<p>In the theatre there is a certain color of face makeup familiarly called baby**** brown. I kid you not.</p>
<p>LOL! That’s so funny! Here, let me put some of this baby**** on you…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s putting it nicely. My kids call it “diaper gravy brown”. :eek:</p>
<p>Sorry, hope no one was eating…</p>
<p>Well, they sure aren’t eating NOW!!! LOL. For the first house we bought, we ripped up the avocado green carpet, removed the mirror tiles from the living room wall, re-did the bathroom that had the matching avocado green toilet, and sink (with bright orange formica top). We went with a brown carpet to replace the nasty avocado green stuff. I picked out one color, but refused to get it when I found out the name of the carpet was ,“Mississippi Mud”. Uh…no thanks. At least it wasn’t baby**** brown!</p>
<p>d’oie not d’oeil (goose not eye)</p>
<p>diaper gravy - that’s a good one. Wasn’t so bad when they were only nursing…</p>
<p>The house we live in now was on the market for ever. I’m convinced it was because with the exception of the kitchen (of the hideous caca d’oie formica) the entire house was bubble gum pink. Pink wall to wall carpeting on every floor. Pink walls except the ones that were 1960s fake wood paneling (some of which covered even more hideous 1950s harlequin wallpaper), pink curtains with pink sheers… Underneath it all was a really nice house with hardwood floors.</p>
<p>Another secret shared issue in SA? Hideous house decorations on move-in?</p>
<p>Remind me to tell you another day about the picture I have in my mind’s eye of the Alley…Suffice it to say that the chandelier with plastic “crystals” might look mighty fine in place.</p>
<p>Love these Home Make-over stories.</p>
<p>Adding mine: the second house I bought was as a newly minted single woman; DH #1 and I had recently parted ways. I bought it, coincidentally, from another single woman of about my age (late 20’s). </p>
<p>She was still living with: dark turquoise carpet tiles in the kitchen (nicely dotted with stains the color of either Mississippi Mud or caca d’oie - mercifully, my memory is not that clear); light turquoise formica counter; lime/olive green shag wtw cpt in the living/dining; said carpet chosen to “pick up” the same color in the accent wall which was (I kid you not) a paisley wallpaper of hot pink/said shade of green/goldenrod yellow; and ceiling beams in the natural Douglas Fir vaulted ceiling painted goldenrod yellow to complete the look.</p>
<p>Okay, so naturally, my immediate plan (and, in fact, first act after closing) was to remove the wtw cpt to expose the beautiful wood floors; tile the kitchen floor and counter; remove the accent wallpaper and restore the painted ceiling beams to their natural state. </p>
<p>At the closing, though, she shared with me what a horrible state the home had been in when she bought it – " bare wood floors, bare wood beams, no carpet in the kitchen." :eek:</p>
<p>I think that house got down on its knees and cried in relief when I got there to rescue it.</p>
<p>We not only had sky blue, lime green and orange carpet in our last house, but it was shag! The same kind my mother used to “pretty-up” with a plastic rake. (Yes, the house I grew up in had lovely orange shag carpet when I was in high school.)</p>
<p>LOL…my aunt had one of those rakes for her carpet. We thought she was so cool because she got the new carpet!</p>
<p>Jesus, did alot of us buy 70’s houses!!</p>
<p>Mine: olive green kitchen with caca de moi cabinetry (yawn), metal levelor blinds *partout<a href=“yech!”>/i</a>, dental office-style heavy-weave off white non-flammable drapes in the living room (the first thing to go), & a fake “leaded glass” hanging fixture with a coca-cola look (plastic of course). In a bedroom. </p>
<p>Speaking of lighting: H decided to replace all the outdoor light fixtures, which were all mismatched. One was worse than the next… stuff like caca d’oie circle-printed glass panels in fake taco bell bronze framework, weird bathroomy-looking sconce in off white heavy flecked stucco, etc. </p>
<p>Anyway he got back from the store and said, “I finally figured out Mr & Mrs X’s lighting design concept: whatever was in the remainder bin.”</p>
<p>But the piece de resistance was our powder room: an aqua sink, an aqua toilet and a bizarre, nearly schizophrenic wallpaper in (of course!) olive green and aqua. But instead of daisies or pucci swirls, the motif was sort of a new england/currier and ives toile of little outdoor fishing/river scenes! What the–?</p>
<p>Luckily with a powder room, most of the guests who used it prior to renovation were drunk.</p>
<p>Is this what we Alley denizens have in common, at the root?</p>
<p>“Raising the taste level of American home decor, one Sinner at a time.”</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>kid improvers = home improvers?</p>
<p>That could be a bingo, SB.</p>
<p>Previous owners slapped “SellMeWhite” over every square inch of the interior, except for a tiny hot pink room for their live-in granddaughter. </p>
<p>When we moved in, college-age S had to take the pink room because it was the smallest, but got his younger sibs in there to sponge-paint. They did some kind of layered pink/purple/ivory mess; Jackson Pollock meets Utrillo.
