Thursday, February 14, 2008

Off-Off- White

I have officially moved into my new room. It's great. It's on the third floor instead of the sixth, it's a single instead of a double, it overlooks the Mass Ave/ Memorial Drive intersection and the over the river to Boston instead of overlooking the alley that leads to the student center. I am pleased -- I feel a whole degree better on life now that I'm settled into my own private sanctuary. I think I'm going to go to great trouble decorating it, just so it's a very Zen location, as opposed to the blank austere walls that populate much of the Institute.

Here's the one thing I don't like: they painted all the woodwork the same off-white as the walls. This is one trend in design that I absolutely can't stand. Wood looks great. Even fake wood looks great. Good wood is like Sean Connery -- it's dashing and smooth when it's young, and handsome with character when it gets older. And unlike people, you can refinish it if you want to.

Paint makes wood boring, and then it cracks. So you have to repaint with the same color, or strip it back down. One day in Americorps I spent and entire morning scraping shelf paper from a drawer with a razorblade. Don't do this, people. Respect the natural look. It looks great.

Now I have to add all the color I can by myself, because the entire room is white (mutters). Do your country and yourself a favor and take an aesthetic stand against this nonsense.

2 comments:

Chaviva Gordon-Bennett said...

Paint that shit.

Or, you know, put up a poster or something?

Chris said...

You could take the ultimate stand against aesthetic decency and cover the shelves with faux wood shelf paper. Ugly and pointless. Take THAT, Horace.