mom to get me, but I really never buy music from i-tunes, so I don't really know what to do with it.
I really like Jammies' mom, too. She maintains she couldn't hear anything but I told her what I was saying anyway, because I was so embarrassed.
163/4: Which is what makes it a mildly scary commitment, right?
The people before us put an addition on our house and without the addition, we wouldn't have bought it.
Sure, if you're spending down savings marked for buying another house in the near future. If not, and you can afford it without feeling too much pain, not such a big deal.
wow, jude law is looking unusually scrumptious in his watson gear and moustache. (checking stills for kelly reilly revealed this).
heebie, it seems to me that either you can afford it, or you can't. You'd only be nervous about the commitment if you think you'll want to move within the next 5 years or so, and will need to gain that money back.
169: alameida, you're the Zachary Quinto fan, no? I watched the Star Trek movie recently, and mere moments in, I noted that Spock, hey, he's Sylar, from Heroes. Huh. Good work he does in the Star Trek film.
Skinny hips like that are a little unusual, though, I must say. He moves well, in any case.
You know, heebie, maybe if you're so afraid of commitment you shouldn't have, oh I don't know, gotten knocked up and married.
She bought the house before she even met Jammies, I think.
You'd only be nervous about the commitment if you think you'll want to move within the next 5 years or so, and will need to gain that money back.
Hey, I can be nervous about anything I dang well please!
I don't really like the floor plan of our house, but I love love love the location, and it would be basically impossible to get a different house in this location unless we got a tiny one and planned to tear it down and build whatever we wanted, but I'm hardly that ambitious and plus it seems wasteful.
I bought a house and I've never met Jammies, as far as I know.
174 is true. Well, I'd met Jammies years earlier but we'd only been dating for a month or two.
Jammies talks about you all the time, Mobster.
Sorry to speak of you, heebie, as though you're not here. Anyway, a media room -- or windowless room -- isn't off-putting. I've seen people use such things as offices for home businesses, as private-practice psychologists, or to teach childbirth classes, and so on. Not to mention a jam room for the kids.
175.last: That sounds like a very good reason for remodeling. If you want something to worry about, worry about the workers destroying things they aren't supposed to.
Do NOT refer to the room as the childbirth-class room when you're selling it. Just a little free advice.
180: or drywalling you into your oubliette after luring you there with a keg of fine iced tea.
I think the ill-conceived floor plan is really the root of my angst. That I feel like I would be effectively killing the dream of living in a 1960's style broad triangle roofed house, of which I can't find a suitable picture but our town has a ton of them.
181: We have a combination family room/living room/dining room. It's really too small to call it a "Great Room", so I call it the mediocre room.
||
Dolly Parton (starting at 0:30): Amazing voice, fantastic song, but with a harido and outfit that stretch credulity.
Man it's a good song though, it makes me certain that I do not have sufficient respect for Dolly Parton as a songwriter.
|>
That sounds like a very good reason for remodeling. If you want something to worry about, worry about the workers destroying things they aren't supposed to.
Of course, we're not doing anything about the terrible floor plan. Just tacking on some extra bedrooms for the offspring and possibly a...(more angst)...rec room.
Strictly speaking, we'd be just fine with just the extra bedrooms. The true heart of the problem is that my parents' house is gigantic and filled to the gills with sentimental objects, and Jammies and I have a relatively small house, and my brothers are married to women who are not sentimental at all about our childhood. So an extra rec room would at least grant us a little more wall space, etc, just to inherit all this stuff that I get very upset at the thought of getting rid of, but would be totally fine if it wasn't in my house.
And my mom broaches this topic of conversation - me acquiring the stuff in their house - all the goddamn time. So I think about it way more than I want to.
186: Are you saying you need storage space?
Well, for that particular problem, yes. But isn't it idiotic to rent storage units just for the sake of storing things you don't use?
But isn't it idiotic to rent storage units just for the sake of storing things you don't use?
Which is why I bought a jock strap.
But isn't it idiotic to rent storage units just for the sake of storing things you don't use?
Is this obviously more idiotic than building an addition on one's house for the same purpose?
If you kept the things in your house, you could use them.
It's more like that would be a silver lining of a slightly more extravagant addition than we need. It's certainly not the whole reason.
(Obviously we don't need any extra space. People do just fine with smaller spaces.) At any rate, it feels like we "need" some extra space, and if we're slightly extravagant then this side issue which keeps me up at night could be partially addressed.
192: Well now that is just crazy talk.
In light of 187, and all kidding aside -- have you talked to your brothers about this? One doesn't want to jump the gun, obviously, but if your mom is talking about her children inheriting stuff, it's wise to at least broach the topic with your brothers as well.
