Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [8]
How would it look, I wondered, if the stair treads were alternately orange and lemon? That way I could start from a lemon hallway and arrive, purged by the acetic, at an orange landing. John Lewis sell both orange and lemon carpet, so it must be possible.
And then I thought a bit harder about the bathroom floors. White is all very well, and suitably redolent of those hotels situated on roundabouts in which I seem to spend so much of my life these days, but would a riot of terrazzo look better? Curiously, there is a shop just up the road specialising in the stuff, and they do a particularly nice lime-green version. Perhaps we have arrived at that apocalyptic moment in time when the avocado bathroom suite has once again become acceptable, too.
But that's the great thing about renovating the home. As Walt Disney said of animation, you can portray anything that the mind can conceive. There is a massive industry devoted to humouring your bad judgement and several TV programmes inspired by the idea of amateur designers ruining perfectly good houses through the medium of power tools.
No such indulgence from the motor trade. Most new cars come with perhaps half-a-dozen choices of standard interior trim, all of them very, very boring.
Even Porsche are guilty of this. My Boxster was available with just five standard interior colours. The options list featured another five. I went for a special dark-brown leather at huge expense and then paid more to have some panels in the black they would have been in had I not said anything. Yet when I look at it – monument to good taste though it is – I can't help thinking that it still has a leather interior like every other Porsche. I've only meddled in the colour scheme.
Meanwhile Jeremy, who has roundly denounced the Porsche and has spent two years proclaiming that the Honda S2000 is the best roadster money can buy, has bought a Mercedes SLK. Seven standard interior colours were available and in order to break free from the tyranny of German taste he had to resort to the bespoke and very costly 'Designo' range of hues. He now has black seats with red inserts. It looks quite good (though not as good as my Porsche, obviously) but why is it such a big deal? Red and black are hardly the new magnolia. Cars in the '50s had red and black interiors.
I wouldn't mind, but down at my local DIY superstore literally thousands of shades of emulsion are available, and all of them can be produced for you in a few minutes by a youth who wasn't charismatic enough to become an estate agent. The tile shop offers so much choice that I could tile the whole of my road without using any one design twice. Modern manufacturing methods should mean that the same freedom is available to people specifying the seats, floor mats and facia of a new car. But what do we get? Biscuit beige, black and elephant-arse grey. Why? You wouldn't have that at home.
I do get the impression that the motor industry thinks we all need its guidance on matters of interior design. But this is ludicrous. Next time you're in a showroom, have a look at the salesman's tie. Would you let this man choose your new kitchen?
I've ordered the orange and lemon carpet, by the way. And the terrazzo. And I know what some of you are thinking: you're thinking that all this would look revolting. And you may be right, but since it's my house it's my business.
And if you don't like it you don't have to come and stay here.
PORSCHE OUTPERFORMS DESKTOP PRINTER – SHOCK
I spent this morning swearing at my computer printer. I'm no technophobe, but we have here one of those consumer devices assembled with superglue, inside which there are apparently 'no user-serviceable parts', so the only tool left in the engineer manque's box is his 99-piece precision profanity set.
Here's the problem: it doesn't work. So I took it to the local computer