Featured Does this get you "trunk"?

Hahaha.....Davey...yer a class act !!!!!

 

The world is cruel...... the world is definitely too too cruel

(short of breath)



(cries hysterically)



The store that has the trunk... I don't think I can even say this without dying on the inside:

Because it didn't sell (I assume that's why) they... SPRAY PAINTED the whole trunk paper-white. It looks like a big mountain of plaster!

And they are supposed to be an antique store. Or something.
Well, should've known. They also had a 19th century brass chandelier that they spray painted silver.

(goes into deep mental shock)

I think it'll take more than a decade for me to get over this. Just earlier today before I saw "the new look" I was thinking I'd like to buy the trunk because of its divine patina.

Here's the fallen one before "the sick act":



I'm not going to even bother showing the "after"

 

Sprayed it white. I'm speechless.

 

I am so sorry.
Here are some words... pinches patanas.

 

Here is my favorite "old saying" for the person who suggested painting that trunk and/or did paint that trunk:

All his/her taste is in his/her mouth.

Trends/schmends my behindy.

 

Well said, fair YourTurn!
My behindy, too!

 

Oh, bluemoon, I am so sorry!

I hate to say it, but I have an even worse one: my CHILDHOOD HOME!

One of my sisters recently mentioned that the folks who bought the house from my Mom some 30 years ago had recently sold it. What possessed me, I don't know, but I looked it up on Google last week...

The house, designed by my mother and built in 1958, with high-end materials from my Dad's lumber business - and a HUGE nod to Frank Lloyd Wright - was a large, very rambling MCM rambler. The exterior was redwood and rock. (I may be biased, but I honestly believe it was one super special, very cool house!)

The new owners have covered the entire thing in beige vinyl siding (!!!) ... and the huge, custom Andersen picture windows now have brown plastic shutters attached next to them! Holy you-know-what!

Why the %$@# would anyone buy a true MCM house & desecrate it like that??? I'm just wondering if they've removed & trashed all of the hand blown, Venetian glass light fixtures... I'll bet they've either painted over or ripped out most of the woodwork, too.

The problem is, when it isn't YOURS, you simply can't control what happens to it!

 

SVSB~C~!

Oh NO!

I guess they wanted a 90's bungalow... if only they had just BOUGHT one.

The house (pre-"improvements") sounds magical.

 

Thanks for the sympathy, Gila. It really WAS quite a house!

The town was SO small when I was a kid (there were only TWO school buses, each of which made 2 trips morning/afternoon - for grades K-8!) but it's grown into a "bedroom community" of NYC...

Sadly, the folks who bought the house from my Mom didn't keep the land around it. There's now a cul-de-sac of 5 HUGE McMansion-type homes out back, in what used to be the meadow I could see out my bedroom window. They sold off the land both above and below the house, as well. I was horrified to see that the property recently conveyed was only .95 acres...

Anyway, as I said before, if it's not yours, you can't control what happens to it. I wish I hadn't even looked!

 

I totally get it.

I was mourning the occasional FRAMING of my paintings... I paint them to be hung on a nail. Frames, in my mind, destroy their attachment to the room. But Brad gave me a good, caring lecture about possession being 9/10ths of the law/good-taste. I calmed down.

If you love something, let it go? Eventually, you must. Mortality and all that.

 

Well said, Gila, well said...

 

Well said... BRAD!!!!

AND you, ~C~!

 

Hi,
I had a very similar situation. I bought my house which was built in 1820. I tore off vinyl siding, a layer of abestoes siding, a layer of fake brick asphalet siding. Exposed the original wood siding. Filled in all the nail holes and restored the outside. Then I started the inside. Tore off all the fake paneling and sheetrock. Stripped all the chestnut baseboards and a double staircase with four spindles on each step. The whole process took 3 years. Finally it was done. It went on the historical house tour. 6 years later I sold the house to a couple who LOVED it. A year later I went to visit the neighbors. As we were talking I said I wanted to go over and pick into the house. My neighbors said do not go over there. I went and wanted to burn the house down. All the woodwork was painted white, the stair railings were ripped out and replaced with wrought iron. All my plaster walls were replaced with sheetrock. The ceilings lowered to 8 ft, They were 10. I was sooooooooo heart stricken. The final insult was a year later they vinyl sided the house.
greg

 

Indeed you can't go home again.

 

SBSVC and Gregsglass, hope you will enjoy reading this "happier" story which could be titled "You can go home again."

One Sunday afternoon in 2009 three (unknown to us) cars came down our driveway. A woman about my age got out of the car and came to the front door and rang the bell. I halfway recognized her from many, many moons before. She introduced herself (I then remembered who she was).

She said that the family came back to their hometown for her mother's 100th birthday celebration. She said her mother (and the other relatives) wanted to see the "homeplace" one more time. We had bought the house from the mother 16 years before. The mother (and the rest of the family) got out of the cars and walked around the house and of course were welcomed into the house.

I've never been so pleased to see anyone because as she walked around outside and inside she liked the slight changes we had made (one change turned her original kitchen into a butler's pantry and made our larger kitchen look out over the backyard). She exclaimed upon seeing the larger kitchen "I told Al (her husband who was deceased by then) I wanted a big kitchen window looking out over the backyard" (or words to that effect).

Each time the 100-year-old saw a change she liked she always exclaimed "I told Al that was the way I wanted it when he built it!!!" "Al" had started and owned the nicest (and oldest still in business) building supply company in our city and although under different ownership it is not a "chain" building supply company.

We have kept the original chestnut paneling in our den and a mahogany outdoor building (former playhouse for the previous owners' daughters) and now a workshop/storage building.

The previous owner died four years ago at the age 103. I can only hope that her knowing her house was still being loved and cared for made her latter days even happier.

 

We bought the family home from Jon's mother when his Dad went into a nursing home. There were five siblings, so we paid full market value and his Mom bought a condo unit.

The original house was built in 1870 and there were additions, as usual in old farmhouses in New England, in the 1930s, 50s and 70s. We actually undid some of the more ugly remodels. We can't undo every change. We added a second floor over the garage and shop for an apartment for our son. We made sure it matches the front of the old house. Everyone has complimented us on it. Jon's mother thought what we did was great. We have kept the old horsehair plaster but removed the tacky 1950s wallpaper which was falling off anyway and painted the walls neutral colors. There was some very ugly paneling his Dad put in upstairs and we dare not remove it for fear the walls will crumble so I painted it off-white so at least I'm not looking at faux-pine knots printed on cheap paneling.

 

Oh yea, we have to let it go. I sell vintage and antique jewelry at shows and cringe when people buy something from me to "use it for crafts". I have visions of those Christmas Trees made from vintage pins with the backs broken off and then stuck to velvet with hot glue

 

I've seen those..

 

Oh, MARIE!!! GAHHH!
I am sorry.

What's wrong with people?