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Agree with you, the OP must just be pulling our chains with this thread. He seems way too calm and not in the least offended that 95% of the posters have told him his taste is awful. If someone really poured their heart and soul into decorating this place as he claims he did, he would be much more upset at all the gay porn set and Liberace comparisons. Not to mention OP claims to be a straight male yet I doubt there is one straight male in all of America who would decorate their own house like this.
Sounds like a Troll to me.
53 year old straight male, here, married with grown children.
First, I LOVE the look of the condo, in a retro-Vegas / Mexican resort kind of way. If I was doing business trips into his city 15 -20 times a year for a few days, I would enjoy it as a 'crash pad'.
What I can't imagine is coming home to it day after day, for years. It would never feel like "home", and it would feel less like home every day after the 'wow' factor wore off. It's boldness would get tiring, as would the inability to replace anything to freshen it up after a time without it looking completely out of place. The OP refers to the red bathroom as if walking into it is like being slapped in the face with a splash of 'Hai Karate'. Refreshing for the first few times, but by the 100th time in a month it would be more 'whatever'.
Best of luck to him, he created something that may have a potential to make a buyer happy, but I hope he doesn't need the money for a very long time.
I see it is only about 1 1/2 blocks away from a freeway...that would be a HUGE deterrent for me. All the noise, noise, noise!
Plus, as someone else mentioned, the building's exterior is very dated...I see it was constructed in 1975. Purchase price about a year and a half ago was $93K.
OK, seller: I'm going to be mercilessly honest, because someone has to be, OK? So please take this in the helpful spirit with which it's intended. My wife and I have owned (and sold) a condo ourselves, along with a couple of houses over the years. We live in the DC area, hardly a bastion of conservativism. Here goes.
Bad news first:
I commend you for expressing your individuality, but individuality is just that: specific to an individual. No one else is going to pay extra for it. It would be like paying full price for a custom-made suit that was tailored to someone else. To many people, much of the decor in your condo is hideous. It looks like a 1970s porn set, a gay bar, or a bar adjoining a gay-porn set. I refer specifically to the red barstools that look like martini glasses; the purple couch; the yellow chairs; the vaguely testicular lighting dangling obscenely in the corner; the gray shagadelic carpeting; the teal wallpaper; the old-lady chandeliers hanging everywhere; and the one bathroom that looks like a Kim Jong-Un's Poo-Poo Palace. You were bold and brave in your choices!
The good news:
Most of this stuff you can easily remove. Rip out the carpet, throw in some subtle Danish-looking furniture, and your living room will go from Boogie Nights to Mad Men. In the other rooms, get rid of anything white. To most people, white furniture/fixtures belong in the bathroom or the kitchen but nowhere else.
If you have hardwood under the carpeting, that's very good news, and seeing that instead of the shagadelic rug will make a huge difference.
The beige bathroom is actually nice. You probably think it's boring. Most people want boring.
I actually like the dark wood in the kitchen and living room--but it is very masculine and still a bit '70s Sweden. I picture Benny from ABBA mixing a tequila sunrise in there. Right before he fires up "Debbie Does Dallas" on the Betamax. But again, if you fix the other stuff (and maybe paint a couple of walls white in the living room), it won't seem so dark.
The one bedroom is not bad. You only need to lose the chandelier, the plant, and the gold thing behind the bed.
The minute I saw your location "Taxmanistan", I just knew this post was going to be great. And boy did it DELIVER. Every word spot on, LMAO.
The design reminds me of this horrid hotel at Disney in Orlando - Disney's Contemporary Resort. I was going to post some pics but unfortunately the place has been RENOVATED and they actually replaced the primary color furniture with something actually not painful to the eye.
To the OP, I know you have anointed yourself an arbiter of good taste and design, but have you ever opened the pages of Architectural Digest and seen a room with a mix of gold, burnt orange, purple velvet, brown, red, finished off with a topping of cheetah? Not to mention that several of the rooms have a distinctly different and incongruous design aesthetic, made worse by the small size of the condo.
