Today my husband Handy Dave and I set out to shop for dining room furniture with high hopes that we were going to find exactly what we needed. We spent the afternoon wading through four different national home furnishings stores and found nothing but fugly (furniture that was, you know, ugly).
I found myself asking, out loud, “They still make this kind of thing?” The answer: yes. Yes, they do. They make things in styles you thought were gone forever by 1985. What’s more, they charge you real money for them. This red velvet and chrome-armed couch, for example, was $499–on sale. Crazy.
I became increasingly discouraged as I trudged through aisle after aisle of full-on fugliness. But then I remembered–I had brought my camera to photograph anything with potential. Since there wasn’t anything that fit that bill, why not get pictures of the fugly stuff to show you instead? (Don’t you love how I’m always thinking of you?)
Each piece of furniture in the post is numbered (the velvet and chrome sofa being #1). In the comments, let me know which piece you think should be permanently voted off the island. Which is the absolute worst offender?
I also want to know which one you think should be saved. Which is the least offensive? You might actually like some of these, so feel free to plead their case. I admit some of it may just be my personal taste. Please don’t take it personally if I show something that you’ve got sitting in your living room! You have the right to like what you want.
#2: This bed was just a little much for me with the columns for posts and the leather headboard. Do you think it’s hideously pretentious, too, or do you like it?
#3: A sofa pit. This entire microsuede…monstrosity…is like a giant puzzle. It comes apart into four separate pieces so that you can rearrange it however you want. Here’s how they displayed it in the store:
We found this piece of paper lying next to the sofa with “suggested layouts.” So versatile!
Here’s a close-up so you can see how it all comes apart at the seams and can be moved around the room into various configurations. You can also see by the price tag that it’s nearly $2,000!
#4: This dresser looked exactly like the furniture we had in an old motel room we stayed in when we vacationed in Niagara Falls way back when we were first married. I thought it was outdated then. The whole thing appears to have been constructed out of plastic, including the “chrome” drawer pulls:
#5: Oh, the humanity. When I saw this Sofa of Many Colors (and Patterns), I laughed out loud. As I took a picture of it, a salesman came over and asked, “Do you like this one?” I was still laughing and said, “Oh, yes. I love it,” because I knew it would be perfect for this post. How many different fabrics can you count here? Five?
Here’s a close-up so you can see how some of the fabrics are actually “quilted:”
#6: This is one of those tables and chairs sets that surprised me because I thought they stopped making them, oh, when Reagan was president? I worked as a receptionist in a down and out construction office during one summer when I was home from college, and I swear they had this exact table and chair combo in the conference room:
#7: My 13-year old son loved this chair. I had to pry him off so I could take a picture of it. It’s a combination of microsuede and leather, and it’s perfectly round. Oversized. And the best part? It spins! It’s like a carnival ride for your living room:
#8: This chair inexplicably features a floral fabric on the seat. This style of mixing fabrics reminds me a little of that loveseat Paul and Jamie had on “Mad About You” in the 1990s. Remember that? It wasn’t quite this bad, but it was the same idea of putting a mixture of patterns on one poor, defenseless piece of furniture:
#9: They had chairs and sofas featuring various sports teams’ colors and logos, but as a Cincinnati girl myself, I had to show you the one made for Bengals fans. I love the Bengals, but please. Do we need black and orange chairs to show our love? Maybe we do. Let me know if I just don’t “get it.”
#10: A chair that looks like leather from the front, but–surprise!–is upholstered from the back. It’s the furniture version of houses in the suburbs that have brick on the facade but vinyl siding on the other three sides:
#11: This long, curved sofa had leather arms, back, and base, but microsuede cushions:
But wait–there’s more. See those microsuede pillows? They’re reversible! Ta-da:
#12: This sofa was something else! Look at how much it’s got going on. It’s part leather, part upholstery. My favorite part is that scrolled wood that runs along the base. I’m imagining that this was designed by someone who does not believe in the dictum that “less is more.”
As I was taking a photo of the part-leather, part-microsuede curved sofa, a salesman scurried over and said, “They don’t like you to take pictures of the furniture.” I asked why not. With a straight face, he explained, “They’re afraid you might use the pictures to somehow recreate these pieces on your own, like if you worked for a competing home furnishings store.”
