Style
Steve James
They were doing up a few rooms.
The living room was a demonstration of style. The room before
they started was cream emulsioned walls and the fireplace, an
iron fireplace, was also painted with cream.
But what really made me cringe was the design on the fireplace.
There, painted for all to see were multiple chinese characters.
And what did the characters say?
Feng-Shuey
Now I am not an expert but putting FS characters in a room must
be extremely non-FS.
This made me think of the decorations in houses I have been to.
When looking to move I saw many houses - the worst decorated
was one in Palmers Green that had a stream, with fish, flowing
through the living room. The carpet was green (grass) and the
walls were papered with forest scenes. It must have cost quite a
bit but ... Apparently it had been on the market for nearly a year!
Steve (Steeljam) *BF DAcFD (UU) *
Resident Opsimath in Redivivus Studies
Clotilde
stee...@cix.co.uk (Steve James) wrote:
>I have just seen a better homes type programme on TV (Big Boys?!)
>
>
>When looking to move I saw many houses - the worst decorated
>was one in Palmers Green that had a stream, with fish, flowing
>through the living room. The carpet was green (grass) and the
>walls were papered with forest scenes. It must have cost quite a
>bit but ... Apparently it had been on the market for nearly a year!
>
>Steve (Steeljam) *BF DAcFD (UU) *
> Resident Opsimath in Redivivus Studies
>
the various shades of rose pink dining room with a window hole into the living
room done in orange and lime green then you walked into the kitchen done
in yellow and forest green. then down the hall to the bedrooms done in alternately
orange, rust browns and blues.
CCA
>When looking to move I saw many houses - the worst decorated
>was one in Palmers Green that had a stream, with fish, flowing
>through the living room. The carpet was green (grass) and the
>walls were papered with forest scenes. It must have cost quite a
>bit but ... Apparently it had been on the market for nearly a year!
Have you seen a programme called 'Trading Up'? (Or 'Trading Up In The Sun' at
the moment, since they're doing houses in Spain) They go along to a perfectly
normal and ordinary-looking house that the owners are hoping to sell, then they
cover the walls with, quite often, paint in disgustingly lurid colours of lilac
or lime green. They make a whole lot of things like headboards in MDF or
pictures made out of photocopies, and quite frankly make the place look tacky
and crap. Then they invite back the prospective buyer who was thinking about
buying the place before they started...and who usually decides there and then
that this is not the place for him/her after all.
A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make an
'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer. Almost invariably, the
'after' looks a lot worse than the 'before'.
CCA:)
BRIERLEYJON
>>I have just seen a better homes type programme on TV (Big Boys?!)
>>
>>This made me think of the decorations in houses I have been to.
>>
>>When looking to move I saw many houses - the worst decorated
>>was one in Palmers Green that had a stream, with fish, flowing
>>through the living room. The carpet was green (grass) and the
>>walls were papered with forest scenes. It must have cost quite a
>>bit but ... Apparently it had been on the market for nearly a year!
>I'da bought it. Just for the peculiarity factor. The worst house I saw was
>the various shades of rose pink dining room with a window hole into the
>living
>room done in orange and lime green then you walked into the kitchen done
>in yellow and forest green. then down the hall to the bedrooms done in
>alternately
>orange, rust browns and blues.
Bergholt Stuttley Johnson never did painting-and-decorating, did he? If he did,
then clearly the Johnson school has followers on Roundworld, too. And at that
it couldn't be worse than Laurence Llewellyn Bowen.
Supermouse The Rodent
<sphi...@aol.com> writes
>A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make an
>'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!
No! *sob* No! Please no! Make the bad people go away!
(I just like books, m'kay?)
Dazedly,
--
Supermouse
Clotilde
Almost as bad as drilling a hole in old books, gluing them together and making
a lamp out of them. Or tearing the pages out to be used as parts of a literary
party. Or better yet, old books nailed to a wall of a staircase for decor.
All of which I have seen on Home Decorating shows.
Steve James
> A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make an
> 'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer. Almost invariably,
> the 'after' looks a lot worse than the 'before'.
>
My God. I saw the end of that programme. I could not believe it.
What did the idiot say "They are in a language I can't read..." as he
pasted the cut off book backs - IKEA do something similar but at least
they have not adulterated real books.
It reminds me of one of the great series in Brian O'Nolan's Irish Times [1].
Chronicled in The Best of Myles by Myles na Gopaleen [2].
[1] Brian wrote under the name of Flann O'Brian
[2] and Myles na Gopaleen
Spoiler to the book below
||
||
||
||
||
V
{Buchhandlung]
While visiting a newly-married friend he discovers they have bought various
bits of furniture, including bookcases. These have been stuffed with all
manner of new books, some very costly.
So a new scheme is dreamed up where by second-hand books would
obtain, and suitably worry, the books so it looked like the new owner
had actually read them. For the better off this could even mean having
pertinent sentences and paragraphs underlined in red pencil, old (forged)
letters or even small currency notes [3] used as bookmarks.
[3] When the ten bob and one pound notes were in common use. Somehow
a pound coin doesn't help - they just fall out.
LoneCat
It wasn't just me then? Oh good.
I'm imagining the poor books... Their spines missing, their stiching
exposed to the world, the loose hairs on the cut edges of binding...
*cries*
--
Susan/LoneCat, AFPgoddess of indecision
http://www.lonecat.org/
Music: http://www.numfrunct.co.uk/
The cat who walks by herself
Beth Winter
>
<cnippy>
> A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make an
> 'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer.
*Ouch.*
On a related tangent, my mother's a devoted reader of various
home&garden magazines (and she actually has a lot of talent for interior
design - certainly more than the editors of those magazines!). In a
given year, over three different magazines, she claims she can count the
number of households shown with a semi-reasonable [1] amount of books on
the fingers of both hands, none of them among the ones specially
assembled for the photoshoots. Somewhat coincidentally, those are most
often the ones with cats featured on the photos ^_^
[1] semi-reasonable in that case meaning more than a hundred. Which is
very limited, considering that I have ten times that in my bedroom
alone.
--
Beth Winter
The Discworld Compendium <http://www.extenuation.net/disc/>
"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods and the season of mists."
-- Neil Gaiman
CCA
>CCA
><sphi...@aol.com> writes
>>A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make an
>>'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer.
>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR
RRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!
>No! *sob* No! Please no! Make the bad people go away!
I believe the reason he did it was to cover the computer, which was in the
dining room, because the presenter of the programme didn't like 'multi-purpose'
rooms. (He was afraid the presence of a computer in the dining room would make
it too 'officey', I think.) Which is something I find a bit old-fashioned, to
say the least. Practically every room in our house is a 'multi-purpose' room
in some way. It's probably true of most houses, and especially apartments.
The other thing they seem to have a habit of doing on 'Trading Up' is putting
shelves up directly over beds, so you bang your head every time you sit up.
CCA:)
Supermouse The Rodent
<hno...@ev1.net> writes
>Almost as bad as
[snipped]
*sob*
Brokenly,
--
Supermouse
Lesley Weston
sphi...@aol.com wrote on 15/02/2003 3:51 AM:
<snip>
> The other thing they seem to have a habit of doing on 'Trading Up' is putting
> shelves up directly over beds, so you bang your head every time you sit up.
> CCA:)
Obviously, they don't live in an earthquake zone. Or perhaps they just don't
*realise* that they live in an earthquake zone.
Lesley Weston.
Lesley Weston
Super...@therodent.org.uk wrote on 14/02/2003 2:41 PM:
> In article <20030214161926...@mb-de.aol.com>, CCA
> <sphi...@aol.com> writes
>> A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make an
>> 'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer.
>
> No! *sob* No! Please no! Make the bad people go away!
>
There is just one reason for cutting up old books, and it's not to enhance
illiterates' decor. Some books are so badly damaged that it's not feasible
to repair them, but some of the pictures might still be OK. Carefully
removing these pictures and selling them individually at reasonable prices
means that ordinary people (like me) can have botanicals or whatever that we
could not afford otherwise, and at least something is preserved from the
book. On the other hand, I have a copy of The Natural History of Selborne
from 1842 with hand-coloured illustrations. The spine is missing (perhaps it
fell victim to a "decorator"), which means that I could afford it so that I
have the rest of the book. As a bonus, the paper used to fill the spine [1]
is a contemporary handbill giving a tiny piece of Oxford history.
[1] Is that the right term? I used to know this stuff.
Lesley Weston.
Torak
> sphi...@aol.com (CCA) wrote:
>
>> A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make
>> an 'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer. Almost
>> invariably, the 'after' looks a lot worse than the 'before'.
