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What was your worst decorating disaster?

4 years ago

Just a bit of fun everyone! I would love to hear your worst decorating disasters. We’ve all had them! My worst was, several years ago, decorating my tiny hall, stairs and landing in bright aqua. What was I thinking? I even paid a decorator to do it! Needless to say I had to repaint it, myself, all in Egyptian Cotton. Calm ensued. Go on then, what was yours? :-)

Featured Answer

teenytinyhouse

4 years ago

in case anyone was wondering.
Do you think writing on the fort and carpeting it means it's now a bespoke piece?

Comments (65)

Patrina
4 years ago
Lol Sonia post away I still want ro know about all your impulse buys. Agree with you very 80s what the heck was I thinking!!!
Gabby Wong
4 years ago
Thanks guys! And yes! Both are gone... those walls got extended laterally so had to be levelled off etc.

I might redo them at some point.. especially the ombre one, although we're planning on painting the new master bedroom with a blue feature wall... so we'll see! that wall only took an afternoon roughly!

In retrospect the sofa/other walls didn't complement the navy/copper wall fantastically!
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teenytinyhouse
4 years ago
Getting a cat... hehe

My house has gone from "white fittings and blue walls" to "shades of cardboard" as the little sod has several boxes she's very attached to and I haven't got the heart to throw them out. Notably, the favourite tatty "Amazon napping box", and the "Naked Wines Cat Fort". I'd throw them out, but she gives me huge eyes and looks sad. She's too cute to deny her.
Gabby Wong
4 years ago
Hahaha teenytinyhouse! At least you don’t need to buy expensive beds for her!
teenytinyhouse
4 years ago

Gabby shame we worked that out AFTER we bought all the fancy beds. And, I forgot to mention that one of those is now permanently housed in a laundry basket that she has claimed as her own!
Gabby Wong
4 years ago
Doh!! Always the way... reminds me of babies being more interested in the wrapping paper than the present! Lol
E D
4 years ago
And not just babies... at my ripe old age (well, not that old) I still often find the wrapping paper more interesting than the actual present!

:-D
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Teeny I’m not sure the cardboard colour quite ties in with the floor tbh lol! What a cutie. Lovely to have you back, haven’t seen you on Houzz for ages.......... :-)
teenytinyhouse
4 years ago
Sonia it clashes horribly. And she doesn't match anything in the house. <<sigh>> good thing she's adorable!

We're on the move again! Fiance and are attempting to sell new house and take on new project so getting sucked back in, big time. Once main house was done, I must confess, I had downgraded to "lurker" reading the Stories and things. But, I'm BACK BABY! :)
collins394
4 years ago
We painted the ceiling in our bedroom chewing gum pink. We thought that as it was a high ceiling it would make the room look more cosy and bring the ceiling down. It was awful!
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Teeny, so you’re a secret scroller! Welcome back my dear!

collins394 that’s even worse than my bright aqua hall! I may award you the No 1 spot, and thank you for confessing!
teenytinyhouse
4 years ago
collins394 photo please? That sounds epic...
teenytinyhouse
4 years ago
AMB your bathroom floor is divine. Just saying.
collins394
4 years ago
Sadly I don't have a photo as it was our first ever house - and our last ever chewing gum pink ceiling.
teenytinyhouse
4 years ago

collins394 disappointing, lol.

Not my design choice, but the people I bought my house from had painted the walls in Rhubarb Red and Custard Yellow, and the ceiling was also Custard Yellow. It was.... ghastly
Jonathan
4 years ago
Oh I forgot about ceilings.
I once painted a ceiling in a lustrous paint that was supposed to be metallic.
Actually I really liked the colour and in my dining room it was a good choice..... however the paint showed the roller marks dreadfully. I even went over the who ceiling with a gloss roller to try and even it out.
In the end although I liked the opulence of the colour choice it just looked very badly executed and only lasted a couple of months.
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Jonathan, that sounds erm, interesting........was that in the 80s or 90s? The era that taste forgot - I blame Changing Rooms! Everyone keep sharing your disasters please, such fun!
Victoria
4 years ago
OMFG
Too many to even begin to name them all. I keep forgetting that even though I love purple I hate it in a bedroom and have to redo it.
Fluoro green walls with fluoro orange woodwork in guest room in our first house, no one stayed long, tee hee.
Stencilling everywhere. It was the 90s, one of the decades taste forgot.
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
That’s more like it Victoria! Sounds like a cosy restful guest room lol!
PRO
OnePlan
4 years ago
Tee hee !! Am loving these !!
I asked the very lovely Mr OnePlan to paint a lounge in a pale green once ... as we both stood back to admire his finished hard work - it took us both about 20 seconds to both say in unison ‘no’ and we went off back to B&Q to get more paint ... (this was a while ago I’ll point out) ... we ended up with a colour that, looking back, resembled the inside of a baked bean tin ... but at the time we loved it !!!
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
I know that feeling well Oneplan. You just know it’s wrong!
obobble
4 years ago
Purple and white scheme in teenage bedroom, small and facing NE in a house without central heating. Not at all cosy!
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Sounds nice obobble but you are right, aspect is everything with colour and two cool tones perhaps not the best choice!
Gabby Wong
4 years ago
Haha I think my parents did something similar in painting the living room a pale green OnePlan.... only they never changed it - awful in a north facing room in my opinion!
Ribena Drinker
4 years ago
In my last house, just at the end of the 90s, I decided to paint the small cloakroom a lovely deep terracotta, which was fine, except for some unknown reason, I though it would be brilliant idea to include little squares of brilliant turquoise (the two colours really looked good together) dotted all over.

