Continuing my nesting weekend, I have been house cleaning like Martha Stewart with a string of firecrackers up her butt. I just spent almost two hours cleaning my 1970~something avacado green oven with VariTemp Micromatic Microwave Oven. It’s got the same tonnage of chrome on it as a 1959 Cadillac Sedan de Ville and is a bitch to keep clean; the sides are dented & scratched, but every burner and tail light works on it & the microwave blisters food in about 2 seconds. I pray for it to die so I can get a nice modern one, but it keeps going.
That, and the bright lavender vinyl love seat with chrome feet in the living room. That’s the dogs’ couch. Goes well with the full size plastic palm trees, but quite ugly.
I surely cannot be the only one with truly hideous stuff in my house that I won’t get rid of.
You should see my couch. I bet it beats the lavendar vinyl love seat hands down.
When I was moving into this apartment, my father was coincidentally moving overseas, and decided to give me a lot of his furniture. So he shows up with some very nice items that I was pleased to receive, and this … couch.
Was once “coral” but has now faded to raw pinky peach. The fabric has a design that I can only describe as “vaguely imperialistic Asian” – meaning sort of a bamboo motif, along with what seems to be a waterfall, and something that we think might be a ricksaw. It’s like the Revenge of the Couch of Dr. Fu Manchu.
And curves in a gently, oh so impractical way. You can’t put it against the wall, and you can’t put a sofa table behind it.
Essentially, it’s one big scratching post for the cat. I can’t wait to move so I can ditch the couch.
Be thankful for your avocado green–I had an apartment with the pink appliances of the 1950’s (this was in the early 90’s). Yep, pink stove, pink refrigerator, formica countertop, faux marble with just a hint of pink tint. Lovely, just lovely.
But take heart, just this past year I finally bought a brand new sofa and chair–not a family hand-me-down. We do eventually become adults and get to pick our own furniture.
Can I get an offer for my mustard yellow toilet and tub?
They match, both hideous. For those too young to remember the late 70’s when people WANTED things this color, it is not a sunny yellow, it is a greenish yellow. Yuck! Nothing else goes with it. Or the mustard yellow patterned wallpaper that filled the house. Most of that has been covered up.
What’s not to like about this image? Think of the dialogue;
"And as we [bang!] remove the drapes [bang!] for cleaning.[bang!] Ow! We can also see [bang!] that the valences have to [bang!] come down as well. [bang!] Eep!
The stained rug [bang!] near the door will require [bang!] a stronger solvent than [bang!] just Woolite to [bang!] get it out. [bang!]. For this we will [bang!] need to apply lighter fluid, so…" [kablammo!!!]
And she was never heard from again…
My old Hotpoint washer from the very early 80s, passed down to me a couple of years back by a relative, makes me want to throw up every time I see it. It’s the grossest combination of brown, beige and chrome I’ve ever seen, and it looks like a pile of crap sitting in my laundry room. The damn thing won’t die, no matter how much I knock it about. Bits are hanging off it everywhere, but it still runs. I’m sure it keeps going out of spite.
I’ve decided it’s going out to the trash next week. If I wait for it to die, I’ll never be rid of it. A new Whirlpool is on order already, so soon I’ll be able to do laundry without retching at the sight of my washer. And I’ll no longer be embarassed when visitors walk past my laundry room.
It looked like a chair. Sort of. The seat was 6-8" off the ground, but the back came up to mid-torso. The back was made of brass, and was a diamond-within-a-diamond shape, with a vertical spine. It was topped off with a coat hanger and change tray (?).
I can’t remember where I got it, and I don’t care what I did with it. But it is no longer in my possession.
It went great with the Ugly Lamp.
The Ugly Lamp was given to me by a friend who told me that I was not allowed to throw it out. I could only give it to someone who would agree not to throw it out, and so on…
Oh yes, it also had to be displayed at all times. No back-o’-the-closet for this puppy!
Bear in mind, when I say that this lamp was ugly, that’s only because it was the most hideous, tacky and repulsive lamp in existence.
