Why are wooden letters so popular?... What are your decorative bugbears?

[Whirliwig72]

One of my pet hates are the ubiquitous decorative wooden letters featured in every homes magazine and style magazine since forever. They just seem so unoriginal to me especially when they spell out the action to be performed in the room they are put in, i.e E....A....T in the kitchen, L....O...V...E in the bedroom, C...R...A...P in the loo and so on as if the inhabitants might forget what happens where without 3 foot high gold letters reminding them at every possible occasion.
I also have a dislike of most wall transfers and also of feature walls decorated with flock or metallic wallpaper - stinks of 'Chavez' IMHO.

What decorative horrors make you shudder?

yyy to Jack Vettriano.

What about this?

And it's called 'Dance me to the end of love'

I had to google Jack Vettriano. Nasty.

Jack Vettriano - know a bloke who considers this 'art'... should I just de-friend him now?

JasperJohns - I'd failed to notice the comments!

Defriend ...it's your civic duty .

Jv euugh

OMG I have a Jack Vettriano - but only because it came from my grandad's house! Should I burn it now? It's this one - <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=jack+vettriano+prints&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1T4GZAZ_en-GBGB325GB325&biw=1280&bih=732&tbm=isch&tbnid=1-ZsX7BkY3FprM:&imgrefurl=www.worldgallery.co.uk/art-print/Mad-Dogs-66103.html&docid=pwNU4a_k2gCHBM&imgurl=images.worldgallery.co.uk/i/prints/rw/lg/6/6/Jack-Vettriano-Mad-Dogs-66103.jpg&w=400&h=310&ei=RNk-T9E0ia_wA8DdyJgI&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=390&vpy=436&dur=31&hovh=198&hovw=255&tx=113&ty=133&sig=103416628429667454653&page=1&tbnh=123&tbnw=156&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=0CJYBEK0DMBI" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mad dogs & Englishmen

Family friends of ours had little letter shaped bowls for crisps and the like spelling out "SNACK"

Their DDs always used to rearrange them to spell SCANK when no one was looking :o

Vettriano is about the best paid artist in the world: he earns ZILLIONS. So you're not alone, fortyplus

I reckon you should hang on to your Vettriano - in about 18 months the wheel of fashion will probably have turned full circle and he will be displayed in trendy Hoxton lofts, displacing the ubiquitous green lady...

Interesting fact #1 about Jack Vettriano:

None of the people in his paintings ever look at one another. Some of the poses are physically intimate and yet, the characters are all strangely distant from one another. Togetherness yet loneliness. Physical closeness but emotional distance.

Interesting fact #2 about Jack Vettriano:

They are shite.

Talking of shite, has anyone metioned Lladro yet?

My neighbour has bought a really cheap and nasty looking black wood and glass 'backlit display cabinet' (supposedly 'modern/contemporary' but looks circa 1983 to me) just so she can display her Lladro collection.

The bloody thing takes up half of one wall in her sitting room and serves no purpose other than as storage for some shit ornaments.

I don't understand that. Not at all.

Ah, don't go throwing away all your shabby shit. It'll be back in and vintage/retro in a few years time!

In our last flat (rented) we had an olive green bathroom suite. 20 years ago that would have been on one of these threads but I actually loved it! It's horrible stumbling bleary eyed into the bathroom in the morning to be blinded by a gleaming white suite. The olive green just eased me into the day.

What's so wrong with pictures of the New York skyline if you've never been there. It's beautiful. Would I not be allowed to hang a Monet if I'd never been to Giverny?

my friend has aload of JV prints....eurgh!
I have a budda...from next lmao.
a pixie photo (bigish) one of my daughter but put it in a natural wood frame to make it more .... acceptable?
No letters or words, I saw one yday on littlewoods saying eat... wtf? why do u need words to tell u what to do? incase you bump ur head and forget?
I do have ikea.... mixed with older stuff to take the edge off.
No twigs here, but used to at my old house... my ex liked them.
I am doing up my new kitchen all shabby chic! :) I have a white cupboards, bunting and cath kidston floral stuff lol.

Don't ask me, locket, it's a mystery.

We live in central Paris and our sitting/dining room is very formal and Parisian. I am considering rebelling against being so pretentious conventional by putting fake grass, a deckchair and bunting on the balcony. What think? Or should I just put some Jack V prints on the wall (we have some mad modern art at the moment), a Keep Calm and Carry On print and some union jack cushions?

Or we could have those wooden letters spelling out ARSE on our mantlepiece?

MrsSchadenfreude sadly I think Union Jack cushions might be considered sufficiently ironic as to be cool if you live in central Paris! You'll have to substitute the Tricoleur Oh and some prints of 'Patisserie' 'Boulangerie' etc for good measure..

Preferably 3 separate canvas prints in a row - each of a different shop

One of which must have a bicycle leaning outside...

Ha ha am laughing so much at this thread, am on the tram and keep getting weird looks .

Am guilty of the odd feature wall

My house is slowly turning white but with lots of kids drawings/ photos. Have got 2 big maps on the wall (is that allowed? )

Are prints of art okay? We have several that we've picked up on our travels. Once upon a time we had ikea prints but once something's in too many homes, my home stops feeling properly mine. Have never seen sofas and cushions like mine in a friends house. But that can be good or bad-at least if it's ubiquitous then other people have the same bad taste. Or lack of available funds to buy new...

Ok have to admit it we have a ' the day that' photo of the sunrise on the day that DS 1 was born - it has a small inscription with his date of birth and 'his song' (Ryan Farish, Watch the sky) on it. This is beyond soppy sentimental isn't it?

This makes me want to heave!

Locket - totally agree with the oversized tv thing. I'll resist from using the C word .... but you get my drift

Oh dear, my dream has always been to have a stripey runner and stair rods for my stairs, is this now naff?