>>
> My God. I saw the end of that programme. I could not believe it.
> What did the idiot say "They are in a language I can't read..." as he
> pasted the cut off book backs - IKEA do something similar but at least
> they have not adulterated real books.
No, Ikea just stack the bookcases full of job lots of Swedish books. I've
never seen any where they've glued them together as a chunk - as a kid
(about seven or eight) I used to sit reading in whatever happened to be the
most comfortable set-piece living room at the time while my parents wandered
around. Incidentally, it wasn't until several years later that I actually
realised what those Frank Harris books they had at Ikea Kungens Kurva were
actually about...
Nowadays I think they mostly have cookery books and psychology textbooks.
And I've been to a *lot* of Ikeas...
Torak
>>> an 'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer.
>
>
> I believe the reason he did it was to cover the computer, which was in the
> dining room, because the presenter of the programme didn't like
> 'multi-purpose' rooms. (He was afraid the presence of a computer in the
> dining room would make it too 'officey', I think.) Which is something I
> find a bit old-fashioned, to say the least. Practically every room in
> our house is a 'multi-purpose' room in some way. It's probably true of
> most houses, and especially apartments. The other thing they seem to have
> a habit of doing on 'Trading Up' is putting shelves up directly over
> beds, so you bang your head every time you sit up. CCA:)
I think the worst case I've ever seen was on Changing Rooms where they made
a set of shelves suspended from the ceiling by wires. They then stocked it
with the owner's vast collection of antique and ludicrously expensive
teapots [1] and left for the evening.
They returned in the morning to find the floor covered with shattered
teapots, and the wires torn out of the plasterboard ceiling.
[1] - Much like dwarves and gold, were a robber to give that lady the
ultimatum "Your teapots or your life", they had better bring a chair and a
good book while the choice was debated. And I can't remember which book I
plagiarised that from. Probably Soul Music.
CCA
>I think the worst case I've ever seen was on Changing Rooms where they made
>a set of shelves suspended from the ceiling by wires.
On 'Trading Up' the other day, they had a vase - well, it was a bottle really,
with flowers sticking out - suspended from the ceiling so it swung around all
over the place and looked extremely stupid. It was reasonably near to a wall,
too, and it'd only have taken one person to come in drunk and go "I name this
ship..."
CCA:)
Torak
Oh, I didn't mind the "suspended from the ceiling" bit. It was overloading
it with very fragile and very valuable things that bothered me.
gra...@affordable-leather.co.ukdeletethis
On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 20:14:30 -0000, "Clotilde" <hno...@ev1.net>
wrote:
>>When looking to move I saw many houses - the worst decorated
>>was one in Palmers Green that had a stream, with fish, flowing
>>through the living room. The carpet was green (grass) and the
>>walls were papered with forest scenes. <snip>
>>
>I'da bought it. Just for the peculiarity factor. The worst house I saw was
>the various shades of rose pink dining room with a window hole into the living
>room done in orange and lime green <snip>
When I bought my flat the front room (which most people would use as a
sitting room, but I use more like a bedsit) was papered in a sort of
greeny grey "leaf" pattern with a dark green floral border.
Before I moved in I got a friend who was in need of some cash and said
"here's a roller, here's a stepladder, here's a tub of magnolia paint,
deal with this!"
Cheers,
Graham.
Richard Eney
Clotilde <hno...@ev1.net> wrote:
>Supermouse The Rodent <Super...@therodent.org.uk> wrote:
>>CCA <sphi...@aol.com> writes
>>>A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make
>>>an 'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer.
>>
>>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
>>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
>>AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!
>>
>>No! *sob* No! Please no! Make the bad people go away!
>Almost as bad as drilling a hole in old books, gluing them together and
>making a lamp out of them. Or tearing the pages out to be used as parts
>of a literary party. Or better yet, old books nailed to a wall of a
>staircase for decor. All of which I have seen on Home Decorating shows.
A couple of years ago I forcibly removed a book that had been glued to
the "bookshelves" of a restaurant and received permission from the manager
to replace it with a junk book of similar appearance (cost $1 at thrift
shop); I eventually sold the rescued one to a friend who recognized it
for the classic Swedish novel it was. (The rest of them were, IMO,
worthy of being glued to the walls for "decor" - fortunately, since they
had far more glue on them than the one I rescued. I like books in
general, but there are some that I can see savaged without a pang. Much.
<twitch>)
=Tamar
Richard Eney
Beth Winter <ren...@astercity.net> wrote:
<snip>
>On a related tangent, my mother's a devoted reader of various
>home&garden magazines (and she actually has a lot of talent for interior
>design - certainly more than the editors of those magazines!). In a
>given year, over three different magazines, she claims she can count the
>number of households shown with a semi-reasonable [1] amount of books on
>the fingers of both hands, none of them among the ones specially
>assembled for the photoshoots. Somewhat coincidentally, those are most
>often the ones with cats featured on the photos ^_^
They showed _any_ books? That's more than they used to.
I remember one such showplace that actually had a room they called the
"library". Not only did they not have a book or even a magazine in it,
there wasn't a flat surface in it that you could have put a book down on
if you had walked in carrying one. IIRC, there also wasn't a chair; it
was really sort of an anteroom just in from the front door. It may have
had a floor lamp.
>[1] semi-reasonable in that case meaning more than a hundred. Which is
>very limited, considering that I have ten times that in my bedroom
>alone.
Except for some of the really serious magazines of the 1990s where they
begin with, for example, a country barn, and change it into a 3 million
dollar house, I've rarely seen a decorating magazine show a house with any
large number of books. In the above-mentioned magazines, the occasional
book house compensates by having almost as many books as you own in one
huge wall-full of shelves, with a distinct air of "eccentric professor" in
the decor. My reaction is usually "love the shelves, get rid of the
furniture, put in more shelves". :-)
=Tamar
Catja Pafort
> I think the worst case I've ever seen was on Changing Rooms where they made
> a set of shelves suspended from the ceiling by wires. They then stocked it
> with the owner's vast collection of antique and ludicrously expensive
> teapots [1] and left for the evening.
>
> They returned in the morning to find the floor covered with shattered
> teapots, and the wires torn out of the plasterboard ceiling.
:-(
That's just criminal. Moving shelves, when you happen to bang your
head/elbows against them, will wreck havoc with anything that's
valuable.
Another good reason for never letting these sorts of people near
anything I own.
The one episode I vividly remember had the people saying 'what we really
liked about this house was the free-standing pine staircase. The one
other thing we adore is our collection of pub mirrors.
The pub mirrors were, of course, taken out of the room - and the pine
staircase clad in aluminium to give it a contemporary look.
The owners got back and were ready to strangle the designers.
I guess the guy who got the paint out before the decorators had left
felt similar...
Catja
aka PerditaX
Childe Wellington
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CCA
>The one episode I vividly remember had the people saying 'what we really
>liked about this house was the free-standing pine staircase. The one
>other thing we adore is our collection of pub mirrors.
>The pub mirrors were, of course, taken out of the room - and the pine
>staircase clad in aluminium to give it a contemporary look.
>The owners got back and were ready to strangle the designers.
>I guess the guy who got the paint out before the decorators had left
>felt similar...
I remember one episode of 'Changing Rooms' where they did two apartments
belonging to students. I can't remember what exactly they did with the
apartments, but at least one of the students took one look at the results and
said "Are the paint-rollers still here?"
CCA:)
Terry Pratchett
<a.w.m...@durham.ac.uk> writes
> The other thing they seem to have
>> a habit of doing on 'Trading Up' is putting shelves up directly over
>> beds, so you bang your head every time you sit up. CCA:)
After their legs have been broken, people like that should be kept away
from books. What am I saying...they probably keep away from books
anyway.
--
Terry Pratchett
Catja Pafort
{re people disrespectful of books]
> After their legs have been broken, people like that should be kept away
> from books.
It is good of you to point out this shocking gap in current legislation,
leading to the abuse of those most vulnerable of information carriers,
the humble book.
The SPCB (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty towards Books) will
shortly be offering a service to ease the suffering of books that are
often shoved into attics and forgotten about.
On http://www.bibliofile.co.uk [1] you will shortly find a webboard that
allows you to offer - for free (apart from shipping costs) - those
reference books and manuals that you really can do without, which are
too obscure to sell, but someone, somewhere, might love them.
Catja
aka PerditaX
[1] That means I need to put that domain on-line and do something with
it. Drat.
