Two Crazy Bedrooms and One Mayonnaise Sandwich

Yesterday I made the grueling trek into the northern wilds, home of Ikea. Land of milk and honey. Or so I thought. See, I have long been incubating radical plans to radically update our completely unradical bedroom -- our bedroom that is now headboardless, directionless, and a complete mess (if you don't have kids, judge not lest you be immediately impregnated). Before I headed to Ikea and was completely destroyed by the juggernaut that is ubiquitous Swedish decor, my plans to revolutionize sleeping through the power of psychedelic design were maybe somehow inspired by these rooms:

Minus the barfy dress.

Minus the funny face.

As I stood in front of the racks and racks and racks of duvet covers (while Ike melted down t-10 seconds to naptime), I thought about how I'm supposed to buy a blanket instead of a duvet cover, because duvet covers are so fall 2010. But all I saw were duvet covers. About 5237866 of them. And I know I probably should have gone home and bought a blanket off the interwebs, but I was under pressure from fluorescent lighting and toddler tantrums. Plus I'm tired of looking at the stupid mauge comforter (suspiciously close to this color) on our giant bed. So there I stood -- endlessly, painfully pondering the duvet cover conundrum.

First I picked this up:

And then I put it down, because it had flowery flowers on it and I suspected it would not play well with the giant black panther picture hanging beside our bed. Or the Oriental nightstands. Or the chrome bench. Or pretty much anything in that room.

I bought a white duvet cover. It's not even worth picturing. It's white.

How did my technicolor dreams turn to dust in the wind? Damn you, Ikea, for overwhelming me with your conspicuous overstocking. Whatever. I'm moving on, and I think things are headed in this direction:

Just kidding. It's pretty, but I have too much stuff to live in here.

I have a new plan. It has elements of crazy, but also supports the new white duvet cover theory formula corollary.

Alas, we'll have to discuss it ad infinitum later because I have to go to a biggo photo job right now... someone has to pay for all that crap I bought at Ikea.

Have a good Monday. Do some psycho shopping for me.

[Desire to Inspire, Elle Decor, Magnus Marding]

Love Hate Love

I'm feeling the urge to paint again. I swear paint fumes give off some secret crack that compels me, knees and shoulders screaming in resistance, to repaint just one. more. time. I see no problem with the fact that I have repainted some rooms in this house three times in the three years we have lived here, because I blame blogging. Looking at a zillion gorgeous images a day fills my head full of dancing sugarplum dreams, and just when I think I'm a fully recovered paintaholic, something will come along and spark up the old addiction. Ah, I love the smell of fresh paint in the morning.

Well, let me tell you what color I am not going to paint my walls.

Ok, so actually this house is amazing... but that paint color! It looks like my mom's lipstick from 1983.

It's a color that loves naked lady butt cleave.

It's a color that invites Demons to bed.

But then I look around and I think, Damn this house be fine.

I really like the colors that go with that other, weirder color. And what the hell color is it, anyway? Mauve?

I try to keep an open mind about decor. I consider myself to be an eternal student of everything, because people who think they know it all are doomed to turn into boring old fossils incapable of growth and change. Not that I feel strongly about that or anything. (And not that I actually think I know anything.)

Point is, sometimes that open mind can get me into trouble. Sure, I have things I know I always like. But sometimes things I think I hate surprise me into becoming things I love.

Can you tell that paint color is starting to confuse me? I plan to adjourn to my cracky ultra addictive but incredibly delicious (if only it were laced with paint fumes!) coffee to sort this issue out. Feel free to join me if you'd like.

[AD Russia]

A New Direction for Design Crisis

I'm thinking we need to narrow the focus here at Design Crisis and declare ourselves the world's leading authority on crazy ass tree houses.  With Erin's number one best post of all time about the probably haunted tree house here, my 24 hour around the clock coverage of the tree hotel here and this beast I'm about to throw at you today I'm ready to consider us 100% tree house experts:  full on qualified to appear as an expert witness in court in case any crizime ever takes place in a tree house. Let's do this.

I am ready to tell you homies about this here TEN STORY tree house somewhere in Tennessee  built by Horace Burgess, a landscape architect, after a fist-pump sealed agreement between him and God.

Constructed over 14 years, The Minister's tree house (no website) is built around an 80 foot tall white oak tree with a diameter of 12 feet, 6 other trees act as pillars supporting the structure.   The house itself is built with only salvaged materials, which, apparently was God's end of the deal:  Horace was to build the tree house while the big man would ensure that he never ran out of supplies.

The house's square footage has never been measured (although the number of nails used has: 258,000) but it's estimated to be between 8,000 - 10,000  square feet.  Among it's gazillion rooms are a church and a basketball court.  Divine requirement?  Possibly

The entire house cost $12,00o to build (it's unclear which materials were purchased)

I only found one interior shot of the tree house and it belongs to some dude on flickr who's disabled sharing of his photos, so if you want to see it you have to click here.  Even though I'm annoyed by this guy for not letting me post his photo (with credit!!!) I still think it's worth you cruising over to check it out.  Here

UPDATE! You don't have to go look at stupid lame-os share-blocked photos, instead you can read a hilarious post with tons of interior pictures over at modern sauce's blog.  It's a 2 parter:  here and here

So far the only real difference  I can see between the Mister's House and the one Erin toured last year is that I'm pretty sure she would buy this one.  Especially for $12,000.

all other photos via