Marine Theme

I’m not against parents putting their kids first – it seems natural, up to a certain point. But there is a line beyond which it starts to get a little bit weird. Case in point: my sister and her hubby are redoing their entire house around a design concept proposed by their 4 year-old. Not just his bedroom, but the entire house.

To be fair, the concept is quite cool in its way. Everything is going to be styled after various kinds of marine vessels – ships, submarines and what have you. They’re even doing coordinating laundry renovations. In the Melbourne CBD, laundry design might be taking off, but concept laundries? That’s a new one. I mean, is the kid even going to be spending any time in the laundry? By the time he’s old enough to be able to reach the dryer, he’s probably going to be over ships and into basketball or something. 

Besides that, haven’t they thought about how much time and energy (not to mention money) this is going to take? I had a kitchen installation done last year, and I was overjoyed when it was finished. Renovations are just inherently inconvenient. There’s a reason, I’ve realised, that people generally go for more classic design themes. The fact is, unless you’re totally committed to your wild conceptual vision, you’re probably just going to end up changing it anyway, and that means going through the reno rigmarole all over again. 

The main problem I see is that this decor scheme doesn’t reflect the parents’ tastes one bit. My sister, at least, has always been about understated sophistication. Even as early as high school, she was the kind of person who could see the stylistic value of the colour beige. The whole marine vessel theme just seems so off for her. ‘Gauche’, I believe, is the word she would use to describe it under any other circumstances.  

Just do the kid’s bedroom and be done with it, I say.