The Decorating of Hill House

Yesterday, I went looking at houses with my realtor. Most houses are about as boring as you'd expect a big featureless box on a large square of grass to be, but this time we saw one that was interesting by virtue of being eye-searingly tacky.

First of all, it was pink. Seriously. A pink house. Not hot pink, or Owens-Corning fiberglass insulation pink, but still a very distinct "Hello Kitty" sort of pink... pretty much the same shade as ninety percent of the surfaces in the bedroom of my friend's five-year-old. The porch floor was something like British Racing green, and the various railings and spindles were Velveeta yellow.

Indoors, most of the walls were also pink, except where they were about the same shade of yellow as Tweety Bird from the old Saturday morning cartoons. That was where we could SEE the walls, of course, as most of the wall space was covered with.... stuff.

Pictures... artwork... macrame things of one shape or another... giant wooden spoons with cartoon farm animals painted on their bowls... ceramic dolls in elaborate Victorian-style dresses... plates both commemorative and not... certificates earned by various grandchildren in various programs... sconces... if it could be hung on a wall, these people had it -- usually in an offensive color.

Every flat surface in the house was ALSO covered with stuff, including bowls, teacups, lamps, figurines, candles in elaborate holders, ashtrays that had surely never felt the touch of a cigarette, more dolls, more photos, more artwork, more certificates... more of pretty much everything you can think of. If you told me there was also a gold-plated crankshaft from a Chevy small-block, set with semi-precious stones and tiny crystal figurines of kittens, I'd be willing to believe it.

The realtor and I just wandered through this house in amazement, trying to figure out what sort of demented people would want to live like this. I had to hold my arms in close to my body and look around carefully before moving, in order to avoid knocking over some potentially priceless whatchamacallit that would look like junk to me but probably sell for thousands on "Antiques Roadshow".

Everywhere we looked, there was more stuff -- even in the spaces between stuff. The place reminded me of one of those fractal patterns that continue to look the same no matter how much you magnify them. We couldn't imagine how anyone could overcome the sensory overload long enough to actually consider buying the house.

Usually, my realtor says "Well, are you ready to go see the next one?". This time, she was already headed toward the door as she said "Let's get the hell out of here!"