With the ego exhibited in these posts, you will probably chalk this up to your unique design talent and creativity but wouldn't you think that some acknowledged design expert (you know the types that get published in AD) would have at least done SOME variation of this?
All THAT for only an extra 100k? Truly an amazing feat. You're offering exceptional value for the money. The comps are going to limit how much of your investment you can recoup, though.
I think that better photos would help (try seemingly bizarre angles - from a ladder in a corner, or crouching in a corner, maybe - and severe cropping, to capture only what's alluring in the image).
And market what it IS: FAB SIXTIES RETRO. You, or a smart realtor, can construct an irresistible spin on that theme. "All the unabashed fun of an era when everything seemed possible, and being fabulous was the order of the day!"
This provides an ideological basis for appeal to a target customer who is probably concept-oriented. And, unlike other posters, who see your Target Demographic as Gay men in their seventies, who worked their way up from impoverished rural beginnings in the Lower Midwest.........I see a pleasingly-plump and intelligent young middle class woman, from a culture where color is not considered evil, and drabness is not a decorating goal.
Your Buyer Archetype is from a very good family in a small town, and was here on a student visa. But since the rest of her family was found, dismembered, in the back of a truck, along with most of the rest of the nicest people in her town, she's not going back. She's looking for a 'forever home', and is open to the exuberant and welcoming microcosm you have created in your condo.
Possibly, you should be running most of your ads in Spanish, in order to reach a demographic who will appreciate what you've done.
This is a great comeback show concept UGLY BETTY 2: UNLEASHED IN THE WILD where Ugly Betty grows up and moves out of NYC to become the editor of a new magazine "Modern Western Redneck" and in a pacific northwest version of Mary Tyler Moore buys a condo to match her new career. ABC Network buys the OPs condo as the set, hence becoming that single needle in the haystack buyer he is looking for. Happily,the OP doesnt have to change a thing design wise, in his eyes earning lifelong bragging rights that he designed the set of a hit tv series while blissfully delusional to the fact that it was the set of UGLY BETTY 2. While we The American Public see the return of a much beloved tv character. See, everybody wins!!!!
This is a great comeback show concept UGLY BETTY 2: UNLEASHED IN THE WILD where Ugly Betty grows up and moves out of NYC to become the editor of a new magazine "Modern Western Redneck" and in a pacific northwest version of Mary Tyler Moore buys a condo to match her new career. ABC Network buys the OPs condo as the set, hence becoming that single needle in the haystack buyer he is looking for. Happily,the OP doesnt have to change a thing design wise, in his eyes earning lifelong bragging rights that he designed the set of a hit tv series while blissfully delusional to the fact that it was the set of UGLY BETTY 2. While we The American Public see the return of a much beloved tv character. See, everybody wins!!!!
Yes, YES, YES! I knew it would take something big to lure that girl back from London, and this is IT. And with Country Music's desperate attempts, lately, to segue toward the Hispanic Market, such a magazine's hiring Betty as Editor is entirely plausible.
I can see it now... Betty buys a condo in Downtown Seattle - or here in Portland - and thinks everyone LOVES her new decor (based on the fact that everyone is SPEECHLESS, when they see it). And truly, this condo is a natural extension of Le Style Suarez, considering what Betty did with her apartment in Manhattan ugly betty - seasons 3-4 .
Leslie Jordan (playing his Brother Boy character from Sordid Lives http://thebacklot.mtvnimages.com/upl...pg?quality=0.7 - but escaped from the crazy house, and waxed-wealthy as owner of a Female Impersonator's Supply Superstore) can make a brief reappearance on the show, as the condo's owner/creator, selling to Betty (he's just bought Liberace's old digs in Palm Springs...),"It's PERFECT! I won't have to change a THING! It's so SOPHISTICATED, and totally on-theme for my new magazine. Maybe you've heard of it? Modern Western Redneck?"
Well, hearing 'Western' and 'Redneck' inspires Leslie Jordan to do a Tammy Wynette medley for Betty, who is totally transfixed.