Jenny Griffee
Lesley Weston <les...@vancouverbc.net> wrote:
I avoid Trading Spaces as much as humanly possible, but occasionally I
run across it while channel-surfing and find myself staring in abject
horror. The worst idea I've yet seen: covering the walls of a bathroom
with artificial flowers. Not wallpaper, not paint: actual flowers, in
the hundreds, stuck to the wall. They'll get dirty, damp, and moldy,
and they'll be impossible to clean....
The homeowners loved it. I wish them the best of luck. ::cough::
As for me, I just moved into a new condo and finished installing the
bookshelves yesterday. (There are many of them, and they're securely
anchored to the wall; I know I'm in a high-risk earthquake zone, and the
last thing I need is to get beaned with a six-foot bookcase. ;) It
probably says something about me that I put in all the shelves and
organized the books & CDs before I did anything about the kitchen or my
clothes....
Mary Messall
> I avoid Trading Spaces as much as humanly possible, but occasionally I
> run across it while channel-surfing and find myself staring in abject
> horror.
I ended up watching quite a lot of it over Christmas break, because my
mother, sister, and cousin Colleen are fans. And I have to admit, it's
entertaining... More entertaining when the designs are appalling than
when they're good, possibly, because they're much funnier then. It's a
sort of gruesome form of amusement, like throwing prisoners to lions...
> The worst idea I've yet seen: covering the walls of a bathroom
> with artificial flowers. Not wallpaper, not paint: actual flowers, in
> the hundreds, stuck to the wall. They'll get dirty, damp, and moldy,
> and they'll be impossible to clean....
> The homeowners loved it. I wish them the best of luck. ::cough::
I saw that episode. The wife claimed to love it. The husband was
polite, at best. Hilde (I'm not at all sure I'm spelling that right,
"Hill-dee") is the worst of all the designers. Aside from that awful
fake flower thing (they were *stapled* to the wall with a staple gun!
If they ever want to take them down--I'd start the very next
day--they'd have to remove 6000 staples and their walls would be
entirely covered with holes) I also saw her nail a bunch of old LPs to
a wall in place of wallpaper. She also has this thing with *painting*
apholostered furniture, with spray paint. The people who got the room
full of record albums explicitly asked her not to paint the chair that
one of them inherited from her grandmother, and she did anyway. In a
later episode, she painted chocolate pudding into a wall, and I swear I
thought she was going to cover the whole wall with it... (Fortunately,
she was just trying to match paint to it.)
One of the other designers is almost as bad. He painted the walls of
one room bright lime green, and then painted the *hardwood floor*
black, and put orange furniture in the room. He did another room which
was quite nice, all autumn colors, but then he decorated it by framing
actual dead leaves and hanging them up. I wanted to see "one month
later" when the leaves were brown and disintegrating in their frames.
There's at least two designers, though, the woman with the southern
accent and the Asian man, who actually seem to work miracles. It's
impressive.
-Mary
Thomas Zahr
news:griffee-06F25A...@brokaw.wa.com:
...
>
> As for me, I just moved into a new condo and finished installing the
> bookshelves yesterday. (There are many of them, and they're securely
> anchored to the wall; I know I'm in a high-risk earthquake zone, and
> the last thing I need is to get beaned with a six-foot bookcase. ;)
> It probably says something about me that I put in all the shelves and
> organized the books & CDs before I did anything about the kitchen or
> my clothes....
>
obviously you have a clear set of priorities. Next should come the
installation of some form of music system, an easy chair and a nice
drink, so that you can test your newly installed bookcases, do they
contain the right books, can you find the ones you really want to read
right now?
Lot's of fun with your new abode
--
Ciao
Thomas =:-)
<out of sig error>
BRIERLEYJON
Things done in the right order there, good to see. But did you do what I always
do when packing or unpacking books ... "oooh, I forgot I had that," and then
start reading it? In my case it is pretty rapidly terminated by a wifely book
round the earole, delivered with force, but I still do it.
Be happy in your new home.
Jon
Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.
Jenny Griffee
brier...@aol.com (BRIERLEYJON) wrote:
Thanks to both for the well-wishes. :)
I'm definitely enjoying the new place, although there's one problem: my
dialup speeds have plunged to 26400. Bleeargh. I think this is a sign
from above... Thou Shalt Get DSL. (Not that I need the expense just
now... groan.)
On the other hand, it's probably a good thing that I rediscovered Usenet
and can do some low-band browsing here instead. ::laugh::
Yep, the music system is installed -- I have a loop of Bertine, Frou
Frou and Duncan Sheik going in the next room over as I type. And the
books I want are within easy reach. I've been doing the "oh, boy,
THERE'S that book! I wanted to (re)read that!" thing for days -- mostly
because I can actually SEE everything now, instead of having everything
piled up three books deep in front of the shelves....
And to seque nicely back onto the thread topic: The show I have been
taking some design tips from lately is Surprise By Design, which is on
TLC during the day (I've been setting the VCR for it) and actually
features Designers With A Clue. Robert's big on bookshelf layouts, and
he's very good at it; I've been emulating some of his techniques,
insofar as I can find spots on the shelves that haven't been overtaken
by, uh, the books. Funny how they keep occupying every inch of
available space!
Terry Pratchett
writes
>
>One of the other designers is almost as bad. He painted the walls of
>one room bright lime green, and then painted the *hardwood floor*
>black, and put orange furniture in the room. He did another room which
>was quite nice, all autumn colors, but then he decorated it by framing
>actual dead leaves and hanging them up. I wanted to see "one month
>later" when the leaves were brown and disintegrating in their frames.
I don't watch this programme. Do the show the bit where the talentless,
mouthy little turds get shot in the head?
Lemme tell you about this room here.
We had the walls plastered with old-fashioned lime plaster and painted
with distemper. The effect is amazing -- it gives the walls almost a
soft look, because the light is reflected from within the distemper
rather than from the surface (it sounds odd, but apparently is the same
with milk-- the light is coming back from within the first few layers of
fat molecules.) The walls change colour as the sun moves around, from
white up through cream and all the way to grey-green. The room lives.
I'd shoot the first designer that sets foot in it.
--
Terry Pratchett
Beth Winter
>
<snippy>
> One of the other designers is almost as bad. He painted the walls of
> one room bright lime green, and then painted the *hardwood floor*
> black, and put orange furniture in the room.
Ouch. Nevermind the color combination, anyone who paints a hardwood
floor deserves to be shot. Reminds me of a lady who came into my
grandparents' summer cottage, took one look at the inside, which is
completely panelled with semi-finished pine boards, and said it would
look marvellous painted yellow. I think the quadruple-strength glare
from me, Gran, Mom and my aunt kind of discouraged her ^_~
> He did another room which
> was quite nice, all autumn colors, but then he decorated it by framing
> actual dead leaves and hanging them up. I wanted to see "one month
> later" when the leaves were brown and disintegrating in their frames.
Actually, you can get it done - if you spray the leaves with hairspray.
At the aforementioned cottage Mom made a wreath for a lamp, from leaves
and herbs, that after a bit of hairspray treatment stayed up for four
years and was thrown out when the lamp went. And then there's mistletoe,
which doesn't even need that, and looks gorgeous dried.
ward
> Except for some of the really serious magazines of the 1990s where they
> begin with, for example, a country barn, and change it into a 3 million
> dollar house, I've rarely seen a decorating magazine show a house with any
> large number of books. In the above-mentioned magazines, the occasional
> book house compensates by having almost as many books as you own in one
> huge wall-full of shelves, with a distinct air of "eccentric professor" in
> the decor. My reaction is usually "love the shelves, get rid of the
> furniture, put in more shelves". :-)
I keep trying that, but my wife insists that I don't block the windows. As
though there were anything interesting to see through them in this New
Jersey suburb.
--
Ward Griffiths wdg...@comcast.net
He got the country's name wrong, but Bush was precisely right when he
said: "Your enemy is not surrounding your country. Your enemy is ruling
your country." -- Lew Rockwell, on the 2003 State of the Union speech
ward
The store in Elizabeth New Jersey has the shelves stocked with really cheap
remaindered volumes. Generally batches of 20-30 of _the same title_ on a
shelf. Depressing, really, but lots better than the idea of cutting up
real books for a facade.
ward
> Ouch. Nevermind the color combination, anyone who paints a hardwood
> floor deserves to be shot. Reminds me of a lady who came into my
> grandparents' summer cottage, took one look at the inside, which is
> completely panelled with semi-finished pine boards, and said it would
> look marvellous painted yellow. I think the quadruple-strength glare
> from me, Gran, Mom and my aunt kind of discouraged her ^_~
If you own cats, and one more sanding is going to leave holes in the floor,
there may be little other choice than to paint (with waterproof) a hardwood
floor. Especially if the floor has been through a century of sanding and
you can't (quite yet) afford to put a new layer of wood flooring down. Of
course, what we went with instead was a cat-vomit-colored carpet as a
temporary measure instead.