It got onto the ceiling fan, too. They signed their initials and put hand-prints on the cold-air return, just like Kindergarten only bigger.</p>
<p>Being near Buffalo, an all-white interior can generate insanity: you don’t know if you’re inside or out. We lived for 3 years with cold white everywhere (except S’s crazy room) until the day H signed a second contract at work. Then, we painted every room in the house with colors we like. It was great to have a clean pallette to work upon. Of course the little sponge paint room stayed; I’ll never cover that up.</p>
<p>Did anyone else have an Aunt Sophie who covered every square inch of furniture with plastic? What WAS that?</p>
<p>^^^love “SellMeWhite”</p>
<p>The State Dept tended to paint all my parents houses white before we got there. Did we ever go wild when they finally let us choose colors. I painted my bathroom “paprika” which was great since it made pale freckled me almost look tan. My bedroom was periwinkle blue and I loved it.</p>
<p>I had an aunt who not only put plastic covers on the furniture, she also had plastic flowers with gold “dust” on them and decanters full of colored water. (My bad brothers tasted it.) She was my uncle’s second wife, and while I hated her house she was a lovely person and very good for him.</p>
<p>When we moved into our current house 11 years ago, in the lovely Silicon Valley, the family room was badly in need of a makeover. Compared to the orange shag carpet and sponge-painted walls it was tame, but it was still a “what the heck??” decor. The room was wallpapered; there was a several-inch-thick strip in dark green running horizontally around the middle of the room sort of like a chair rail in paper. Below, it was a not very easy on the eye green plaid wallpaper, and above it was… DUCKS! Big huge flying mallards every few feet, with their wings flapping and fake reeds and cattails in miniature down below them. Needless to say, that room was stripped immediately. (Maybe the previous owner was a hunter?)</p>
<p>No I had an Aunt Priscilla who made SO MANY needlepoint pillows that there was no room to sit down on any of the numerous chintz sofas…</p>
<p>Also cooked peas WAY too long.</p>
<p>great stories!</p>
<p>jmmom–our 2nd house was a rescue. the owner was in the process of painting each room a different color, and the lovely wide baseboard to match. The master BR was a dark teal cave, the DR was a dark mauve…something.</p>
<p>We stripped a lot of baseboards, painted light colors, and put up light floral drapes in this cottage-size house. And a new kitchen (tiny but nice.) When we sold, we had the satisfaction of hearing the buyer say she “loved” our decor. 
:)</p>
<p>You hear of “buyer’s remorse” but I think “seller’s remorse” is when you spend a lot of time fixing all the things wrong with your house so it will sell, and it looks so good you say “Tell me again why we’re selling?” :D</p>
<p>Oh yeah, cause child #4 is on the way and we’ve run out of room and the new house is closer to their schools and your work and…</p>