The Home Crowd

Took a look over at Freshome today and saw their article on 3D wall painting, or Trompe l’oiel as otherwise commonly referred.  And I throw the term ‘commonly’ around loosely as you don’t see this painting technique around very often.

As you can imagine, there’s no paint rollers involved, outside of a base coat, then it’s up to a skilled artist to project a mural in perspective and give a faux depth to your space.  From what I remember from my art history classes, this type of perspective in art and geometry came about in the renaissance.

Now just imagine that up in your living room.  Actually I prefer the harbor scene to the shoeless joe’s checking out that woman’s medieval manicure.  What other uses could you have for trompe l’oiel (perspective mural art) in your home?

• Entertainment value - by allowing new guest to try to enter your painted loggia and tromp face-first into the wall in the great tradition of sliding screen doors and glass doors cleaned too well….Thump!
• Home Security - Just opposite your living room windows, you paint in a sleeping rottweiller.  The potential burglar may know it’s just a painting, but may lack the balls to find out for sure.
• Fantasy Land - Have an artist draw in your future retirement… Golf, those big blocky black sunglass things and just about as many trips to the bathroom as to the hometown buffet.  Not sure what benefit this has, you may just stay in the workforce another decade though.

Ron Hazelton has a great vid of an artist who has decorated his home in Trompe l’oiel.  Check it out, I think his 1 inch thick grandfather clock is pretty impressive. - Link

I stumbled upon a scan earlier today from the May 1962 issue of Playboy magazine of the “Playboy Townhouse” for the affluent, on-the-go, bachelor.  It’s a beautiful rendering done by Humen Tan (I really hope that’s not his/her real name) of a design commissioned to designer R. Donald Jaye by playboy to highlight the swingin’ bachelor lifestyle.  This great example of 60’s modern life is captured in this article with furnishings and furniture for which some have remained stylish and modern decades later.

The section of the townhouse highlights the spatial and elemental qualities of the townhouse…the central pool, the open air under a retractable skylight, the teak wood paneling, and lots and lots of concrete.  This rendering also explains the space usage by it’s contents, most of which were specified in the townhouse article.

Note that the servants quarters at the bottom right are not furnished, seeing as how no bachelor outside of Bruce Wayne should be living in the city with a butler anyhow.  Also, a modern design feature that would be scrubbed first after the first estimate is the concrete waffle slab used for the floors.  They might as well have put the garage on the roof as strong, overbuilt and expensive as that would be.  But they’re dreaming out loud, so we’ll side with artistic license on that one.

And what better bachelor bed that the rotating playboy bed, highlighted in an earlier article of the magazine.  Great spot for entertaining ‘guests’, it rotates 360 degrees to face the fireplace or the television with built in conveniences such as telephone, refrigerator and bar.  And who wouldn’t want to watch some TV on that mammoth 21-inch screen.  They didn’t specify what kind of TV it was, but I do vaguely recall George Jetson calling Mr. Spacely over it from time to time.

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Now what kid growing up didn’t dream of having a hidden passageway in their house.  Damn near every episode of scooby doo had one, and just as many movies with spooky mansion were required to sport a hidden passageway.

I’d always thought it’d be great someday when I built a house that it would have a hidden passageway, but would probably be more of a do-it-yourself task than I was prepared to take on.

Fortunately, Creative Home Engineering of Tempe, Arizona has taken on the task of manufacturing different types of passageways, and thus saving ourselves from disastrous cabinets which would likely come off its hinges on the eighth use and landing squarely on our feet.  However, I believe it’s common knowledge that you can sustain acceptable balance with at least 7 toes.

Maybe you have that den/home office which has become so overgrown with clutter that it’s become an eyesore to all who walk past it.  Well, a hidden passageway would cover that up nicely.  More importantly, in these times where home invasion robberies are more and more frequent, the prospect of a more secure hiding space could be quite valuable.  Sure you’ve got that fire-proof safe, and it’s tucked in the closet somewhere, only to be quickly discovered.  But it’s so heavy!  Who could lift it?  Yeah, it’ll take a couple of people, they won’t press their ear against your safe and crack it right there.  They will lift it out, if not hook it up to the tow hook of the getaway car and drag it outside, load it up, and crack it open later.

From the pictures above, the quality of workmanship already looks better than the commercial door hinges I’d likely try to force onto my own passageway.  The picture below, I find very entertaining, as it reminds me of The Munsters, lacking of course, “spot”, the fire breathing dragon/monster/creature living under the stairs.  But instead, it’s a nice hiding spot in a split-level home.

From Creative Home Engineering (via BallerHouse)