Beth Winter
>
> Beth Winter wrote:
>
> > Ouch. Nevermind the color combination, anyone who paints a hardwood
> > floor deserves to be shot. Reminds me of a lady who came into my
> > grandparents' summer cottage, took one look at the inside, which is
> > completely panelled with semi-finished pine boards, and said it would
> > look marvellous painted yellow. I think the quadruple-strength glare
> > from me, Gran, Mom and my aunt kind of discouraged her ^_~
>
> If you own cats, and one more sanding is going to leave holes in the floor,
> there may be little other choice than to paint (with waterproof) a hardwood
> floor. Especially if the floor has been through a century of sanding and
> you can't (quite yet) afford to put a new layer of wood flooring down. Of
> course, what we went with instead was a cat-vomit-colored carpet as a
> temporary measure instead.
Uh, why exactly would cats damage the floor? I have a hardwood floor in
here, and the Right Hon. Lady Panther has had no effect on it. If
anything, she's more dangerous to the carpet, as her fur is very thick
and shedding constantly...
CCA
>Torak
><a.w.m...@durham.ac.uk> writes
>> The other thing they seem to have
>>> a habit of doing on 'Trading Up' is putting shelves up directly over
>>> beds, so you bang your head every time you sit up. CCA:)
Er...<respectful voice>... that was *me* that said that...
:-)
CCA:)
Clotilde
ward <wdg...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Richard Eney wrote:
>
>> Except for some of the really serious magazines of the 1990s where they
>> begin with, for example, a country barn, and change it into a 3 million
>> dollar house, I've rarely seen a decorating magazine show a house with
any
>> large number of books.
So true. I recall helping a pal move - he's the guy who edited the Best of
Trek books - and his whole house was full of books and magazines and comics
and so forth. Then we helped them move again. They devoted the whole of the
enclosed attic to his books. Then we helped them move AGAIN and he'd whittled
it down to one room with walkin closets full of file cabs of magazines &
comics. Then, yep, I'm a glutton for punishment, I helped them pack their
6 horse trailer with boxes of books and stuff and just a little furniture
and move, sadly, to Georgia where they have disappeared from my life. I write.
They don't reply. Dear me.
I don't quite fill a room. Or maybe I would if they were all in one place.
I have two bookcases in the living room. Three so far in the 2nd bedroom/office
space. Two in my bedroom. And a bunch of boxes I haven't unpacked yet because
I need at least 3 more 5 shelf book cases if not more.
Torak
> Torak wrote:
>>
>> No, Ikea just stack the bookcases full of job lots of Swedish books. I've
>> never seen any where they've glued them together as a chunk - as a kid
>> (about seven or eight) I used to sit reading in whatever happened to be
>> the most comfortable set-piece living room at the time while my parents
>> wandered around. Incidentally, it wasn't until several years later that I
>> actually realised what those Frank Harris books they had at Ikea Kungens
>> Kurva were actually about...
>>
>> Nowadays I think they mostly have cookery books and psychology textbooks.
>> And I've been to a *lot* of Ikeas...
>
> The store in Elizabeth New Jersey has the shelves stocked with really
> cheap remaindered volumes. Generally batches of 20-30 of _the same
> title_ on a shelf. Depressing, really, but lots better than the idea of
> cutting up real books for a facade.
Yes, that's what they do in Sweden, but they usually mix the shelves up a
bit.
Mamma worked at one of those huge bookshops in London in the seventies [1],
where she ran the Antique Books department. After a while she found that
most people coming in there didn't know what they were looking for, they
just wanted some interesting volumes to stack on their shelves. So after a
while she started cataloguing not only the title and author, but also the
colour and width of the spine. It became quite common to sell books by the
metre....
[1] - she tells me that, because of her normal dress and because she was in
charge of the rather dusty Antique Books department, she was known as "The
Dusty Lady In Black". I'm sure the actual nickname was in French or Latin or
something, but I can't remember it at the moment, just the translation.
Torak
> Richard Eney wrote:
>
>> Except for some of the really serious magazines of the 1990s where they
>> begin with, for example, a country barn, and change it into a 3 million
>> dollar house, I've rarely seen a decorating magazine show a house with
>> any large number of books. In the above-mentioned magazines, the
>> occasional book house compensates by having almost as many books as you
>> own in one huge wall-full of shelves, with a distinct air of "eccentric
>> professor" in the decor. My reaction is usually "love the shelves, get
>> rid of the furniture, put in more shelves". :-)
>
> I keep trying that, but my wife insists that I don't block the windows.
> As though there were anything interesting to see through them in this New
> Jersey suburb.
We live in a 400-year-old Victorian house [1] up in Scotland, and we're
planning to restore the Dining Room [2] to a dining room.
After that, my little pet project is turning the Green Room (first floor,
overlooking the eastern gardens) into a library; mahogany bookcases around
the walls, get the fireplace workng again, remove the sink, put some nice
dark red or green wallpaper up.... Nice antique leather armchairs....
[1] - Oldest parts built in the 1600s, renovated in the 1800s so it's
Victorian in style, just before any pedants leap in... ;-)
[2] - Which, like most of the hardwood floors there, has so many coats of
proper varnish that it looks as if it's painted gloss black. The only
exception is the lovely golden varnished beech floor in the organ room.[3]
[3] - Where there used to be a huge church organ in a purpose-built alcove
at the end, but one of the previous owners decided she wanted to turn the
Organ Room into a garage. She got as far as chopping up the organ for
firewood before she got bored of the idea.
gra...@affordable-leather.co.ukdeletethis
On Mon, 17 Feb 2003 12:02:36 +0000, Terry Pratchett
<Te...@unseen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Lemme tell you about this room here.
<snip>
>I'd shoot the first designer that sets foot in it.
Hello? Is that Changing Rooms and Trading Spaces?
There's a Mr Chet Pratt who would like you to visit his place...!
(Oh no, officer, it couldn't have been him, there are dozens of
witnesses who are willing to swear that he was signing books at the
time of the incident!)
Cheers,
Graham.
Martyn Clapham
<a.w.m...@durham.ac.uk> writes
[ chomp ]
>[3] - Where there used to be a huge church organ in a purpose-built alcove
>at the end, but one of the previous owners decided she wanted to turn the
>Organ Room into a garage. She got as far as chopping up the organ for
>firewood before she got bored of the idea.
She decided she didn't want a proper church organ so she just _chopped
it up???_
Anybody got a pitchfork and a flame-thrower?
I mean she could have found somebody who would take it off her hands (
even if they only cannibalised it to repair other organs ).
Mart - who loves church organ music.
--
Sig will re-appear after I recover it.
6 years and counting!
Lesley Weston
gri...@halcyon.com wrote on 16/02/2003 1:39 PM:
> In article <BA73CA64.518E%les...@vancouverbc.net>,
> Lesley Weston <les...@vancouverbc.net> wrote:
>
>> in article 20030215065148...@mb-cu.aol.com, CCA at
>> sphi...@aol.com wrote on 15/02/2003 3:51 AM:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> The other thing they seem to have a habit of doing on 'Trading Up' is
>>> putting
>>> shelves up directly over beds, so you bang your head every time you sit up.
>>> CCA:)
>>
>> Obviously, they don't live in an earthquake zone. Or perhaps they just don't
>> *realise* that they live in an earthquake zone.
>>
<snip>
>
> As for me, I just moved into a new condo and finished installing the
> bookshelves yesterday. (There are many of them, and they're securely
> anchored to the wall; I know I'm in a high-risk earthquake zone, and the
> last thing I need is to get beaned with a six-foot bookcase. ;)
[...]
Ours are fixed to the walls with 3.5 inch woodscrews. Mind you, I don't know
how earthquake-proof the walls are.
Lesley Weston.
Lesley Weston
Te...@unseen.demon.co.uk wrote on 17/02/2003 4:02 AM:
> In article <3E500214...@ups.edu>, Mary Messall <mmes...@ups.edu>
> writes
>>
>> One of the other designers is almost as bad. He painted the walls of
>> one room bright lime green, and then painted the *hardwood floor*
>> black, and put orange furniture in the room. He did another room which
>> was quite nice, all autumn colors, but then he decorated it by framing
>> actual dead leaves and hanging them up. I wanted to see "one month
>> later" when the leaves were brown and disintegrating in their frames.
