Good morning everyone,

Do you remember that blog, dunking on the tasteless houses of the rich, McMansion Hell? This Friday I'm here to remind you that this blog still exists, is still really excellent, and also, is written by a woman so totally on theme for Fem Fri.

Here's the sort of thing you can expect:

In an attempt to not be too off-putting (indeed, having a ceiling full of religious symbolism seems a bit overzealous even if its purpose is to scream “I HAVE MEDICI-LEVEL AMOUNTS OF MONEY”), the house is furnished, well, normally. It cannot decide whether it wants to sell (it will never sell) or if it wants to lean into being an eccentric millionaire’s house. This is very cowardly.

https://mcmansionhell.com/post/707909502449614849/every-small-city-has-that-one-dictator-chic-house

On a more serious note, I loved this article about living, as an architecture critic, in a place that is very "designed". As someone who has stayed in AirBnBs that feel like this, I can confirm - yes, it's very unsettling in a way you don't expect. I can't imagine what it would be like to live full time in what amounts to a weird museum with a micromanaging landlord (ugh ugh ugh ugh):

As soon as we moved in, an unsettled feeling crept in. I can place it now as the sense that this apartment was too nice for people like us – people with particle board furniture and student loan debt. That it wasn’t really ours, we were just borrowing it before someone worthier came. Subconsciously, we knew this. We never hung anything on the walls save for the Mondaine clock my husband bought at the MoMA Design Store and the Giro d’Italia jersey signed by Tom Dumoulin, which I’d had framed. The walls were a blinding white. Putting tacks in them felt like an unlawful penetration. Our landlord fussed over the stuff we had on the back porch. One time he criticized where my husband had situated the soap on the kitchen counter, the living material which, in reality, is just a fancy term for “stains easily.”

https://mcmansionhell.com/post/658200564492025856/short-lease-in-a-slick-machine-a-personal-essay

Finally, where do trends come from anyway? Here's an analysis of how that has changed:

While previous eras of design (think midcentury modernism) were spearheaded by architects, interior designers, and other tastemakers, in the late ’90s, capital-A Architecture lost interest in the home — deconstructivist ideas and new, high-tech forms were better suited to museums and universities — and a coalition of real estate developers, home improvement and furniture stores, and TV decorators stepped in to take their place. The worlds of high culture and popular consumption in residential design have never been more separate, and, in this critic’s opinion, both suffer as a result.

https://www.bustle.com/life/farmhouse-aesthetic-suburbs

Love,

Alex.