I just went through this without having any notice. Yeah, it's an issue, so I understand. Your brothers should start to think about whether they want everything to be gone, or whether you are magically supposed to be the keeper, or what.
It's idiotic to rent storage units if you're storing stuff for the entire freakin' family for some unknown future time. For when? It doesn't all have to be planned out in advance, but talk to the rest of the family. It shouldn't all be on you.
Recreate the keepsakes in miniature, then glue a bucket to the wall. No problem.
You are absolutely right that I should talk to them, and I will. I'm very cynical, because of past history like this: My mom saved some baby dresses that her grandmother had sewn for her. She had earmarked some for each of us three children.
The oldest brother nixed this right off the bat when he had kids, because his wife would be threatened by it. The middle brother accepted his share of the clothes, and then turned around and shipped them to me when we had Hawaiian Punch, saying he's just not sentimental. Over a handful of baby-clothes that are four generations old, that my mom feels really strongly about.
Recreate the keepsakes in miniature, then glue a bucketherring to the wall. No problem.
Many of the keepsakes are already miniatures, actually. But not the problematic ones.
I met a woman yesterday who renovated a room of her house to serve as a home for her doll collection. There was nothing creepy about that at all.
197: There's nothing you can do about that. If they're not sentimental about things like that, you can hold on to them yourself or not. Future generations may or may not be interested in them. There's a matriarchal (also patriarchal) role, as keeper of things, and maybe you choose to accept that role. Maybe you don't. I've struggled with this a bit in the last year.
But things like baby clothes don't take up a lot of space. I was thinking about larger-scale stuff as well.
Don't start down that path, neb, lest you start down the path of recursively nested homes, eventually finding yourself perched uncomfortably on an infinitesimal couch.
200: Ma'am, why aren't any of these dolls wearing pants?
Some of us have read The Black Mountain.
Oh, gosh, the one where they go swanning about Montenegro! There is also the one where he loses a half ton, pretends to be dead, and disguises himself as a murderous gangster in thrall to . . . that guy whose name I forget. His nemesis. (I imagine myself as Lily Rowan.)
Hey everybody! Why aren't we playing anymore?
I read your post above and remembered that I'd better load the dishwasher before bed..
I seem to have missed the right chance to defend Rachel McAdams. Though I think the subsequent discussion just confirms what I said in 120: this is a matter of taste.
that guy whose name I forget. His nemesis.
Zeck, right? Something with a Z. A good one. But they're all good, really.
If you give up now you'll never win her heart, essear. Don't you know she lurks here?
essar, you could probably get a Rachel McAdams doll. If you give the doll its own room, apparently it isn't as creepy.
I am in heart with Rachel McAdams.
But more importantly, THE VIKES ARE GIVING ME A FUCKING HEARTATTACK!
Yikes, Vikes! Fruit Striked Gum.
I am in heart with Rachel McAdams.
In less than three with?
All this Rachel McAdams love intrigues me, because I find her incredibly offputting. She is pretty though!
Because she was so mean in Mean Girls?
Nope. Because she radiates offputting-to-me-ness in every role!
I formed my opinion of her in The Hot Chick, which is Freaky Friday except with Rob Schneider, Anna Farris, and Rachel McAdams, and sounds awful except I think I really loved it.
All that anyone is saying is that she's pretty, though.
She is pretty though!
This may not be unrelated to the love. For some reason the way she looked in Red Eye really pushed my buttons, in a sexiest-business-traveler-ever sort of way. I'm oversharing, aren't I?
Would you pay her Otto-mo-bills?
For a price you can get a McAdams automaton.
Has she (McAdams) ever appeared wearing a dirndl?
She almost drives me to Otto-as-fixiation.
Would the McAutomaton jaw have those dummy-style edges, like a nutcracker? I bet that's not hot.
You may not believe that 234 was posted without first seeing 233, but it was.
Who doesn't lust after Heroticows? No one, that's who.
I heard Horton heard a Heroticow herd.
Based on information gleaned from Wikipedia, it appears the way to Ms McAdams's heart is through stubble. Otto can let us know how it goes.
241: She's a fan of no-till farming?
She's lusting after her own private Iowa.
Have we driven heebie to doing the dishes?
No, but I'm considering going to bed.
If you were really crazy you would just go to bed impetuously, rather than considering it first.
Among the problems in the American State of Play was McAdams' character's too small role. But I doubt a larger role for her character could have saved that movie.
