Tag: Design Home

If I had a Day Job, I Wouldn’t Quit It

Several weeks ago I shared with my readers my obsessive interest in the mobile app game Design Home. I’m totally hooked on this game in which participants design rooms for fictional homeowners.

Usually there are specific requirements for a design, such as “style a modern living room and include two wooden items and one orange item,” or “create a rustic dining room and include three leather items and the carcass of a dead cow.” I might have embellished that last one a bit.

Players scroll through a variety of furnishings to fulfill the requirements and then try to create an arrangement that is pleasing to the eye. During the day several such challenges pop up, and they truly are like puzzles. I live for these challenges.

When one isn’t engaged in designing a room, one can vote on the designs of other players. Now, this is an amusing activity. I always come away from voting feeling rather smug. Surely mine will score above most of the ones that come across my feed.

Here are a couple of examples of rooms other players have designed. Please note, none of these are my designs. I have no idea as of now how they’ll be scored in the end. Players are voting on them even as I type. Honestly I think my entries are way better, but I’ve been wrong before.

When ratings for a design are announced I hold my breath, cross my eyes, and mutter a prayer for a good score. A perfect score is a 5.00. I’ve scored three or four of those, including this design:

Ideally one hopes to score a 4.00 or above because a new furnishing is added to one’s inventory when that score is reached. But score below a 4.00, and woe is me! I scored a 3.93 on a design recently and shook my fist at the sky, crying, “The public doesn’t deserve my art!”

Studly Doright made me a cup of hot tea and led me back to my chair. I’m only sort of kidding.

And sometimes even a 4+ score makes me sad. I loved this design. Now tell me, isn’t this a perfect 5?

Okay, I’ve chatted long enough. Time to get back to my latest design in which I’m supposed to furnish a loft in Manhattan with a mix of contemporary and antique designs in tones of pea green and fuschia. Again, I’m only partly kidding.

Peace, people!

Designing Woman

My mother had two hobbies: reading and rearranging furniture. I shared her love of reading, but never understood her passion for decorating. Once I get my furnishings placed appropriately they might remain in the same place for years. The only times I've moved furniture around are when we've been transferred to a new location. I wouldn't do it even then, but I can't afford new stuff every time we change houses, and no one ever seems to want our old stuff.

Mom never had a budget for decorating, so our furniture was about as basic as it could be. We had a sofa, a love seat, and two chairs in varying shades of brown, tan, and black, but by simply rearranging the pieces from time to time and adding a new throw pillow or a crocheted afghan she'd create a completely different look.

Not long after I left home Mom bought a floral sofa. It kind of pissed me off. For all those years I thought furniture had to be a solid color and at the tender age of 18 I discovered florals exist! Had I not been worthy of a floral sofa? Was she making an exchange? Me for a sofa of flowers and leaves?

Studly Doright and I inherited my parents ugly black sofa when we married, but when I had the opportunity to buy a new one, it had flowers everywhere. It was ugly as sin, but at least it wasn't a solid. That'd show 'em.

Honestly, I have no skills in decorating. I never thought of it as something I'd enjoy doing for fun, but recently I was looking for an online game to keep me from overthinking everything in my life, and I found Design Home. Now I'm obsessed.

Here's how it works. Every few hours a design challenge is posted, usually with some criteria attached, i.e. two metal items, three rustic pieces, etc. Players select pieces either from their own inventory, from the inventories of friends, or from the shop, and then try to create a pleasing room. Players also get to vote on other designs. I get a kick out of seeing how others interpreted the challenge.

Here's one of my designs:

Isn't it pretty? My mom would have loved this game. Would she have chosen a floral sofa? I'll never know.

Peace, people. Go hug your mom.