Designer Nightmare

Can you say.... EVERYTHING?

Jim and I have had some serious fun looking at the lobbies of various hotels and motels in our travels. I guess when you are into decorating you just tend to notice things more. This is the lobby of a Comfort Inn in Northern CA.

What these people were thinking is beyond me, but I bet it has something to do with an inheritance and trying to save a few bucks on the design features of the inn. This place just screams "ouch" from the minute you lay your eyes on it. Since this is your first impression when you walk in, I think they have some serious welcoming issues. The room we had was 100% better but the lobby and dining room were atrocious.

As we have been thinking about how we can run our decorating business with no overhead we had this idea. Perhaps we could call several hotel and motel establishments along a route we want to travel, offer to come in and redesign their lobbies in exchange for a room? It would only take a short amount of time and then we could be on our way.

Take a look at this picture! First of all, the decor (using the term loosely) does not go with the location and genre of this Comfort Inn at all. Have these people never been to Disneyland? It is all in the details of the land you are trying to create. It is located in a little mountain town near Yosemite. The Lobby is small and the furniture is way too fancy-pants for this place. A hunting lodge theme would work so much better here. A few carved bear accessories, maybe some skis on the wall or a picture of a mountain scene, a couple of nice comfy overstuffed chairs and some hunter plaid would work so much better. I wouldn't sit down on this love seat with a stranger if I was waiting. Would you? No, chairs are better here.

I don't personally like hunting cabin decor, but that is an example of what would work. Something less formal, warm and comfortable would compliment and blend with the location and the exterior of the building. It is like a good hair cut..no one notices it. Blending is important. The current decor is something that rattles your cage and makes you wonder why you came. It should just welcome you in, period.

And then there is scale. The scale is completely wrong. You don't want to put a gianormous, gilded mirror over a small velveteen love set. Yes, it is true the sofa has a gold trim but, people...this does not a match make. Trust your gut on this one. This is painfully wrong.

And you definitely don't want to slide it over towards the window to accommodate the weird ceiling above the love seat. Something that is placed over a sofa is to complement it and should be directly over it. And the phone thingy..I can't go there with this combo!

AND no, a 70's K-Mart ginger jar lamp does not compliment any of it. And hello, check out the height that the picture hanger selected for the rectangular tiny picture? What the...? I could go on about the round ornate gilded, glass top table, but you get the picture and it is worth a thousand words. How does someone unconsciously get it ALL wrong? Multiple choice usually affords one at least some right answers?

This is just too crazy! I'm just sayin'......we have found a need...now maybe we should try to fill it! If they don't have anything good to work with for a redesign, like this place, maybe a night's lodging and a few bucks for a consultation will work? The general public needs to be spared. We volunteer! This would not be a money maker...just a labor of love along the path to our destinations!