>
> I don't watch this programme. Do the show the bit where the talentless,
> mouthy little turds get shot in the head?
Alas, no. Not even on digital.
>
> Lemme tell you about this room here.
>
> We had the walls plastered with old-fashioned lime plaster and painted
> with distemper. The effect is amazing -- it gives the walls almost a
> soft look, because the light is reflected from within the distemper
> rather than from the surface (it sounds odd, but apparently is the same
> with milk-- the light is coming back from within the first few layers of
> fat molecules.) The walls change colour as the sun moves around, from
> white up through cream and all the way to grey-green. The room lives.
> I'd shoot the first designer that sets foot in it.
But take them outside to do it - you don't want to mess up such beautiful
walls.
Lesley Weston.
Lesley Weston
wrote on 17/02/2003 6:46 AM:
<snip painting hardwood floors>
> Of
> course, what we went with instead was a cat-vomit-colored carpet as a
> temporary measure instead.
Doesn't that depend on what colour your cat is?
Lesley Weston.
Torak
> In message <b2r807$o7n$1...@sirius.dur.ac.uk>, Torak
> <a.w.m...@durham.ac.uk> writes
>
> [ chomp ]
>
>> [3] - Where there used to be a huge church organ in a purpose-built
>> alcove at the end, but one of the previous owners decided she wanted to
>> turn the Organ Room into a garage. She got as far as chopping up the
>> organ for firewood before she got bored of the idea.
>
> She decided she didn't want a proper church organ so she just _chopped
> it up???_
>
> Anybody got a pitchfork and a flame-thrower?
Unfortunately she is beyond our grasp - that was back in the sixties or
seventies, I think.
> I mean she could have found somebody who would take it off her hands (
> even if they only cannibalised it to repair other organs ).
We did find a local church which was being converted to housing a while
back, who were selling their organ (same make and model), and we tried to
buy it. Unfortunately it was seriously out of our price range....
John Wilkins
It is generally a good idea to shoot designers, particularly interior
designers, on sight. For the common good.
This effect is the difference between reflected light and transmitted
light. It applies in the printing, or rather prepress, industry when
folk send inkjet and dye sublimation originals to be used as physical
artwork - the intense light from the process cameras not only gets
reflected from the surface molecules but is transmitted through the dye
and reflected from the paper, thus intensifying the colours
(photographic materials do not do this). It seems you have found a use
for it that prepress folk have not.
--
John Wilkins
B'dies, Brutius
Alec Cawley
Which raises an interesting question. Given tha this is aFp, how far would
you perjure yourself to save PTerry from durance vile, in the hope of
getting more Discworld books? Assume that the alleged offence, while
undeniably criminal, is entirely forgivable - such as putting doen the
designers described above, or painlesly disposing of book-mutilators.
--
@lec Šawley
From address is valid
Lots42 bomb vice president
>It became quite common to sell books by the
>metre....
Huh. Anyone who buys books by the metre should have them[1] taken away and
donated to a nice old library that could use 'em...
[1] The books or the buyer.
--
"I think paint fumes just go straight to my brain." - Torg
PC1: Crap, I would have gotten some decent XP for killing Sam.
- A LOTR rpg game thought
PSA: Not all comic books are meant for kids, hot dammit!
Thomas Zahr
news:2221783.z...@aleccawley.com:
...
>
> Which raises an interesting question. Given tha this is aFp, how far
> would you perjure yourself to save PTerry from durance vile, in the
> hope of getting more Discworld books? Assume that the alleged offence,
> while undeniably criminal, is entirely forgivable - such as putting
> doen the designers described above, or painlesly disposing of
> book-mutilators.
>
Wouldn't being in the nick enable him to concentrate on his books? :)
The German writer Karl May (90+ books, late 19th Century) wrote his first
dozen or so in jail (and never looked back, financially anyway)
Steve James
If I ever come across a story in one of Terry's books about CMOT
going into the interior design business and doing 'wonderful'
things with Death's house I shall know where to look. 8)
Steve (Steeljam) *BF DAcFD (UU) *
Resident Opsimath in Redivivus Studies
Steve (Steeljam) *BF DAcFD (UU) *
Resident Opsimath in Redivivus Studies
Steve James
> Catja Pafort (>green...@cix.co.uk) wrote
> >The one episode I vividly remember had the people saying 'what we really
> >liked about this house was the free-standing pine staircase. The one
> >other thing we adore is our collection of pub mirrors.
> >The pub mirrors were, of course, taken out of the room - and the pine
> >staircase clad in aluminium to give it a contemporary look.
> >The owners got back and were ready to strangle the designers.
> >I guess the guy who got the paint out before the decorators had left
> >felt similar...
> I remember one episode of 'Changing Rooms' where they did two apartments
> belonging to students. I can't remember what exactly they did with the
> apartments, but at least one of the students took one look at the results and
> said "Are the paint-rollers still here?"
> CCA:)
>
The thing that always concerns me is the timescale. They do the whole thing in
two days. Painting cannot be done quickly, you have to leave hours between
coats and you can't paint if there is dust being thrown up by other activities.
I wonder just how good the surfaces look close up and how long the whole
thing lasts before problems appear.
Steve James
> CCA wrote:
> <cnippy>
> > A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make an
> > 'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer.
> On a related tangent, my mother's a devoted reader of various
> home&garden magazines (and she actually has a lot of talent for interior
> design - certainly more than the editors of those magazines!). In a
> given year, over three different magazines, she claims she can count the
> number of households shown with a semi-reasonable [1] amount of books on
> the fingers of both hands, none of them among the ones specially
> assembled for the photoshoots. Somewhat coincidentally, those are most
> often the ones with cats featured on the photos ^_^
>
Books in shelves are not very attractive. Until the publishers can agree to
sell books of the same height and width they will always look messy.
Maybe we could get the publishers to put an image on the dust-jacket spine
so that when all the books in a series are put together it shows a 'designer'
picture. I realise it requires the author to agree to write a specific number
of books.
Torak
>> From: "Torak" a.w.m...@durham.ac.uk
>
>> It became quite common to sell books by the
>> metre....
>
> Huh. Anyone who buys books by the metre should have them[1] taken away and
> donated to a nice old library that could use 'em...
>
> [1] The books or the buyer.
Why? Most of them actually started reading because of it, and because they
got the old books they could get started with some decent stuff instead of
pulp.
Torak
>>
> Books in shelves are not very attractive. Until the publishers can agree
Yes they are... ;-)
> to sell books of the same height and width they will always look messy.
> Maybe we could get the publishers to put an image on the dust-jacket spine
> so that when all the books in a series are put together it shows a
> 'designer' picture. I realise it requires the author to agree to write a
> specific number of books.
In Sweden, Kalle Ankas Pocket (the Donald Duck anthologies) are designed (at
least from no 80 or so onwards) so they form a coherent picture along the
spines. Unfortunately I've only got a few of them. :'-(
Anyone got a complete collection they want to sell for £5?
Beth Winter
>
> In article <3E4D883A...@astercity.net>, renfri....@astercity.net (Beth Winter) wrote:
> > CCA wrote:
> > <cnippy>
> > > A couple of days ago they were cutting the spines off old books to make an
> > > 'authentic-looking' bookcase as a cover for a computer.
> > *Ouch.*
> > On a related tangent, my mother's a devoted reader of various
> > home&garden magazines (and she actually has a lot of talent for interior
> > design - certainly more than the editors of those magazines!). In a
> > given year, over three different magazines, she claims she can count the
> > number of households shown with a semi-reasonable [1] amount of books on
> > the fingers of both hands, none of them among the ones specially
> > assembled for the photoshoots. Somewhat coincidentally, those are most
> > often the ones with cats featured on the photos ^_^
> >
> Books in shelves are not very attractive. Until the publishers can agree to
> sell books of the same height and width they will always look messy.
Well, paperbacks help. Plus, if you have the whole of a certain series,
it looks kind of neat.
> Maybe we could get the publishers to put an image on the dust-jacket spine
> so that when all the books in a series are put together it shows a 'designer'
> picture. I realise it requires the author to agree to write a specific number
> of books.
Oh, I've got one of those - the X manga series. Neat stuff, especially
since each volume also has a tarot card of a character.
Lots42 bomb vice president
>
>Why? Most of them actually started reading because of it,
That's a whole different barrel of clown-monekys [1] then.
