In some households, the cacophony of couch potatoes screaming at the flat screen might smack of football season. At our house, it means I’m watching my favorite new porn: HGTV’s House Hunters, or its skinnier, richer and even bee-yotchier sister, House Hunters International.
Today was House Hunters International’s HGTV marathon. (I guess they don’t think my ass is big enough already, so they’re adding several hours to my non-aerobic activity). Imagine my delight and surprise when interviewing world-renowned artist Scott Hampton for Dave Dorman’s & my podcast, “It’s Comic Book Day” (free on iTunes, folks!) and discovering that he, too, shares my addiction. Scott summed it up best: “Who knew you could buy a chateau in the south of France for a mere $500,000?!?”
I’ve learned much from observing – and cursing out – these clueless home buyers. Are you selling a home in the near future? Take careful note. The new rules for staging homes can be summarized in a couple of bullet points:
#1. People today are way too stupid to notice the true and lovely bones of a home and the potential of its land. They will NOT see past the paint palette or wallpaper that somehow offends their precious sensibilities, so keep that wall cover neutral, folks! Just take your paint cues from some old Pottery Barn catalog (don’t worry, the catalog can be from 10 years ago and the design won’t have evolved at all) and be sure to fill a giant, useless and extravagantly expensive clear vase (say it like you’re from Connecticut and pronounce it “vaahhhzzz”) with useless balls that look like Martha Stewart rolled up some brown old grape vines after her Kobe beef herd shat on them. Wall colors can be khaki, ecru and egg shell. Don’t get too imaginative. Wall art must always be framed in black.
#2. The home could have a crumbling foundation and the most labyrynthine layout, but so long as that kitchen boasts “stainless steel appliances and granite countertops,” that home is…to quote our moronic ex-Illinois Guv Blago…”Effing GOLDEN!!!”
Every single time I see some uninformed couple walk into a kitchen and gush over stainless and granite, I scream at the TV. I’m confident Dave jests when he tells me I learned English from “longshoremen,” whatever that means. Surely Tony Robbins is intricately involved in some conspiracy…like the kitchen design lobbyists got to him, and the next brainwashing session he held down at his Fiji compound was dedicated to selling future home buyers on bad 1998 kitchen decor. Do these people just really not know what a pain in the ass it is to keep fingerprints off of stainless?!? Or how easily stainless steel appliances dent?!? Or how dated these kitchens are going to look in no time?!?
When I think of these house hunters, I can’t help but think of the lyric from The Police’s most excellent album, Synchronicity: “Packed like lemmings into shiny, metal boxes…contestants in a suicidal race.” But these house hunting lemmings are all converging toward one giant design suicide. From everything I’ve witnessed over countless episodes, home buyer individuality is deader than Paris Hilton’s welcome mat at LasVegas Wynn Properties.
All this talk of The Police has made me, in my true A.D.D. fashion, think of the hottest Baby Boomer on the planet, Sting. He should have at least a cameo role on my favorite vampire porn, True Blood. Don’t you agree?
Denise Dorman's Blog 