has anybody else seen the gray cabinets on pg. 28 of the latest Home Depot advertising circular? Good Loooooooord! what is that supposed to be- some sort of faux curtain effect? what’s it made of? badly raked drywall mud? thinset? stucco? actual fabric? molded plastic or __? under the picture it says “Coming to The Home Depot Betty Crocker, America’s Most Trusted Kitchens” so is this crap supposed to look like cake frosting? ummm, Betty- you might want to just stick to the actual cooking and leave cabinet design to people who don’t need a seeing eye dog. the caption should have read “Coming soon- Kitchens in He!!”
what a nightmare they’d be to clean! you’d have to take them out to the driveway and use a pressure washer.
I hope somebody is able to post a picture of these tragically ugly monstrosities so that anybody who missed it can “enjoy” them, too. I would pay serious money for a list of all the folks who actually have these cabinets installed in their own kitchens-you could sell them ANYTHING! he!!, i’d like to meet the boob who actually paid someone to design them in the first place.
m
Replies
I've not seen these cabinets but I got a genuine, and much needed, laugh from your description. Ah-Pree-Shate-Cha!! :-)>
Kevin Halliburton
"I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity." - I.M. Pei -
Perhaps you missed this tag line:
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public [Henry Louis Mencken]
to which i would add-
"P. T. Barnum underestimated." anonymous
m
badly raked drywall mud? thinset? stucco? actual fabric? molded plastic or __?
I know! It's the "Trading Spaces" line of impractical cabinetry!
I'll be dipped if that wasn't the first thought that crossed my mind too. Somehow this sounds like it has "Thad" written all over it.Kevin Halliburton
"I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity." - I.M. Pei -
who's Thad?
Just be glad you don't know...
Actually, I may be confusing my least favorite designer on Trading Spaces with the cabinet guy. I've tried hard to put their memory behind me.
The quote that put me over the wall with the designer (I'm pretty sure the designer's name was Thad) was an episode of Trading Spaces where the home owner begged the show to do anything they wanted to her house but please, please, please leave the brick fireplace alone.
Thad walks in, picks up the card she left on the mantel saying something like "please leave this brick" and says, "I don't know if I want to give them that."
After the neighbors fought him tooth and nail for hours, insisting that they were not going to paint that brick white no matter what he insists on he arrogantly storms out to his cabinet guy, sticks his schnoz defiantly in the air and says, "what - do they think they are designers or something?"
He finally covers the brick with plywood and paints the plywood white. Oh yea, it was SO much classier looking than the brick, not to mention more fire resistant.
Absolutely the worst example of "interior design" I have ever witnessed. What kind of a legitimate designer would be incapable of working a brick fireplace into his design solution? If he did have the skill to work the brick into his design solution and simply choose not to because he felt his vision for the space was more important than the home owner's who would live in it, his claim of being a qualified interior designer is even more laughable. I can only conclude that, in either scenario, he is an arrogant fraud!
You may have guessed by now that I don't have a real appreciation for his style. This cabinet design sounds just dysfunctional enough to be one of his masterpieces.
Edit: believe it or not - I felt my initial criticism was too harsh and edited it to soften the wording in spots. I feel pretty strongly about this one. :-)>
Kevin Halliburton
"I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity." - I.M. Pei -
Edited 10/2/2003 11:20:23 PM ET by Wrecked Angle
FYI, the designer everyone loves to hate on that show is named Doug. The carpenter they usually have is named Ty. Ty is always a joker.
The producers of Trading Spaces have gone back to the houses the homeowners hated and reshot them with new designs.
rg
i was thinking they're actual fabric too, but there are a couple things that still make we wonder- first, the color matches the frame exactly. so do you suppose they spray paint the whole door after assembly? second, there's no obvious curtain rods or typical means of attachment. the fabric seems (get it- seams?) to be captured under the door frame along the top and bottom as well as both sides. is it easily detachable for washing or replacement for WHEN (NOT IF) something is spilled down the front of them? do the replacements come in pre-pleated panels that snap or screw in? i'm gonna start looking for them the next time i'm at hd.
and back to my number one question- what friggin moron thought this would be a good design idea anywhere, let alone a kitchen?! i can hear these idiots in a meeting- "gee, criminally ugly and ridiculously impractical- ladies and gents, it's genius like this that's going to kick Lowe's a$$!" wow, what a concept- mixing window treatments with cabinet doors. what next- miniblinds? maybe they could install those over the glass cab doors- for use when your dishes or foodstuffs aren't sufficiently attractive or properly arranged for public display?
they'll undoubtedly have the last laugh when it not only becomes a hot seller, but then they reap the follow-up bucks when people come back to their senses (perhaps with the help of laser eye surgery) and replace this crap in a few years.
m
wow, what a concept- mixing window treatments with cabinet doors.