Aw, heck! Why have Leslie Jordan in only one episode? If they'd had him as a regular on the old series, it would still be on the air. He and Betty become fast friends, and there's never a thin spot in the show's premise with Brother Boy around!
Last edited by GrandviewGloria; 11-11-2014 at 04:08 PM..
Yes, YES, YES! I knew it would take something big to lure that girl back from London, and this is IT. And with Country Music's desperate attempts, lately, to segue toward the Hispanic Market, such a magazine's hiring Betty as Editor is entirely plausible.
I can see it now... Betty buys a condo in Downtown Seattle - or here in Portland - and thinks everyone LOVES her new decor (based on the fact that everyone is SPEECHLESS, when they see it). And truly, this condo is a natural extension of Le Style Suarez, considering what Betty did with her apartment in Manhattan ugly betty - seasons 3-4 .
Leslie Jordan (playing his Brother Boy character from Sordid Lives http://thebacklot.mtvnimages.com/upl...pg?quality=0.7 - but escaped from the crazy house, and waxed-wealthy as owner of a Female Impersonator's Supply Superstore) can make a brief reappearance on the show, as the condo's owner/creator, selling to Betty (he's just bought Liberace's old digs in Palm Springs...),"It's PERFECT! I won't have to change a THING! It's so SOPHISTICATED, and totally on-theme for my new magazine. Maybe you've heard of it? Modern Western Redneck?"
Well, hearing 'Western' and 'Redneck' inspires John Leslie to do a Tammy Wynette medley for Betty, who is totally transfixed.
Aw, heck! Why have Leslie Jordan in only one episode? If they'd had him as a regular on the old series, it would still be on the air. He and Betty become fast friends, and there's never a thin spot in the show's premise with Brother Boy around!
The addition of Leslie Jordan to this cast has IMHO made what started as jest into what could (and should!) be a real tv show...i can just hear the titter of laughter now between betty and brother boy. GG, meet me in LA and we will pitch this!
OH NO, now i sound as delusionsal as the OP thinking he will find someone to spemd $200k for that condo.
Thank you. I'm not a designer by profession, I just happened to accidentally discover that I have this talent.
I wouldn't exactly call it "talent".
Quote:
Just to make it clear, I'm not changing a thing about the condo. Not putting some out of place boring furniture or paint walls some random light color. Because if I do that I will end up with one circus of a room, the fact that you even suggesting that means none of you have even the slightest idea how design works and that's the gist of it. Nothing's wrong with that, I'm not an expert on many things either. I know I'll have the hardest time ever selling the condo. I'm ok with that. Not changing it though.
As someone who is a designer by trade, I look at that atrocious bedroom and wtf? Primary red carpet with leopard skin rug, burgundy wallpaper, gold drapery, dark wood and bright green plants? You thought that the colors complimented each other, did you? Basic color theory says no. I can appreciate your use of textures, but overall it's just too much, and apparently way too much for your city according to others who have seen the listing. It'd appeal to very few woman, so it'd be best marketed as a bachelor pad for some metrosexual yuppie. I have also seen a dark and dramatic "neoclassical" (less modern style though) condo in the Seattle listings and it's been sitting there a long time. FWIW, I don't mind the office or beige bathroom.
You asked for feedback, and you got it. You just don't like what you hear. The only way to sell it is to scale it back to being more neutral. Since you are unwilling to do that, well, enjoy living in it for a long while.
The addition of Leslie Jordan to this cast has IMHO made what started as jest into what could (and should!) be a real tv show...i can just hear the titter of laughter now between betty and brother boy. GG, meet me in LA and we will pitch this!
OH NO, now i sound as delusionsal as the OP thinking he will find someone to spemd $200k for that condo.
Oh, and I just remembered that Ignacio Suarez (Betty's father) is muy attracted to female impersonators. So, that's good for an easy five episodes, and a never-ending sub-plot.
BTW, I love your style. That condo would be on my short list. All my neighbors condos are so dated. But then again, they are old and don't care. Some told me mine was too modern too.
Here is a link to mine. We have similar taste but I think yours is much nicer. Haven't seen your view though. http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...5-55097?row=18
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