Design experts Colin and Justin have seen a lot of frightening interiors in their time, and they've exorcised some demons. Check out what they find downright frightening and see how they've transformed the devil inside to a space that sings like angels, in the Before and After shots below.
If your design prowess is ghastly and ghostly (with a style vibe doing the time warp) it’s time, dear readers, for a decorative exorcism to restore your tasteful soul. We performed a few, seen in before and after crime-scene photos at the bottom. Approach with caution!
Holy water at the ready, prepare to purge before designer damnation pulls you kicking and screaming into the bowels of hell. Altogether now — repaint, sinners!
Jeepers Creepers
Carpet in the bathroom? Yuk: Satan’s own floorcovering, a harbinger of bodily drizzle and ooze. Why would you even dream of using something so absorbent in such a high moisture area? And seriously: how true is your fella’s aim? Hmm? The solution? Banish the berber and install ceramic, stone or water resistant flooring such as Karndean or Amtico. Aye, in terms of horror (insert lightning flash and scary laughter) this inclusion is positively demonic …
Cabin In The Woods
The scourge of Canadian basements, timber cladding may have been inspired by the forest but, for the most part certainly, didn’t contain a single splinter of wood. Contagious as a zombie plague, we see this bilious board in soulless solums coast to coast. To add value and improve standards, rip it off and finish your basement properly to complement the home above. Or Freddy Krueger will come in the night …
The Shining
An overhead bulb delivers little more than hanging, shadowy gloom. Homes need controllable lighting so mood can be changed from bright and illuminating to warm and cozy at the flick of a switch. Move aside vampires: in the land of the living, hang pendant fittings low over coffee or dining tables and add further illumination with floor or table lamps to create pockets of mood, as required.
The Purge
Is your bathroom style quotient more desperate than decadent? If storage is your bete noir, consider our ‘Double D’ rule, and no: we’re not talking Hammer House of Horror busty displays. Think “display and discrete”. Open shelves for aftershave, perfume and scented candles, with personal items like loo rolls, hemorrhoid treatments or athlete’s foot powder stashed neatly out of sight. Bathrooms should be awash with reward and relaxation rather than beset with gross obstacles like toe tinctures and anal potions. Right?
Possession
Stuffies. Lladro porcelain figurines. Ceramic frogs. Paperweights. Miniature crystal animals. Sure, enjoy several specimens from a similar theme, but when every crook and nanny bulges courtesy of your OCD collecting habits, you're out of control. Pray for salvation and purge your demons with a yard sale. Clutter be gone — it’s one form of possession you can do without.
No Picnic At Hanging Shock
Dangerous exposed cables stretching from wall-mounted TV to plug socket is, in our opinion, a hanging offense, but it’s a popular crime in many of the homes we correct. Yup, we’ve seen it all: Blu-ray wiring taped up and over ceilings and cable box cord trailed across floors, an electrical spaghetti that’s downright dangerous. Take a tip: integrate where you can (drywall can be cut to create cable ducting) or use wireless Bluetooth to invisibly connect your peripherals.
What Lies Beneath
If your rugs appear to have been shrunk by some mad scientist’s ray gun, it’s time to face facts: size matters. Aye, with area carpets, bigger is generally better. Choose options large enough to accommodate the front feet of your sofa and chairs with space sufficient, of course, for a centrally positioned coffee table. In dining rooms, it looks best when your table and chairs sit comfortably on your rug. In bedroom application, dependent upon the size of your bed, rugs should extend between 16 and 24 inches from the sides and bottom of your nest.
Monster Mash
Is your bulky sofa more chunky arms than bum space? Does your strapping sectional need sections? And is your colossal credenza creeping into another room? Damnation: just like The Blob, oversized furniture challenges spatial supremacy and, with the rise in online shopping, it’s an increasing problem as buyers check out — without checking the proportions of purchases. If space is tight, opt for a thin-armed sofa to optimize seating and make paper templates of potential additions. Position them in your space and walk around to get a feel for what works, before shelling out.
Saw — The Final Chapter
Are you a weekend warrior and like to fix things? Then you must always deliver good standards or you’ll be saying RIP to home values thanks to botched DIY. Badly executed projects will put potential buyers off and create a sense of ill ease for all concerned. If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.
The Others
There are many other terrors just waiting to haunt your home, so be warned: step out of the darkness and into the light. Avoid waterbeds (do you really want to sleep on an inflated bag of water?), blow up indoor furniture (one cat claw and it’s goodbye), carpeted walls (ouch, your vertical vacuuming just slipped a disc), wallpaper borders (Barbie-sized paper rolls intended for real room application) and plastic sofa covers — how very Dexter’s “kill room”.
Follow our lead, however, and the scariest thing about your home this season will be your Halloween decor. So, with our joyous permission, go dig a grave in your front yard, festoon your portals with bleeding skulls and let the scary season bring out the very best — and the biggest beast — in you.