>and because they
>got the old books they could get started with some decent stuff instead of
>pulp.
I like pulp! 9-P
[1] Moneys are funny
Catja Pafort
> Robert's big on bookshelf layouts, and
> he's very good at it; I've been emulating some of his techniques,
> insofar as I can find spots on the shelves that haven't been overtaken
> by, uh, the books. Funny how they keep occupying every inch of
> available space!
Whenever you have too many books and need to buy a new bookshelf, the
following will happen:
You'll put all those orphaned books that were stacked around the flat on
the newly created space.
When you are finished, you'll find that you still have several books
left over.
Hrmpf. Can't even go into old fart mode, but I've done that spiel many
times, and that's what happened *every single time*.
Catja
aka PerditaX
Catja Pafort
> Which raises an interesting question. Given tha this is aFp, how far would
> you perjure yourself to save PTerry from durance vile, in the hope of
> getting more Discworld books? Assume that the alleged offence, while
> undeniably criminal, is entirely forgivable - such as putting doen the
> designers described above, or painlesly disposing of book-mutilators.
*Painlessly*???
You mean we can't rip out their spines and glue them to the wa-
oh.
I see.
They're not the same species after all. Humans are too squishy for glue.
As for the designers, shooting is too good for them. No, I have visions
of taking them to a lonely island somewhere near the Arctic Circle, with
a house full of rooms they have designed for their pals. To keep them
from terminal boredom, we'll give them a nice supply of the most
revolting paint colours, materials, and furniture.
Making them live in it is bad enough. Giving them the means to 'make it
better' means they'll exercise their 'talents'. Three weeks later, move
them to another place. They will *beg* for more decorating materials.
And we, the audience, will have the power to decide whether to give them
just that tiny tub of magnolia...
You can always shoot them at the end of the series and replace them with
the young hopefuls that are bound to have come out of the woodwork.
PerditaX
Catja Pafort
> > I don't watch this programme. Do the show the bit where the talentless,
> > mouthy little turds get shot in the head?
>
> Alas, no. Not even on digital.
What happened to the idea of interactive TV? [1]
Catja
aka PerditaX
[1] I'm really wondering how an interactive rugby game is supposed to
work. Do the players have little speakers in their ears allowing me to
shout: 'left, you idiot'?
Torak
Agreed. I read a Mickey Spillane once. Not bad, for pulp fiction.
Steve James
> You mean we can't rip out their spines and glue them to the wa-
> oh.
> I see.
>
> They're not the same species after all. Humans are too squishy for glue.
>
"See the real LLB" - plastic filigree
Terry Pratchett
<les...@vancouverbc.net> writes
>But take them outside to do it - you don't want to mess up such beautiful
>walls.
No, and I wouldn't want the ghost to walk, either. Yuk.
The whole damn 'Changing Rooms' industry is based on the idea that
'character' can be nailed on afterwards. It's a vapid as those
gardening programmes where no-one ever digs, or has a compost heap, or
sows a seed. They buy their gardens in pots, along with some decking
and a Wort-ar Fee-chure. It's all smoke and mirrors.
--
Terry Pratchett
Clotilde
That's right! And they say it took ONE season to get their yards from blank
to roses swaying in the spring breezes! Hah! And densely planted borders.
Hah! I'd like to see that border a few months from now when those plants
that were put too close are crowding each other out.
John Aldis
wrote:
>As for the designers, shooting is too good for them. No, I have visions
>of taking them to a lonely island somewhere near the Arctic Circle,
Hehe. Has anyone here read the sourcebooks for the RPG "Feng Shui"?
I have a feeling it's in the main book, in fact -- battle shopping.
The contestants get a small budget to spend on weaponry and armour. Then
they're unleashed in a shopping maul, where they attempt to grab as much
stuff as possible (like Supermarket Sweep) while killing everyone else,
because when you kill someone you get their stuff.
At the end of each round (this is the best bit) contestants can either keep
what they've grabbed, or turn it into more budget for arsenal next round.
Well, it appealed to me.
Incidentally, I think that was the location our party blew up, and thus
sunk Australia (there was anti-matter and Chi flow involved...)
--
John Aldis, B.F.
Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.
CCA
>It's a vapid as those
>gardening programmes where no-one ever digs, or has a compost heap, or
>sows a seed. They buy their gardens in pots, along with some decking
>and a Wort-ar Fee-chure.
I've heard the gardener Stefan Buchaczki (sp?) having a go at those
gardening-makeover programmes a few times. And rightly so - gardening's not
something you can do and forget about it, it has to be an all-year-round thing.
CCA:)
Andrew Irish
>
> The whole damn 'Changing Rooms' industry is based on the idea that
> 'character' can be nailed on afterwards. It's a vapid as those
> gardening programmes where no-one ever digs, or has a compost heap, or
> sows a seed. They buy their gardens in pots, along with some decking
> and a Wort-ar Fee-chure. It's all smoke and mirrors.
I can't help but think you're thinking along the lines of Ground Force
here. Yes, there are others, but GF have something of a habit of
installing deckong and water features. Which is precisely why they
employed Charlie Dimmock[1] and Tommy Walsh. Charlie most certainly
has done some digging. Rather a lot of it, if my memory serves correctly.
On the other hand, maybe you're talking about those other ones where
garden landscapers or designers or whatever they're called come in and
redesign the place, while the owners cringe in horror. Steel girders
painted pastel shades as a water feature? Ah, yes, I think I know the
programme now. It's awful. They once installed a projector in
someone's garden, so it would project onto a white wall. Yes, but in
six months, that wall will be green... Argh, they're terrible.
The only good designer is a properly educated[2] web designer, I'm
sure...
--
Andrew
[1] Charlie's somewhat local. My mum used to work for her mum. We
bought our pond stuff from the place she worked at whilst she was
doing Ground Force. She also presented me with my silver Duke of
Edinburgh's award. I have a photo somewhere... Oh, and I won a book
token too, which I was more impressed with.
[2] Some web designers haven't a clue. They make something that looks
good on their machine, but if you don't have these plug-ins, have this
or that script disabled, don't have cookies, etc, the website is
useless. Yes, flashy content is all very well, but /accessibility/
people! And valid HTML. Some web designers have never heard of
standards. Of course, some are good. Some give scriptless, flashless
versions. Some just don't use it on principle. Some even validate
their pages and follow accessibility guidelines and test them. I
wonder if there's a kind of house/garden designer like this, and if
so, why aren't they on TV instead of the world's biggest MDF users?
Terry Pratchett
<a_i...@yahoo.com> writes
>
>I can't help but think you're thinking along the lines of Ground Force
>here. Yes, there are others, but GF have something of a habit of
>installing deckong and water features. Which is precisely why they
>employed Charlie Dimmock[1] and Tommy Walsh. Charlie most certainly
>has done some digging. Rather a lot of it, if my memory serves correctly.
>
>On the other hand, maybe you're talking about those other ones where
>garden landscapers or designers or whatever they're called come in and
>redesign the place, while the owners cringe in horror.
But they're pretty much the same. You never get a sense of the garden
as a four-dimensional thing, something that moves through the seasons.
Plants are installed, not planted. There's no dynamic. It treats the
garden as window dressing.
--
Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
<wil...@wehi.edu.au> writes
>
>This effect is the difference between reflected light and transmitted
>light. It applies in the printing, or rather prepress, industry when
>folk send inkjet and dye sublimation originals to be used as physical
>artwork - the intense light from the process cameras not only gets
>reflected from the surface molecules but is transmitted through the dye
>and reflected from the paper, thus intensifying the colours
>(photographic materials do not do this). It seems you have found a use
>for it that prepress folk have not.
A guy called Maxfield Parrish used a similar trick in the US in the
early part of the 20th Century. His blue skies were alive because they
were under painted with pink --Paul Kidby came close to duplicating that
in his 'Amazing Maurice' picture in the current calendar.
--
Terry Pratchett
BRIERLEYJON
>gardening-makeover programmes a few times. And rightly so - gardening's not
>something you can do and forget about it, it has to be an all-year-round
>thing.
Yep. Which is why I don't do it.
Jon
(Indoor Work With No Heavy Lifting)
Clotilde
There's that. But I miss my garden. I moved into a Condo last year and have
to buy the roses for my desk now. It probably costs me less than the garden
did but I liked the garden roses better. Hm. I wonder. With a grow light
and a large pot if I could grow some of the antiques indoors? Hm. Think I'll
try that out this year.