Well, that gave me my laugh for the day. I reassured him that I had absolutely no intention of recreating anything from his store. I think it startled him a little when I couldn’t stop laughing, and he slowly…backed…away.
Unfortunately, he accosted me right before I could get a picture of a round glass coffee table that had four wedges of microsueded footstools that rolled out from underneath to create impromptu seating. You’ll just have to use your imagination on that one.
So what do you think? Which piece was fugliest? And, as the party game goes: “Gun to your head: which one would you take home if you had to?”
I can’t wait to read your answers!
If You’re Hooked on Fugly:
- The Purple Angel House
- The Top 10 Trends You’ll Want to AVOID for Spring
- A $1.6 Million House That’s Stuck in the ’80s
- Rooms That Need Rehab (pink beamed ceilings and more!)
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Well, Some of these are ugly, but I think some aren’t ugly in My opinion.
#9, the sports chair, is the ugliest to me. Sorry but I love # 12 and 10. They have a soft, but sophisticated look to them. #8 Isn’t that bad either. I could see that in a Master suite.
That big mess of a sectional, # 3, would NEVER come in my house. I’m sure someone thinks it’s practical. Yea, if your living/family room also has to serve as your bedroom.
Enjoy this site so much. I now check you after The Pioneer Woman. You’re growiin’ on me girl!
Have a great Sunday!
Lynn
I agree with you, they were all pretty terrible, but #5 was the worst for me, and the sports chair was a close second. Yuck!
All of that furniture looked like it was from a porn movie props house. Not that I’ve seen a pornographic movie, of course. If I HAD to take one home it would be #5. That couch of many colors. Because it still has a normal shape so I could slipcover it!
) The worst? It’s a tie between #2 (that horrible bed! that screams PORN!) and # 6 (that horrible table with chairs on wheels!). They were all pretty awful though…
I find it so interesting how one person’s fug is another person’s fab. I told my husband that clearly, other people like this stuff because they were making an awful lot of it–and selling it for a lot of money. So I love hearing your opinions.
Oh, this is hard. They all vie for 1st place. They are all screaming, “pick me! pick me!.” I have to say that bed is about the ugliest I’ve seen, but then I think most of the huge beds that are made these days (for MacMansions I guess) are pretty bad. I keep thinking, “who is sleeping there? The king and queen?” But I digress, my pick for #1 is the sofa pit. For sheer volume and space cluttering potential, it is my winner.
ICK. They are all ugly! I’d have to say #2 is my worst favorite. Eh, the worst. Whatever!
#12…yeah, that one gave me the shivers too. What is that SCROLL thing at the bottom?? Could you imagine dusting that? Hideous!
And you didn’t shop for furniture at Ikea because????? We could have met up there yesterday!
I’d keep #8. It looks almost comfortable and you could cover it.
I would toss all the rest. But if I had to pick the worst, it would be #12. It offends me the most.
I don’t think that #9 has the right to exist, so I’m not counting it.
Karen–we had to be on this particular side of town while my daughter was at a birthday party for the afternoon, so we thought we’d scope out the area’s furniture showrooms while we waited. Now we know we’re not missing anything there and won’t have to go back, I guess! Next stop: IKEA!
#6 — That table set actually made me cringe out loud. Worst of the worst
#7 — Round chair not so bad. Best of worst (Although I didn’t think the floral chair was that bad. It’s another story for the floral couch though)
As for #3 — There. Are. No. Words.
And #4 — The dresser just makes me mad because retailers are still selling stuff like this. It is just not right.
p.s. I have seen #11 in person. Oh the shame.
If I had a gun to my head I’d pick #8 because it seems the least offensive and I could at least put a slipcover on it.
I have to say that the only styles I’ve seen around here are the part leather part microfiber ones and the crazy ornate column/pillar bed. Egad! That is some ugly furniture! I would have put money on them not being made anymore.
#3 is the, um, ugliest. A sofa pit? Are they insane? I can just imagine the conversation….’hey guys come on over, we’ll have dinner then we can all cuddle in the sofa pit and watch a movie!’. Yeah, I don’t think so.
If I HAD to choose something to take home maybe I’d go with the couch of many colors (#5) and that would only be because I could most possibly get a slip cover for it.