Oh, gosh, the one where they go swanning about Montenegro! There is also the one where he loses a half ton, pretends to be dead, and disguises himself as a murderous gangster in thrall to . . . that guy whose name I forget. His nemesis. (I imagine myself as Lily Rowan.)
Arnold Zeck, if I recall correctly, whose signal offense was hiring several men to machine-gun Wolfe's rooftop orchidarium to splinters. The Black Mountain was one of my favorite books when I was a kid; I understand that the Nero Wolfe Cookbook is also quite good.
206: no, but I will have by the end of tomorrow.
249: And who looked remarkably like a shark.
Man it's a good song though, it makes me certain that I do not have sufficient respect for Dolly Parton as a songwriter.
Dolly Parton is constantly underestimated as a songwriter, arranger, and musician (she plays like 5 or 6 instruments). She's smart, too.
I was just at my inlaws, watching Dolly on a rerun of the Porter Wagoner show. There's a woman who knew how to carry off an Elvis-esque jumpsuit.
I don't know much about country, but my father-in-law was a (not terribly successful) professional slide guitar player, and played in a band with his father and the rest of the family (Big Sam's Harmony Rangers -- the best cowboy music ever to come out of central New Jersey). So I've become peripherally aware of a lot of it. There's a whole big weird alternate universe out there, with a lot of men in sequined suits.
252: Didn't she do a triple-et (whatever) with Emmylou and maybe Linda Ronstadt in the late '90s? That grouping sort of made me perk up my ears and realize that there was clearly more there there than I had thought. Plus, I greatly admire her commitment to her public - she says that she gardens in a wig so that, if someone were to drive by and gawk, they'd see her looking like Dolly(TM). I'm sure it's not quite that simple, but I appreciate a star who has real talent but recognizes that, ultimately, she owes her livelihood to the fans.
This is related to the fact that, sometimes, I think Kurt Cobain was kind of an immature loser jerk*. People are paying you money for your talent. Find a way to cope.
* In fairness, he seems to have thought this as well
Heebie mentioned stamped tin, which I love. I don't know that I'd install it someplace, but apartments with stamped tin ceilings are really nifty.
Is that also verboten?
Sorry, been busy - I haven't read any of the thread til just now.
Tin ceilings are fine for commercial spaces and for adaptively-reused commercial spaces that are now homes. I could see using them in a kitchen under certain circumstances or elsewhere in a home if you were going for some sort of crazy hodge-podge concept.
What is nice is to take your ceiling color (which can be white or off-white* and bring it down the walls 6"-20". It can give sort of a crown molding effect that's nice. I have no idea how it would look in a room with low ceilings, however.
* Sort of kidding. I'm an advocate for strong colors in houses, but every one of our ceilings is a flavor of white.
Also, ceilings with complicated plaster moldings and central medallions aren't flat. But yet they rock.
I would say that such things are not the ceiling; they are ornaments on the ceiling.
Couldn't the same be said of popcorn?
Oh! Oh! Are we going to be home decorating blogging again? Because then give me advice on my ceilings! So, the previous owners lowered the ceilings to put in recessed lights. They also did this thing where they plastered over the corners and edges where the walls meet the ceilings, giving the living room a kind of domed-cave feel. I think they were going for Spanish adobe, but it's not that kind of house, so instead it feels like a hobbit hole. I hate it, but I have no idea how to dismantle it, since I don't know how they built it. Is there any way to make this less horrible, or should I just buy undersized furniture and pretend I'm a gnome.
So long as there's a recognized crazy-hodge-podge exception, I'm happy.
258.last. Yes. I can e-mail a pattern for a gnome hat.
While it isn't quite home decorating, I'm thinking of removing the acoustical tile ceiling in the semi-finished part of the basement. It would give me 2 and half more vertical feet for shelves, plus I could use the floor joists to hang the tricycle and such.
When I was looking around above that ceiling, I noticed how close the gas line is to being right below where our electric range is. If I ever get ambitious enough to switch-out a kitchen, it's good to know I could get a gas range without much pipe-work.
Couldn't the same be said of popcorn?
Don't be absurd.
The previous owners seem kind of tasteless.
I suppose it's all a matter of opinion -- I plan on covering the walls with a pony mural, myself.
258: Added-on cove ceiling edges, if that's what you're describing, is probably plaster over curved wire mesh lath. Not too difficult to remove, but it will probably necessitate plenty of small repairs when you're done.
Also, I'd second LB's suggestion upthread to apply some kind of laminate over the granite, if the dimensions of the granite work for you. It's often done to cover ugly surfaces such as orange Formica the crappy stuff we have, and it would be way cheaper than removing and reïnstalling the entire countertop.
