(back of a quirky literary novel voice): Sometimes, things are not what they seem. An architecture critic disappears for three months to follow bike racing around Europe, rife with questions of becoming and desire. A real estate agent uploads a listing to an aggregator, knowing that it will be a difficult sell but thinking not much of it, for, like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, all houses are difficult to sell in their own way. A house is built in 1980 in Staten Island and would have thrived as an anonymous bastion of tastelessness had the internet not been invented. But the internet had been invented. All of these things are brought together here, through truly unlikely circumstances.
Let’s not bother with the formalities this time.
None of you will buy this house.
Sitting Room
Does anything here make sense? The periwinkle sofa, the twinkling of bronze glass, a truly transitional material, a mall exiting stagflation and entering the sultry trap of Reaganite libertarianism that would leave it empty twenty-five years later. The sense that one is always changing levels, trapped in a landing of some sort, never quite arrived on stable footing. But that’s just the style, one assumes. One foot in the seventies, with all their strife, one foot in the beginning of what felt like the end of history. One’s ass on the iridescent pleather sofa, waiting for the centuries to change.
Sitting Room II
My suspicion is that there are no pictures of the mirrored mystery foyer because the photographer’s identity would be henceforth revealed, and the point of all real estate photography is for the viewer to imagine themselves as the only person in a given space.
Dining Room
The shinier things are, the richer one is, obviously.
Kitchen
This serious sociological research also happens to coincide with the Giro d'Italia, one hopes.
Landing
(crediting @cocainedecor on twitter for their term. but also, where can i get some chevron mirrors, asking for a friend.)
Master Bedroom
just asking questions
Bedroom 2
Ostensibly bad opinion that I will nevertheless defend: the corner bed slaps, let’s bring it back.
Basement
(Staten Island accent): Hey, I’m workshoppin’ some metaphors here!
Alright, we’ve entertained this monstrosity enough - time to wrap things up.
Rear Exterior
You know, McMansion Hell has been around for five years now, and has coined many terms - an art, ahoy matey, lawyer foyer, brass n’ glass, pringles can of shame - but I have to say, I hope fireplace nipples also sticks.
Anyway, that’s all for 1980 - join us next month for 1981.