Having spent far too much time in the cabinetry biz, there is no lack of goofyness out there already. Rice paper on hardboard panels--unique but near impossible to clean. Stuffed fabric-covered "cushion" panels--another impossible to clean, but the fabric was going to be passè well before the servants soiled the cabinetry . . .
My favorite from recent times has to be the "chicken wire" fronts for cabinte doors. This uses a plated (brass, labeled as 'gold') wire mesh, a real bargain at $30-40 the s.f.
The millwork detail for a pleated fabric panel would not be tough, treat the door frame like an open panel, with a rebate on the back edge just like for a glass panel. Rig up a wood frame, and stretch the fabric over that, then pop into the back of the frame. Scotchguard the fabric, and use some care in the application, and, it, might, be not horrible. Preassembled from cheapest possible components as a KD or semi-KD cabinet for sale in a big box? No way that will be a high quality item.
To think I have missed all this..... MH that is... and TP.
Now there is an anology... Trading Places and TP.
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
I have missed all this
Haven't missed that much.
funny you mention the chicken wire (or as it's labeled at the hardware store- "poultry mesh"). all this talk of ugly cabinets got me thinking about this big- 6-7000ish sq ft- fancy a$$ mansion in the ritzy Denver Country Club neighborhood that the symphony guild had done up for its annual house tour fundraiser a few years ago. the theme was "the french country house"- but a french whorehouse was more like it. the one thing that really sticks in my mind- because my wife and i laughed our butts off at it- was the chicken wire paneled cabinets (maybe in the library? at least not in the kitchen) with- get this- real mounted/taxidermied hens and roosters in them! it was surreal. like somebody with a $2 or $3million mansion was going to keep the barnyard fowl in the friggin house as a decoration. yeah, i'm sure all the finer french chateaux have that.
one has to wonder if these designers and interior decorators actually take all this crap seriously or if a lot of them like playing jokes on their clientele to see just how far they can go or what they can get away with? oh well, you know what happens to fools and their money.
m
What do you have against fresh eggs for breakfast.
real mounted/taxidermied hens and roosters in them!
At least the chicken wire would make sense <g>. Though, it does suggest a use for the wooden eggs at the craft store . . .
Logic & cabinets seep to have a high separation factor. Like, who, in their right mind, would want cathedral arched doors open for glass? (Hint, cutting the glass to match is more expensive than the cabinet.) Or why order a frameless cabinet and then spec a doortype that looks like a framed cabinet )or vice versa)?
Best "atypical" door I ever saw was some frameles cabinets. The doors were opened for glass, and then speaker fabric was stretched over them. With the dark mahogany laminate, it was a neat effect, if a tad contemporary.
I wrote what now seems like a 15 page essay on a house that I visited. It was on a 'Calvalcade of Homes' tour. 600k house, attached 3 car garage, y'know the usual excess. But there were a few things that truly irritated me.
1. The first floor ceilings were spacious, a good 9ft BUT the ceilings on the 2nd floor weren't even a true 8ft (one of the 'childrens' rooms was painted a deep purple - like walking into a cave).
2. They had paid a true artisan a bijillion dollars to CARVE a truly magnificent cherrywood mantle for the fireplace and surrounding it with dark tiles so the mantle was hidden instead of celebrated.
3. The chairrail border in the back hallway-black and white cows w/pink udders.
4. The utility room was unfinished...BECAUSE there wasn't enough room in it for both a washingmachine and a dryer(even stacked) BECAUSE an oval window just happened to intrude on that room.
There was more in my essay. BTW, it was a survey the developer had put near the exit. Lots of room for comments.
Edited because while they were cows they were black and white. sheesh
This jobless recovery has done more to promote the consumption of exquisite chocolate than the finest chocolatier. Cost be damned.
