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Fantasy shopping London
Nov. 7th, 2012 11:53 pmI have been looking at fantasy housing on rightmove for a couple of days now, and it is beginning to be creepy how most houses utterly lack books. Possibly they have them but showing them is considered declasse. Perhaps estate agents exclude them from view in case potential buyers get distracted critiquing your collection and fail to notice the fine features of the housing. But most of these places show all kinds of ridiculous ornaments, built in wardrobes, home cinemas, kitchens that could fit my local supermarket neatly behind matching cupboard doors, and yet absolutely no room for book cases. Or, for that matter, CD racks or DVDs. There should be a library. A house that lacks a library lacks a soul. Some places have the excuse of being too small, but I live in two boxes that basically qualify as double bedrooms each, and I fit 1800 books in here, so too small is really very small indeed. I suppose many places now will have a ton of ebooks and downloads and not have to shelve them, but there's still so many things only available as paper it can't all be transferred yet. It's reminding me of how the library got renamed the information store and then filled with computers until only one small area was redesignated the 'book zone'. It doesn't mean you can find everything online instead, it means you have to go up to a different library to find anything at all.
Places that lack a library yet have a bar... I judge them. *shakes head*
It is amazing how many ridiculously expensive buildings are absolutely soulless. I can forgive the ones that are simply ugly, that means someone put their stamp on it at least, but the ones where they charge millions to look like a hotel simply give the impression the owners will be spending more time in hotels than attempting to make a home of it. *shudders*.
Further, form follows function. If you have a home cinema, the chairs should be positioned to give optimal views of the screen, not of each other, and they ought to have back support sufficient to two hours at least. Bathrooms also need to remember that little things like not slipping over and braining yourself on the sinks that look like hollowed boulders is somewhat more important than being shiny. To actually use the places people would have to throw mats all over the place, with the clever sticky backs even. Plus what daft apeth puts slick shiny steps that are shorter than your feet as the only means of exiting the shower?
Also, the deficiencies of these places are making me respect the skills of set designers a lot. Most of them don't look like money the way a movie would want them to. And it's right difficult to add character to a place. I've seen things that actually were filmed in hotels that gave you more about the characters than these 'homes' do about their owners. Deliberately sanitised they may be, but it just shows there's a lot goes into either effort.
Tony Stark lives in some very swish places, but I couldn't just look for the most expensive apartment in London and stick him in it. Anything he's touched is going to be more functional and better designed. Also, involve more coffee, and have display surfaces everywhere.
If I was going to spend all these ridiculous millions on a home (hah) I'd want to get a set designer in and show them half a dozen of my favourite movies. Maybe theme different areas after different films. Little bit hobbit hole, little bit Rivendell, sort of thing. Only with more bathrooms, since TV and movies don't always put those in. Do something distinctive, anyway. Just making the walls all glass seems a bit of a waste.
Also, there is such a thing as too much glass. Some places I just keep mentally choreographing the fight scene. There's a quarter of a gap filled with glass, for why? Well clearly for no other reason than to shatter dramatically. Also, using glass to enclose the stairs seems useful, but making it exactly the same height as the seats to the adjacent breakfast bar... well, you are clearly assuming the place is only used by very awake sober people. Fight scenes or slapstick comedy are the only thing that makes sense in some of these environments.
In others, dystopian SF or horror. I actually like those ones more.
Places that lack a library yet have a bar... I judge them. *shakes head*
It is amazing how many ridiculously expensive buildings are absolutely soulless. I can forgive the ones that are simply ugly, that means someone put their stamp on it at least, but the ones where they charge millions to look like a hotel simply give the impression the owners will be spending more time in hotels than attempting to make a home of it. *shudders*.
Further, form follows function. If you have a home cinema, the chairs should be positioned to give optimal views of the screen, not of each other, and they ought to have back support sufficient to two hours at least. Bathrooms also need to remember that little things like not slipping over and braining yourself on the sinks that look like hollowed boulders is somewhat more important than being shiny. To actually use the places people would have to throw mats all over the place, with the clever sticky backs even. Plus what daft apeth puts slick shiny steps that are shorter than your feet as the only means of exiting the shower?
Also, the deficiencies of these places are making me respect the skills of set designers a lot. Most of them don't look like money the way a movie would want them to. And it's right difficult to add character to a place. I've seen things that actually were filmed in hotels that gave you more about the characters than these 'homes' do about their owners. Deliberately sanitised they may be, but it just shows there's a lot goes into either effort.
Tony Stark lives in some very swish places, but I couldn't just look for the most expensive apartment in London and stick him in it. Anything he's touched is going to be more functional and better designed. Also, involve more coffee, and have display surfaces everywhere.
If I was going to spend all these ridiculous millions on a home (hah) I'd want to get a set designer in and show them half a dozen of my favourite movies. Maybe theme different areas after different films. Little bit hobbit hole, little bit Rivendell, sort of thing. Only with more bathrooms, since TV and movies don't always put those in. Do something distinctive, anyway. Just making the walls all glass seems a bit of a waste.
Also, there is such a thing as too much glass. Some places I just keep mentally choreographing the fight scene. There's a quarter of a gap filled with glass, for why? Well clearly for no other reason than to shatter dramatically. Also, using glass to enclose the stairs seems useful, but making it exactly the same height as the seats to the adjacent breakfast bar... well, you are clearly assuming the place is only used by very awake sober people. Fight scenes or slapstick comedy are the only thing that makes sense in some of these environments.
In others, dystopian SF or horror. I actually like those ones more.