It’s easy to find great design—I mean, all you have to do is flip through a copy of Architectural Digest at the dentist’s office. Or go to a really fancy benefit party in someone’s fancy home. Or, one way that is cheaper than the dentist or the benefit, and that doesn’t require knowing anyone with scads of disposable income, is to hop around to some open houses.

Open houses are a great source for design inspiration, or can be if you hit them right.

But finding bad design is a bit more of a challenge, especially when you’re asked to post a description and a photo to a blog. For example, to this blog in particular.
That’s just what I’m doing. I want to hear your stories of bad design. If you can include a photo, all the better. It could even be your own bad design (God knows I’ve admitted some of my own mistakes right here)—and maybe someone will write in with a solution for you. We have at our fingertips a fleet of designers, specializing in residential design, feng shui, and design for weddings.

(Okay, maybe it’s not exactly a fleet, but it’s a small boatload.)

Okay, it’s several brilliant minds.

So, let’s have at it. Bad color choices, poor lighting arrangements, terrible sofas only a sofa’s mother could love. We’ll try to figure out together where the designer (or, more likely, the hapless home owner) went wrong—which is, after all, a great way of figuring out how to do it right.

Just click on “comments” at the end of the post, and then leave a reply.

Well, it seems beds and bedding and mattress choice is on more minds than just Stylehound’s.  

One reader writes in to report that after buying a Sealy, they brought it back within three months because it was sagging, then were happy with a latex mattress from Ikea.  

And another reader, bless her critical little heart, writes in to agree with me about the hokey name of Select Comfort/Sleep Number. 

She goes on to say: 

“For a long time I thought the Sleep Number Bed was a fictional product made up by Garrison Keillor because he was always pitching them on The Prairie Home Companion. Then one day I realized it was the name of a real sponsor.“Then later I saw an ad for the Sleep Number bed on TV, and it was so strange I started to wonder again if the whole thing was a joke. It featured a man lying on a bed with his labrador retriever, talking about what Sleep Number his ex wife had been. And how handy that he had this adjustable bed, because when he found another wife, all he’d have to do is reset the Sleep Number. Actually, it sounds kind of funny now that I’m retelling it. But it wasn’t.” 

Brother. Will these bed makers stop at nothing? My appointment to have a nap in a Dux bed is this week. As soon as I wake up, I’ll let you know how it went. 

Reader Jackie Law writes in with this question for Stylehound: 

“My son’s room needs to be upgraded. He wants one black wall with red and a little silver. The walls have paint on top of wallpaper and a border over that. Any suggestions?” 

I love being asked questions like this. Not because I have the answers, but because then I don’t feel like the only one who is stumped by design.  

Can someone bail us out here? Any ideas for Jackie and her, um, creatively-inclined son? Alexia, perhaps you can come up with something?