Edited 10/4/2003 3:04:20 AM ET by PLANTLUST
Thanks - I only take issue with you referring to him as a designer but I'm glad I was able to demonstrate a measure of ignorance about the program. :-)>
It's been a very long time since I tuned in... I've been preoccupied trying to glue hay on my walls to replicate my other favorite design they came up with. When I'm done with that I think I'll make a home theatre room, complete with tiered seating and a 19" T.V. for my child's play room. They keep me very busy with all of their creative solutions.
I should probably say that what incenses me about that show is that I know and work with several excellent Interior Designers and I feel their reputations are seriously besmirched by this kind of programing. Trading Spaces is the absolute opposite of what a qualified Interior Designer actually does.
I do have a modicum of respect for the older guy with the white beard (Frank I think) and the oriental designer who knows his Feng Shui pretty well. The oriental guy was actually able to step out of his design box and do a decent job of creating something that fit the client's taste and style more than his own on one episode. That's a little more like what an Interior Designer does.
Good grief! I can't seem to talk about this subject without going off. Excuse me folks - I'm done.Kevin Halliburton
"I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity." - I.M. Pei -
It's meant to be serious TV for the American public, but it is a laugh riot (with some "nooooooo! not THAT!") for people with taste.
http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/tradingspaces/tradingspaces.html
I also saw the episode with the fireplace and I do not blame the homeowner ONE BIT for bursting into tears while her husband quietly told the designer off. Who was not contrite at all.
I also saw the episode where another designer Hilda (boo! hisss!) tried to make a "third window...for balance, ya know" out of a sheet of glass with water cascading over the top, down the glass and into a tub. Oh very nice. Yes. Yes.
I do like Vern Yip. He occasionally comes up with something good. I think the carpenters have the patience of Job, and are also having quite a laugh at the designers' expense when the camera is not on.
I have a friend who tapes these things and, before we became mired in this project, we used to have a big group dinner and play 'em back to back as a drinking game. You drink when:
-Doug makes someone cry (that will set you night back right there.)
-Paige does her "I used to be a cheerleader in high school" moves
-etc. etc.
The show is one big designer DON'T! Especially with all of the painted plywood that gets thrown around. Eeeek.
Yup, here is the "Crying Pam" episode that is pretty famous on the 'net...
http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/tradingspaces/episode/season2/episode_21.html
DW and I like to watch that show together, not that she doesn't get enough remodelling dust as it is.
Vern, the Asian designer, would be our choice if we were on the show. One time he put a round mirror on one wall, and on an adjacent wall he put an oval mirror. It was symetrical at the correct angle.
On the same episode, he painted these large amoebic shapes in seemingly random order, on the same sides of three or four parallel walls. Here's why: when you sat on the bed, looking toward the hall, at just the right angle, all of the shapes came together to make a large amoebic shape. That was cool.
Frank is a little too country kitch for me.
We checked into getting on the show, but the only friends we trusted to work on our house lived too far away. You have to be on the same block so they can set up a central work zone.
Anyway, the show is entertaining. rg
Edited 10/3/2003 6:17:22 PM ET by ricky
I only saw one or two episodes with Vern but my cursory assesment of him was that he seemed conspicuously out of place among his co-stars.
So you tried to get on the show hu? I didn't think you could choose the "designer." Why not just schedule a drive by shooting. You get all the excitement and you won't feel the need to commit suicide when it's over. It is virtually certain you will have less trouble fixing the damage.
Oh yea, I said I was done didn't I? Sorry, I can't help myself...Kevin Halliburton
"I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity." - I.M. Pei -
You may have guessed by now that I don't have a real appreciation for his style. This cabinet design sounds just dysfunctional enough to be one of his masterpieces.
Yet another reason to watch Changing Rooms on bbcamerica (the original source for the idea on tlc). The designers are flamboyant and use mdf like it was free--but they've never used a brad where a lag & anchor were needed (except the goofy wire suspended shelves).
the first thought that crossed my mind too
Don't know if I want to explore reasons for similar thinking--it's embarassing enough that I know that much about TS . . .
Texan mind set.....
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
Hey, no meteorites in my yard . . .
Mitch,
I found the pic. I believe (and my wife agrees) that the door panels are actually pleated fabric. Keeping them clean would be a pain.
Rich Beckman
Another day, another tool.
Haven't seen it, but could they be milled with a linen fold bit? I'll try to find a pic...