apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Then your nightmare swap is me! Bwah ha ha ha!

I'd be swapped with someone who's a slob, eats potato chips or crackers in their bed dropping crumbs and loves leopard/ cow print accessories.

They'd also have open bags of food in every room, smoke like a chimney and like large floral prints...everywhere.

Dare I say it here? My nightmare swap, would be a minimalist modernist neat and tidy type.

My nightmare swap would be a dear friend of mine, love her but she has piles and piles of stuff that has so much dust I cannot eat dinner at her place. She is extremely creative and talented but her house keeping is non existent! Cat litter boxes out in the open, dishes rinsed then left on the counter for weeks and smokes inside the house.. Goes to sleep with candles burning!! She also spills things all the time so I bought her a child tippy cup to use (as a joke, but no seriously)..I guess my bigger fear would be for her to stay in my place without me here...not dishing here because I do love her but can you say Grey Garden?

Country clutter...shudder.

my nightmare swap would be someone with brass/glass 80's furniture, peach walls, tons of knick-knacks and about 10 cats (because that cat hair would be part of the decor at that point :) and probably animal prints in the bathroom w/ a furry toilet cover. ha! fun to think about...

What a great and fun idea for a post!

My place would no doubt be a nightmare swap for a modernist/minimalist.

My own nightmare swap would be a place that was soul-less (though I'd prefer soul-less to dirty/messy/smoky)!

Anyone with carpet. Precious Moments figurines optional.

Wood paneling walls, hunter green shag carpet, rust orange curtains and matching couch, and very little natural light. Scary... Oh wait, I think I just described the house I grew up in!

All white. I'd be an environmental disaster.

Conversely, a condo rehab I worked on. Occupied by mountains of broken furniture, boxes on top of same, cockroaches, mice, rotting food, filthy dishes and the owner. One giant shivering nightmare.

Shelves filled with Franklin mint/Beanie baby collections, wall to wall carpeting, unidentifiable odors, plastic covered big boy recliners with built in beer can holder, electric stove, smoke outlines of the furniture on the wall papered walls.

My parents. They have a big house and LOTS of stuff (clutter, most of it) but they also have a very high level of cleanliness. Which means: constantly dusting millions of fussy little knick-knacks. I'd go insane after a week.

The kitchen with a thousand bacon breakfasts caked on the stove, no plant life to be seen anywhere except the corners of the fridge and the bathroom. Dust bunnies breading at an alarming rate beyond exponential expectations. The sound of rats in the attic and feral cats in the yard. But wait there's a lemon tree.

Sorry Emi, I love your new house.

bachelor pad with only attention paid to the gigantic television

wow we all have our issues, LOL this is a funny post let it rip.. yes wall to wall carpet freaks me out that is why I dislike staying in hotels.

Cat urined soaked shag carpeting from the 60's, lace curtains with country geese topper in peach, knotty pine paneling with cutesy scrollwork soffit holding flourescent lighting. A giant deer head and 3 or 4 stuffed fish. A TV in a early American console cabinet with tin foil on the rabbit ears. Precious Moments and Beanie Babies on every horizontal surface. A bathroom with a fluffy tank cover, and a blue duck border. Must not forget the crocheted TP dollie cover.

In short, most of my Midwestern relative's farm houses.

My nightmare would be a total technology den - multiple computers on all the time, big TV, stereos on standby all the time. And wires, wires, everywhere. (hugging myself)

I'd probably be matched up with one of those crazy people with lots of cats.

clutter and cats says it all for me....ugh.

The American Canyon people.

Inoffensive over-stuffed beige furniture pushed against beige walls that feature perhaps one tiny inoffensive beige print.