I did this by painting the wall in various places with turquoise first, then sticking tiny square bits of masking tape over and then painting the whole lot with the terracotta. This worked remarkably well as a concept, however, the effect over the whole room was proved to be quite unpleasant and sea sickness inducing, as the little squares appeared to be moving all the time.

I ended up painting over them with the terracotta, shortly after.
Ribena Drinker
4 years ago
Not one of my decorating failures, but one we had to deal with.

We bought the house we now live in, from a recently divorced woman with two girls. I suspect her parenting style was what could be described as "hands off", consequently the girls ran wild, which resulted in self expression in the decoration of their bedrooms.

The smallest, bedroom, was painted in bright tango orange with bright blue woodwork and green lame curtains. That blue took an awful lot of covering up.
Ribena Drinker
4 years ago
Teenytinyhouse - for the longest time we had the smallest box as a permanent fixture in the kitchen. We couldn't throw it away, because one of our cats, Dottie, loved it to sit in.
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Ribena, I understand your logic and turquoise and terracotta looks amazing together, usually in the hotter countries such as Spain and Morocco. All that work and it made you feel ill! We viewed a house once that was painted the craziest colours - bright orange and purple prevailed. I just couldn’t see beyond the colours so it was a no! Aww your little cat is adorable!
teenytinyhouse
4 years ago
Ribena Drinker lol, that could be my kitchen! Same doors. Similar floor. Same box. Cat. Wouldn't have it any other way!
Juliet Docherty
4 years ago
When I was at school, our teachers (naively) allowed us to decorate the sixth form common room which was full of sofas but used for assembly once a week. It seemed (at the time) a really good idea for us to paint it in the vibrant and happy colour scheme of red, green and gold...... Some decorative pictorial elements were added to create interest and after a few days it was finished. I will never forget the rather funny and surreal sight of a group of tight lipped suited up teachers standing in line in front of a wall of garish colours and 8ft high painted marijuana leaves :) It quickly went white.
Patrina
4 years ago
@colourhappy where the heck did you go to schooI?! I went to school in Jamaica. My school uniform was Green and Yellow and there were no Marijuana leaves to be found on any walls in my school lol :-)
Juliet Docherty
4 years ago
Hi Patrina, it was in North Yorkshire. Back in the time when things were very different and lapse. I think it may have been from some kind of album cover or something, but needless to say the teachers weren't happy.
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Colourhappy you’re a dark horse! :-D
AMB
4 years ago
Well, if we are showing off our cats...
AMB
4 years ago
Well. If we are showing off our cats... This little monster clashes with everything!
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Pretty baby :-D
Patrina
4 years ago
I don't have a cat but....my neighbour has one that he takes for a walk everyday, like a dog and It's so freaking cute I'd love to steal it. oops did I say that out loud .. :-)
Gabby Wong
4 years ago
I can't wait to get a dog! Love all the cats in boxes though! Have you seen how you can often "make" them sit places by drawing a square/circle on the floor?! #CatsInSquares https://twitter.com/prograpslady/status/851500564743680000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fwhy-cant-cats-resist-thinking-inside-the-box-76287
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Patrina the crazy cat stealer....... :-D

Gabby who even knew Cats in Squares was a thing?! Hilarious :-D
Kazza None
4 years ago
My cat in a square
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Kazza cats are so funny! :-D
teenytinyhouse
4 years ago
Greebo goes for walks too. So we have to ensure that the garden has nice things for her to investigate. She's really not happy about the winter prepping of the flower beds though. I think she'd say ripping up her playground was a design disaster!
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Sweet. Saw a funny sight today. A lady on crutches walking her dog in a field with a cat trotting with them! I think they were together.......
Ribena Drinker
4 years ago
We have a very long drive (about 175 mts long) and every week, we have to leave the bins at the gate for the dustbin men. One of our cats Mouse, makes it her business to accompany the OH there and back, when he takes them down there.
Patrina
4 years ago
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><md>Oh! so taking cats for walks is a thing
yvonnegw
4 years ago
My worst decorating disaster - I was painting the hallway and doing the skirting boards in thick gloss paint. My hair was quite long at the time and I had it in a ponytail. I kneeled down to get at an awkward piece of skirting board and yes - my ponytail went straight into the paint pot. I jerked my head up and the ponytail, covered in gloss, swung and slapped me across the face. My son's thought it was hysterical! Several attempts at washing didn't get rid of the paint and I ended up having to have around 6 inches cut off my hair.
Gabby Wong
4 years ago
Oh wow!!! That’s a nightmare Yvonne. Will make sure I always have my hair tied up!! Lol
Sonia
Original Author
4 years ago
Yvonne

paint In hair - tick

paint soaked ponytail in face - priceless! :-)
teenytinyhouse
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
yvonnegw I've heard of artists fashioning brushes out of their own hair for detail work (human hair being particularly fine and soft). First time I've heard of someone using it to paint the walls!

I'm sorry you had to cut so much hair off though. That sucks. <<sad>>

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