Thanks for the laughs!
The only one I could live with is #8. I’ll pass on it too !
Hmmmm. I pick the sports chairs as the ugliest with the sofa pit as a close second because it is impossible to use. The rest get a pardon but I actually think you could make them work with the right amount of effort. Pretty much a freak show start to finish though!!
#9, the sports chair was the absolute most horrific thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t imagine someone wanting something like that? Although, I have been known to share my opinion’s out loud in furniture store’s without realizing that other’s didn’t share it. Oops! I’m working on that. If I had too, I would take home 8. I could put it on my front porch………Just kidding!
Hoo, boy, it’s hard to choose a worst item out of this bunch.
Probably the Bengals chair, because even if I were a Bengals fan (and I don’t even know what sport or state or school or whatever they are) I wouldn’t want to pay good money to advertise the team on my furniture.
Second worse would be that bed. Those enormous beds with all the pillars and wrought iron and froo-frah on them are one of my pet peeves. My feeling is they are building them just so that people with huge bedrooms have something to buy that will take up some of the space.
Put a gun to my head and I will take the mixed-fabric sofa and the poor mixed-up fabric chair/loveseat thingy. I at least like the shape of both of them. I don’t like yellow particularly well, but I might try to figure out a way to make all that fabric work together somehow…lots of solid color throws and cushions? I have serious fabric lust issues, and my house would look like that sofa if my husband and daughter would let me buy every piece of fabric I fall in love with.
Honey where you at “rent-a-center”?
Being from the area, I’m guessing Eastgate?
Clearly, TraceyB has been to some of these stores before! Yes, it was in the Eastgate area of Cincinnati.
Re: the Bengals, for Beth and anyone else who doesn’t know, they’re the football team here in Cincinnati. There was a sofa to match this chair, btw, if anyone wants to coordinate an entire room in the orange and black….
Hi HH,
Come back anytime.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting on my blog
OK, down to business…
Hands down #1 fugliest (btw, I love the made up word for REALLY UGLY. My family used to say yugly (pronounced YU-glee) for something really ugly) furniture is #9. Because the color scheme would only work at Halloween time! There is absolutely no way to soften the aesthetic blow of that chair!
Gun to my head, I would choose (and this being if I couldn’t slipcover ,or alter, it in any way once I was home) #11. It has the most neutral color palette that you could acutally work with. And if they hadn’t added the microsuede part, it has really great structural style too. As for #5 and #8 I have one word…FLORRID (which is a made up word of course!). This is one my sister, my mom and I use to describe something that is florally horrid (like one too many flowers…).
Thanks for the fun post!
Blessings!
Mrs. Q
OMG!!! Don’t ever go back to that store, Julia. I think my sister-in-law shops there . (Did I really say that? Out loud?)
Worst of them all, I would say was the sofa pit. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.
If I HAVE to take one home (oh, Lord, please spare me), it would be #8 because I would have the seat recovered to match the rest (and remember, I hate yellow, but this is the one that requires the least work).
There is a furniture store here in Richmond that used to be an old facotry, so the floorspace is massive and all the furniture in it looks like the Royalty Bed (#2). It’s like a store full of furniture for giants (with bad taste). There is virtually no “normal” furniture. I’ve been twice–the return trip was to see if perhaps I’d misjudged it on the first go-round. I hadn’t it. The disturbing part, to me, is that both times the store was crowded, though perhaps the people were also in shock.
The best I can guess is that it is furniture made for the working poor who had a lottery win and are making up for lost time. I call it the Loretta Lynn Phenomena, because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some of that furniture at her house. Or maybe Tammy Wynnette’s. Or a televangelist. One of those rags-to-riches stories where the decor just gets over the top to celebrate the joy that is life with regular royalty checks (or ‘love offerings”).
On a side note, the dining room table looks like those belonging to every member of my father’s side of the family. Lots of time is logged around the table, doing crossword puzzles and pscyhoanalyzing people, and while the furniture is hideous, it’s comfortable. You can sit there for hours speculating about who has a God complex and which one of the cousins is obsessive-compulsive. If only form and fucntion could come together in lovelier ways. I mean, who doesn’t like to roll on over to the refigerator? Why walk?