It was about a foot and a half high. The base was oval, made of some kind of dark wood. The bulb was a circular fluorescent, covered by an oval maroon burlap-y shade. The main part of the lamp, though, was what made it so wonderfully disgusting. It was two deer’s feet, back to back. Hair and everything. I swear, I thought it had fleas.
Sometimes, when I lie awake at night, I wonder if my ex-fiancee’s brother still has it. Or who he gave it to.
i moved into my own place last month. Rah! for furniture i decided to go with cheap and functional rather than wait till i could afford what i liked. i’ve got a lime green sleeper sofa and semi recliner that matches. circa 1962. couch was $12 and the matching chair was $4! hey, ya gotta sit yur ass on something when you’re watching cartoons.
It was a valet. You are supposed to hang your suit on it at night, so you can wear it again in the morning. The low “chair” part is to put your foot up on while you untie your shoes.
It supposedly started out navy and cream pin striped, but I only remember it as puke green and black pinstriped. Fugly just about covered it. Shapeless, kinda roundish squatty couch. Most comfortable piece of furniture I have ever touched. The ‘arms’ were soft and squashed flat from years of people sitting on them, making them the perfect height for a pillow when sleeping on it. It could seat six comfortably, four in the cushions and two on the wide squishy arms.
Then my parents grew up and bought tasteful cream colored loveseats that you can’t lounge on without 18 pillows and your legs hanging off.
We have a lovely $40 garage-sale couch. The structure is quite sound, and it’s very comfy to sleep on because you can pull the back cushions off and have much more room than your average couch affords.
The drawback is that it’s upholstered in the 70’s mustard-green dragonlady mentioned, with abstract orange, green, and brown designs. The upholstery is not improved by the fact that the cat keeps scratching it. We keep a blanket over it, so it doesn’t look that hideous.
I am a little scared of what the cat will do when we finally get a decent couch.
My house is decorated in "Early American Garage Sale/Take Pity on eech-owl, including the furniture that (f)R brought home from customers’ houses (“The salesman promised your company would take my old furniture; if you don’t I’m going to cancel my order and go elsewhere.” Guess who got the hand-me-downs while saving the salesman a commission on $10,000? Yeah, me.)
Of the 8 couches I have had in the last 7 years (all from customers), the worst was a matching sofa and loveseat. To term the color as “puke” would be far too benevolent - somewhere between pea green and eletric green, with a godawful red and brown leaf motif, a visual monstrosity. [We sent each old couch to the Salvation Army - if (f)R took them in the company truck, he would have been fired on the spot.] I am happy with the last keeper - a black leather couch, very nice except for a small rip on the seat cushion.
Ironically, the only new furniture I have in the house is a bedroom suite I purchased from (f)R’s company - the bed is falling apart.
Kinsey - (former)Roommate. It got tiresome typing it all the time, and less to think about, so I would just use (f)R. Sorry for the confusion. But I’m not bitter, oh no…
In my childhood home, the den had an Ugly Couch. It had started off plaid. Not the cool kind of woven, textured plaid, but just plaid fabric covering foam cushions. I think that foam has been outlawed or at least phased out by now. It was the kind where, when a hole in the fabric appears, as it did on all three cushions eventually, you pick at it, taking little chunks out of it in a mouse-nibbling-cheese fashion. The fabric on both arms had worn off, exposing first more foam, then the wood itself. The springs were so limp, one could not keep one’s spine straight while sitting. It was a Castro, literally, so it was allowed to live on for that purpose.
Then we moved, and my parents brought the UC with us and installed it in the basement! A finished basement, where we entertained guests! And putting a sheet over it did not help anything. It’s no good disguising the repulsiveness of a couch if, the instant someone sits down on it, the sheet is pulled askew by the inability of the springs to support the person’s weight. They finally junked it when we moved again.
I’m rather surprised you didn’t mention the Sofa From Hell [sup]TM[/sup].
Baby snot green, uncomfortable as hell. Not nearly as ugly as some of the rest of y’all’s, but the kicker was how unbelievably HEAVY the #%@# thing was. I swear, it must have had solid lead underpinnings and possibly some pig iron hidden in the cushions.