There would be blue mini-blinds, an auto-ice maker on the fridge door, and a post-it note recipe for making Crystal Lite 'POP'. This would not involve methamphetamine, however.

my husband's grandparent's house. before they moved, they were the worst hoarders, saving everything from Wendy's fast food cups to silica "do not eat" packets to other people's clothing. the closets were stacked high with boxes of slides from other people's vacations. drawers were stuffed with tax return forms (blank copies) from 1970 on. grandma would keep stacks and stacks of newspapers so she could write down the weather in her journal.

it was definitely one of those places where they had amassed so much stuff you could only walk through a small area. i remember spending some time trying to help them clear things out and after 10 minutes i was exhausted and overwhelmed; i can't imagine living there.

The home of a doll collector. Dozens of dust-covered porcelain dolls in ostentatious Victorian dresses, their dead eyes watching me in the bedroom, living room, bathroom etc.

my nightmare swap would be with anyone who thinks that over stuffed furniture on deep plush carpet with raymore and flanighan oversized dark "wood" cabinets is good "design"... oh and window treatments that have more than one thing going on. i hate when windows are covered.

oh and of course, anyone that has a cat fetish thing going on. i don't care for cats, and i hate the cat crazy lady decor style.

oh, and frilly valances... god the windows treatments in other peoples homes get me everytime.

...clutter is one thing, but i don't know very many people who would seriously say their taste in decor incorporates filth (roaches and mice, for example). i was hoping to see more responses from readers regarding actual design trends. personally, i don't really like shabby chic, but my design-hell would have to be over-sized, wooden bedroom furniture sets.

My nightmare would be a house decorated in pink pink pink,,, and florals. And Victorian furniture (unless it's in a victorian home)

Carpeting. Pink carpeting. (Or shall we say, "dusty rose?") Heavy window coverings. Laminate faux-wood furnishings. Wallpaper.

My own house is my nightmare swap. It had great bones, and was huge for the price back in 2003, at the height of the boom. But the 85-year-old couple I bought from had redecorated only twice since buying in the mid-fifties: once in 1963ish, and then again with a faux-Victorian overlay in the 1980s. (They left the 1960s wallpaper, and just laid the dusty rose carpeting on the floor and draped the windows with pink valances. To hell with matching styles!)

Before:

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/DRJune03beforecropped.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/LRJune03before.jpg

Take some deep breaths. Here are the afters:

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/DRJuly09.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/BlueCouch21709Buddy.jpg

It's almost worth living with the horror, to be able to say you created the end product yourself. :D

It would be about location. As long as it was clean and user friendly I would be happy in Paris, Barcelona on a beach or in the mountains.

I can tolerate almost anything . . . until a cat jumps up on the kitchen counter.

Bleeccccch.

any modern day mcmansion

Deer print fabric on the sofa, wagon wheel coffee table, and plenty of taxidermy hanging on fake wood panelled walls.

To add to futurovox's comment a mcmansion filled with contemporary furniture, cold and lifeless.

Mary B C - that is the craziest thing I have ever seen! Great job on the update! Love the blue sofa.

My nightmare houseswap would be with my former college roommate - she was a textbook packrat and a total slob! But the icing on the cake was that she swore it was the only way she could function, and she flipped out if I threw away even one six-month old receipt!

...anything that is overly themed or matchy-matchy. Especially anything that is animal themed. 1 frog is cute, 5 frogs is a theme, a houseful of frogs is creepy.
::shudder::

Any of these people's homes who hate cats! =) I think any home that takes itself too seriously-- either with soulless minimalism or with pink taffeta valances and glass figurines-- would be bad for me. And of course anywhere dirty, but that's not a decor issue.

Living in Florida - my idea of a house swap nightmare would be in a 60s Ranch style home - surrounded by baby boomer neighbors - there would be gold lions and bird baths in the front lawn - inside that horrific Sunshine/Retirement state classic motif - peach and seafoam green as far as the eye can see - doilies, silk florals in massive ceramic vases, painted wicker furniture, family photos everywhere covered in kitchen grease, Lladro's in lacquer case/entertainment center - no no and no - oh and of course there would be several cats that dance from countertops to maplewood cat ladders