Torak
> In article <1fqksan.1avvlpwah6qdcN%green...@cix.co.uk>,
> green...@cix.co.uk (Catja Pafort) wrote:
>> You mean we can't rip out their spines and glue them to the wa-
>> oh.
>> I see.
>>
>> They're not the same species after all. Humans are too squishy for glue.
>>
> Maybe that German doctor wants a new 'designer' display.
> "See the real LLB" - plastic filigree
I don't like that idea.
Mainly because I'll (hopefully) have a real LLB in two and a half years'
time.
Torak
> Hehe. Has anyone here read the sourcebooks for the RPG "Feng Shui"?
>
> I have a feeling it's in the main book, in fact -- battle shopping.
> The contestants get a small budget to spend on weaponry and armour. Then
> they're unleashed in a shopping maul, where they attempt to grab as much
> stuff as possible (like Supermarket Sweep) while killing everyone else,
> because when you kill someone you get their stuff.
> At the end of each round (this is the best bit) contestants can either
> keep what they've grabbed, or turn it into more budget for arsenal next
> round.
>
> Well, it appealed to me.
That would make a brilliant mod for SoF2.
Andrew Irish
> In article <b2ts4n$gue$2...@library.lspace.org>, Andrew Irish
> <a_i...@yahoo.com> writes
>
>>
>> I can't help but think you're thinking along the lines of Ground Force
>> here.
>
> as a four-dimensional thing, something that moves through the seasons.
> Plants are installed, not planted. There's no dynamic. It treats the
> garden as window dressing.
>
I'm not so sure. I'm sure I remember on several occasions Titchmarsh
pick plants that would look good in the future, spacing them out to
give them room to grow, picking small ones rather than large.
Granted, much of the garden (particularly turf) is installed, so that
the garden looks nice after the two days are up. But I think that
many of the plants are put there to grow. And they even went to the
trouble of going back to the gardens to see how they looked a year on.
I don't see that McDiarmid bloke & co doing that.
Of course, you're far more of an experienced gardener than I am...
--
Andrew
I suspect we won't see a celeb designer DW book soon, as it would
require TV, or a similar medium. It's a real pity, that, as Terry
could give them 'proper' treatment :)
The Stainless Steel Cat
Andrew Irish <a_i...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>[1] Charlie's somewhat local. My mum used to work for her mum. We
>bought our pond stuff from the place she worked at whilst she was
>doing Ground Force. She also presented me with my silver Duke of
>Edinburgh's award.
A couple of my friends did the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. I always
assumed they weren't any good at it as neither of them were awarded a Duke
of Edinburgh.
Cat. (It's the metal-effect fur one thanks...)
Catja Pafort
> Lesley Weston writes:
> >But take them outside to do it - you don't want to mess up such beautiful
> >walls.
>
> No, and I wouldn't want the ghost to walk, either. Yuk.
Imagine, for the rest of your life, every time you move the furniture or
paint a wall, a ghostly voice whispering advice.
No, thanks.
> The whole damn 'Changing Rooms' industry is based on the idea that
> 'character' can be nailed on afterwards. It's a vapid as those
> gardening programmes where no-one ever digs, or has a compost heap, or
> sows a seed. They buy their gardens in pots, along with some decking
> and a Wort-ar Fee-chure. It's all smoke and mirrors.
Which reminds me...
Any idea how to de-yuppify a garden?
The house I'm hopefully buying has front and back gardens laid to gravel
with a few plants around the outside.
I have tried this model in a rental home, and you need either plenty of
time to hunt down weeds or gallons of weedkiller. Or both. It's also not
very conductive to things like walking barefoot or sunbathing, never
mind being displeasing to the eye, so I am very keen to get rid of it.
Anybody here got any experiences with that sort of thing? IANA gardener,
but I'd like to be. Do you think anybody would want to swap top soil for
gravel?
Catja
aka PerditaX
Thomas Zahr
green...@cix.co.uk:
...
> You'll put all those orphaned books that were stacked around the flat on
> the newly created space.
>
> When you are finished, you'll find that you still have several books
> left over.
>
> Hrmpf. Can't even go into old fart mode, but I've done that spiel many
> times, and that's what happened *every single time*.
Well known law of nature: required shelve space = existing + planned + 1
--
Ciao
Thomas =:-)
<out of sig error>
Alec Cawley
> On Tue, 18 Feb 2003 12:38:47 +0100, Beth Winter
> <renfri....@astercity.net> wrote:
>
>>Steve James wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>> Books in shelves are not very attractive. Until the publishers can agree
>>> to sell books of the same height and width they will always look messy.
>>
>>Well, paperbacks help.
>
> Up to a point. I've found that paperbacks from different countries are
> of differing heights.
And a curious fact: Britich paperbacks in normal bookshelf orientation
require you to lean your head to the right, whereas French ones go to the
left. Makes for exaggerated head wagging at airport bookstalls.
--
@lec Šawley
From address is valid
Clotilde
You could do it the lazy gardeners way - leave the gravel, put raised bed
edges (timbers or cinder blocks or bricks) and ship in two to 3 feet or more
of soil to those beds. Then, the gravel will become an underlying drainage
asset. Or, the not as lazy gardener and dig out the gravel a square yard
at a time, double dig the bed and put the gravel at the bottom and the soil
at the top. That's a lot of work but it will loosen the soil and allow you
to plant nice beds of whatever.
Topi Saavalainen
news:2668541.v...@aleccawley.com:
> And a curious fact: Britich paperbacks in normal bookshelf orientation
> require you to lean your head to the right, whereas French ones go to
> the left. Makes for exaggerated head wagging at airport bookstalls.
I have noticed this as well. I think the British logic is that when the
book is on a table with the cover up, the spine text is the right way up,
which looks nicer. The French logic is probably that if the book is on the
table and you can't see the cover, at least you can read the spine, which
is sort of practical.
In Finland, we do it like the Brits.
Also, our book spines are printed the same way as theirs.
Topi.
Warwick
Te...@unseen.demon.co.uk says...
FX: gets out the pink paint.
I'm doing the baby room at the moment and there's a wall thst is largely
mural. I know I can get the depth into the sky that I want to... *and*
I'm continuing the sky across the ceiling. Apart from discovering that
the stuff I used to do and all the skills don't scale up to 8' murals,
I've found the sky to be especially flat looking even before I've added
in the wisps of cloud. A pinked backing and then multiple coats of thin
blues with a lot of clear base in it will do the trick. The whispy
clouds will have to be the same effect since the light needs to carry
through, but that should crack that particular irritant.
Thanks Terry
Warwick (Paul)
Jenny Radcliffe
> On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 1:30 pm, Catja Pafort wrote:
> > As for the designers, shooting is too good for them. No, I have
> > visions of taking them to a lonely island somewhere near the Arctic
> > Circle,
> <in a competitive and cruel game>
> Hehe. Has anyone here read the sourcebooks for the RPG "Feng Shui"?
> I have a feeling it's in the main book, in fact -- battle shopping.
> The contestants get a small budget to spend on weaponry and armour.
> Then they're unleashed in a shopping maul,
Splendid. :)
Jenny ;)
Warwick
green...@cix.co.uk says...
> Alec wrote:
>
> > Which raises an interesting question. Given tha this is aFp, how far would
> > you perjure yourself to save PTerry from durance vile, in the hope of
> > getting more Discworld books? Assume that the alleged offence, while
> > undeniably criminal, is entirely forgivable - such as putting doen the
> > designers described above, or painlesly disposing of book-mutilators.
>
> *Painlessly*???
>
> You mean we can't rip out their spines and glue them to the wa-
>
> oh.
>
>
> I see.
>
>
> They're not the same species after all. Humans are too squishy for glue.
>
>
> As for the designers, shooting is too good for them. No, I have visions
> of taking them to a lonely island somewhere near the Arctic Circle, with
> a house full of rooms they have designed for their pals. To keep them
> from terminal boredom, we'll give them a nice supply of the most
> revolting paint colours, materials, and furniture.
No. Give them Oak panelled rooms with huge bookcases. All of it
understated without any Gothic pretensions. Ensure that all the wood is
treated with something to prevent paint from sticking and give them a
choice of mushroom or beige paint. They're allowed Velvet for fabrics
and the only other materials are lots of joinery hand tools and a supply
of well weathered oak. In the yard there is a 1m cube of MDF to taunt
them. If you think the room *really* needs some work, supply them with
the basic ingredients needed to produce plaster.
Warwick -- Learn some crafts you idiots!
Thomas Zahr
...