I have no idea how to dismantle it, since I don't know how they built it. Is there any way to make this less horrible, or should I just buy undersized furniture and pretend I'm a gnome.
What you have seems to be a cove-molded ceiling, which is awesome. But apparently not in your situation. My ceiling/wall painting idea might help. It was probably built solidly, with 2x4s and gypsum lath skim-coated with plaster. Which is all totally removable, but will make a huge mess and take a couple dumpsters. Our dining room has this problem (although the dropped ceiling obscures the original, appropriate cove-molded ceiling), and as a result it will be the very last room (of 12 + 3 bathrooms) to be redone. Even though we dine in our dining room (with holes in the dropped ceiling and wallpaper residue and half-stripped wood) every night that we're not on the porch.
A half-measure would be to cut a hole in the middle of the dropped ceiling, thus exposing the original, higher ceiling, but that would be nearly as much trouble as just removing the whole ceiling.
I might add in passing that, for most residential purposes, recessed cans are stupid.
265.1 is right about the coving itself, btw. I'm just not sure that removing it gets you very far (and even that's a reasonably messy job, albeit without any need for dumpsters). A low ceiling's a low ceiling.
Bless you, Jesus.
Coals to Newcastle, really.
Wait, did they lower all the ceilings? What kind of dreadful people are they?
270: When you're not sure what nosflow wants for Christmas, give the gift of diæresis.
so instead it feels like a hobbit hole. I hate it
I was just watching LOTR again the other day, thinking I'd be very happy to have a "Bag End" style home. Some day, perhaps.
your ceiling color (which can be white or off-white
Rory's theatre director was telling me the other day that she'd recently painted her office ceiling black, and it made the space feel surprisingly open. I definitely want to try this.
The dropped ceiling is IIRC just in the living room. (It's also sloppily plastered. It's also covered in glossy pinky-gold paint.) I thought maybe I'd just go over there with a broomstick end and poke a few experimental holes in the corners to see how it was built, but M said no.
painted her office ceiling black, and it made the space feel surprisingly open
This works especially well with stick-on dayglo stars.
All I want for christmas is a sharp, witty, beautiful girlfriend.
the very last room (of 12 + 3 bathrooms)
This didn't register for a minute. JRoth lives in an enormous house.
277: The problem is that these always seem to come pre-packaged with the sharp, witty, handsome boyfriends and splitting up the set can be a real hassle.
Oh, I'm sure I can find someone to take the boyfriend, on ebay or something.
I think it is easier to sell people on Craigslist than ebay.
278: Now you know why the exterior* is only ~50% painted after 8.5 years.
* or, to be precise, the exterior trim + porch, as the walls are brick
All I want for christmas is a sharp, witty, beautiful girlfriend.
Pity you'll have to wait another 360 days.
Also that I don't celebrate christmas.
It's good to see your keen business mind is on the case.
The problem is that these always seem to come pre-packaged with the sharp, witty, handsome boyfriends sprayed with that popcorn stuff, which is cool while you're tripping, but otherwise just pops your balloons. If you know what I mean.
If you know what I mean.
I actually don't think I do.
Saturday was Boxing Day, the following day was Chessboxing Day, the 28th was Box Elder Day, meaning that yesterday was Boxoctosis Day, today is Protein Protection Day, and tomorrow, yes, tomorrow is Boxing Helena Day.
278 - and it's beautiful and cost tuppence ha'penny. This is why I hate him.
Our house has disgusting Artex ceilings everywhere - mostly like this
http://www.tp-plastering.co.uk/files/images/20070517_304.JPG
but some are really elaborate. I just don't look up any more.
This is why I hate him.
I've been wondering.
It could be a kind of Gift of the Magi situation - you leave C and I'll leave the house, and we could be unhappy together!
295. Your ceilings are decorated like cakes!
OT-ish: Is JRoth still around? Eekbeat and I went to Montpelier today. I was wondering if you were familiar with the work behind restoring the house. It sounded like an absolute nightmare.
(For those unaware, the du Pont family had bought the house in 1901 and expanded it over time. Recently, it was pared back from 36,000 sq. ft. to the 12,000 sq. ft. structure as it stood when Madison died.)
No, I've been to Monticello, and want to see Montpelier*, but I don't know anything about it.
* No interest in visiting Montgomery, surprisingly.
299: The Montpelier folks clearly have a bit of an inferiority complex vis-à-vis Monticello and Mount Vernon, as they've re-opened just last year. It's a work in progress but very much worth the visit.
Random knowledge acquired: Dolley Madison was fond of serving houseguests oyster ice cream, which was said to be very good.
300.last: So that's what the kids called it back then.