>
> And a curious fact: Britich paperbacks in normal bookshelf orientation
> require you to lean your head to the right, whereas French ones go to
> the left. Makes for exaggerated head wagging at airport bookstalls.
>
And *again* the Germans follow the French lead (or is it the other way
round?)
Arjuna Koralagama
news:Xns932751085CC1CT...@127.0.0.1...
1. All libraries are connected through Lspace
2. my postulate ;
any collection of books + shelves may be considerd a library
3. as has become obvoius through this thread
most libraries have more books than shelf space
( as there are more small libraries than large and all small
libraries suffer from lack of space)
taking the above points does this not mean that [taking all of
Lspace into consideration] there there is a 'positive book pressure'
on the shelf space ?. this means that the moment a 'new' shelf
becomes connected to lspace some of the shelf will be used up by
existing books in Lspace, thus leading to the well known phenomena
of lack of book space as described in the previous post.
The only solution appears to be to have a sufficiently large
books : shelfspace ratio that will give you a positive
book pressure equal or greater than the backround
book pressure of Lspace.
you need to do a very delicate balancing act because if the ook
pressure of your personal library is larger than Lspace then
you can suffer a loss of books to Lspace. Which might explain
how books seem to dissapear when you have a lot more books
than shelves.
David Jensen
<Xns93276A6C2192FT...@127.0.0.1>:
Didn't the Germans end up in Paris the last three times they followed
the French?
Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
Thomas Zahr
news:1m065vs0u3qf1krkv...@4ax.com:
That would entirely depend on what's for dinner, and if they get the
GOOD wine out.
Darkmoon
<jenny.r...@physics.org> wrote:
> John Aldis <Jo...@HyperMactive.com> scrawled across my screen:
> > [...]
> > Then they're unleashed in a shopping maul,
> ^^^^
>
> Splendid. :)
I've been spelling it that way for years. ;)
--
Normality is a curse for the weak.
Sierra Kempster, http://www.lunamorena.net/
reply to darkmoon at lunamorena dot net
Stevie D
> A couple of my friends did the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme.
> I always assumed they weren't any good at it as neither of them
> were awarded a Duke of Edinburgh.
No, that's what you get if you *fail*. A very strong incentive to pass
it, most people would think!
--
Stevie D
\\\\\ ///// Bringing dating agencies to the
\\\\\\\__X__/////// common hedgehog since 2001 - "HedgeHugs"
___\\\\\\\'/ \'///////_____________________________________________
Catja Pafort
[garden-in-a-weekend]
> But they're pretty much the same. You never get a sense of the garden
> as a four-dimensional thing, something that moves through the seasons.
> Plants are installed, not planted. There's no dynamic. It treats the
> garden as window dressing.
Well, they do go back a year or so later and look what became of their
creations. I've glimpsed several that looked fantastic when compared to
the bare yard-with-spot-of-tired-turf that was there before; and very
poor when compared to their selves a year later.
Sure, poor folks like me can't afford to put in large plants, we have to
grow them (and watch the nasturtiums trying to take over the world -
they outcompeted the bindweed - oops!) but I like Ground Force. (Not
keen on the 'designer' programmes with metal sheeting).
What they're doing for me, whose gardening, apart from a short stint
with the gravel 'garden' has been limited to hanging baskets and window
pots, is to help me think outside the box.
Thousands of suburban gardens are boring as hell, and I have a strong
aversion to 'boring'. As usual, it's easy to be creative if you have
either lots of space, or lots of money, or better still, both. But faced
with a typical rectangular plot, laid to lawn with a few shrubs in the
borders, I'm not sure that pre-Groundforce my imagination would have
offered a lot of ideas. Having seen what you can do with screens and
climbing plants and curved paths and sunken or raised areas and water
trickling through the garden, and...
Faced with a boring garden, I hope I'll be able to come up with
something that's different and nice, even if it won't be anywhere near
as elaborate as theirs. It simply gives me a different starting point.
Catja
aka PerditaX
Lots42 bomb vice president
>Well known law of nature: required shelve space = existing + planned + 1
>--
>Ciao
>
>Thomas =:-)
Plus one? I'd be happy if I only had one book left over after using up all my
shelf space?
(Of course, I'm still happy I have -more- then one book left over
--
"I think paint fumes just go straight to my brain." - Torg
PC1: Crap, I would have gotten some decent XP for killing Sam.
- A LOTR rpg game thought
PSA: Not all comic books are meant for kids, hot dammit!
Clotilde
For me, it would be One bookshelf + 1 bookshelf with 1 bookshelf full of
books left over.
Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil...prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon...
-- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)
Len Oil
> Huh. Anyone who buys books by the metre should have them[1] taken away
and
> donated to a nice old library that could use 'em...
I think it was a common thing for Lord Howes-Yar-Farther, or his
architects/designers at least, to populate the library in the new east wing
by buying in books by the metre/yard, just for appearances sake, and not
bother what the books actually were.
--
AFP Code 2.0: AC$/>M-UK d@(--) s:+>- a- UP+ R+++ F++ h- P3x= OSD+:-- ?C M--
L pp--- I->** W+ c@ B+ Cn::::+ CC- PT+>+++ Pu* 5+>++ X-- MT++ eV+(++-) r*
y+ end
Len Oil
> Wouldn't being in the nick enable him to concentrate on his books? :)
Never stopped Archer (but can't actually comment about that until I decide
to actually read anything he's written).
Len Oil
> I'da bought it. Just for the peculiarity factor. The worst house I saw
was
> the various shades of rose pink dining room with a window hole into the
living
> room done in orange and lime green then you walked into the kitchen done
> in yellow and forest green. then down the hall to the bedrooms done in
alternately
> orange, rust browns and blues.
I was going to say, it's not quite as bad in my house, but all of those
colours appear somewhere in my current house colour-scheme, except pink.
Pink was the /original/ colour for both the living/dining room and
stairway/hall, before I repainted them with lime-green and orange
respectively.
Mike Stevens
> "Lots42 bomb vice president" <lot...@aol.comaol.com> wrote:
>
>> Huh. Anyone who buys books by the metre should have them[1] taken
>> away and donated to a nice old library that could use 'em...
>
> I think it was a common thing for Lord Howes-Yar-Farther, or his
> architects/designers at least, to populate the library in the new
> east wing by buying in books by the metre/yard, just for appearances
> sake, and not bother what the books actually were.
A close relation to ;
"Frederic, in this chapel are ancestors: you cannot deny that. With the
estate, I bought the chapel and its contents. I don't know whose
ancestors they were, but I know whose ancestors they are, and I shudder
to think that their descendant by purchase (if I may so describe myself)
should have brought disgrace upon what, I have no doubt, was an
unstained escutcheon."
(W S Gilbert, from "The Pirates of Penzance")
--
Mike Stevens, the Old Farts' old fart
Web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
No man is an island. So is Man.
Lots42 bomb vice president
>you need to do a very delicate balancing act because if the ook
>pressure of your personal library is larger than Lspace then
> you can suffer a loss of books to Lspace.
Ook pressure. That's going to stay with me. Heh.
Axel Kielhorn
> Uh, why exactly would cats damage the floor? I have a hardwood floor in
> here, and the Right Hon. Lady Panther has had no effect on it. If
> anything, she's more dangerous to the carpet, as her fur is very thick
> and shedding constantly...
A danger to the carpet?
She will *be* the carpet in a few years.
BTW, some cats like brushing the hair, others will let you know that
they don't.
Axel
--
I'm doing this for your own damn good
You'll make up for what I blew
What's the problem ... Why are you crying
"Perfect" by Alanis Morissette
Arjuna Koralagama
news:20030219231750...@mb-mn.aol.com...
Actually the spellchecker caught that but I decided that the uncorrected
version was better.
Beth Winter
>
> Beth Winter <renfri....@astercity.net> wrote:
>
> > Uh, why exactly would cats damage the floor? I have a hardwood floor in
> > here, and the Right Hon. Lady Panther has had no effect on it. If
> > anything, she's more dangerous to the carpet, as her fur is very thick
> > and shedding constantly...
>
> A danger to the carpet?
> She will *be* the carpet in a few years.
Nah, I vacuum-clean from time to time ^_~
> BTW, some cats like brushing the hair, others will let you know that
> they don't.
If we didn't brush her at least once every two days, the situation would
be unmanageable *sigh* We have to factor in the cat with every purchase
of sofa, carpet and other shedding-prone furniture... and she's also one
of the reasons I wear mostly black.
--
Beth Winter
The Discworld Compendium <http://www.extenuation.net/disc/>
"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods and the season of mists."
-- Neil Gaiman