Oh, Julia…you are too funny. #9 (sports chair) was definitely the worst for me, followed closely by #6 (table and chairs). I am so on the same page as you…I can’t believe they are actually making stuff like this, NEW, and expecting people to PAY for them. WHAT?? If I had to take something home….well, well…I guess it would be the loveseat with the flowered cushion, just because I could get it reupholstered.
By the way, I would have had the same issue with that sports chair in ANY color scheme.
Well, I looked at the bed (#2) and figured I didn’t need to go any further. Any furnitue store that would sell something like that is not worth the time. That is unless you wanted to get a good laugh and clearly, you did! I think it’s amazing that this place is still in business, or is this the worst of the worst? They buyers should be put in jail for this.
However, I did like #8, not the fabric choices but the piece itself is nice.
#1 The red, red, red couch. Come to the brothel dear and sit by my side.
Wow, that was hard. How does one choose the best and the worst when it’s all hideous! But, being a good girl, I play by the rules so here goes.
I’m voting for #3 as the worst (embarrassingly bad) and #8 as the best because it will be the easiest to redo by covering it in a beautiful fabric that accents the rest of the room where it will be placed. Tada!
OMG! All that in one place? I about to have a seizure there are so many fabrics, textures and stuff on that couch….great photos…thanks for sharing.
The red couch with gold arms and the cheap black dresser make me want to vomit. Maybe because I’ve seen them so often as horrid hand-me-downs. I’ve been so frustrated trying to find good furniture here in UT, and constantly wonder why furniture designers have NO IMAGINATION nor CREATIVITY. Argh.
Oh yeah–you have to admit the swirling, twirling round chair is kind of cool. Just don’t sit in it surrounded by all the other fuglies and spin fast or you really will vomit, seeing them all go speeding by in too close succession to eachother.
LOL before I read this post I looked at the red couch like
Oh, someone bought that…and then I read and realized
that that wasn’t the case. I think #2 should have never even
been thought up. I could see a woman with a sitting room
buying #6 and #9–that woman would not be me. But
considering that there are guys out there that buy their
own furniture, especially college age guys, I could see
most of those things being bought by a college kid. Not
necessarily the super leather stuff or the frilly stuff, but
the rest of it, yea.
Have mercy! I have to choose just one? Ok. If it came right down to it, it’s a tie between #1 – the glow in the dark red couch, and number #9, the black and orange Bengal chair. I would weep and gnash my teeth if either were in my house.
#4 is definitely the fugliest! That is one hideous dresser.
#8 would be the one i would take home. that cushion can always be reupholstered….
I’m so happy and relieved to know that I am not the only person offended by furniture like this! I live in mom’s neighborhood- you know the 1950’s ranch houses. Right next door is the new neighborhood and all the furniture stores have stuff like this. And, I will also point out that this new community is actually a more upscale demographic. I can only assume that the McMansions require this kind of awful scale.
And the dinette set? That is for our parents. As Liz said, this is in many kitchens and the old folks don’t want a new style, they just need to replace their tatty old set. Not that I am advocating this set, I will say they are very, very comfortable!
Fugliest? #3- furniture like that should not be allowed to exist (I am not counting #9 because it is obviously intended for the man-cave of the McMansion. Least fugliest, could almost live with? #8- could be a welcome addition to a master suite with different pillows. (This from a woman who DOES love yellow!)
Julia, I love your blog.
I’m rolling over the term “sofa pit.” Your captions are freakin’ hilarious. Thanks for brightening my afternoon!
i almost bought this bed about a year ago. lol and i still do like it . hummmm i have a dining room table and chairs with a sideboard that is stricking similar to the last sofa. hummm its all about the detail and lots of it. and i do have a sofa set that is really similar……….(the exact same one) for the family room i considered the sofa set with the round chair that spins but i ended up with something that was similar to the couch pit. but red and black……..
i had a good laugh though. i am one of the few that can laugh at my wild tastes…..oh and what is my current bed right now? and 11 ft wall unit with the mirrors and the lights over the king size temperpedic mattress that i have to use a little foot stool to get up on board.
of course the room colors are red and orange……..lol
I actually love the table on bicycle wheels!!! I’ve never seen anything so bizarre.
Thanks for the chuckle.
In all seriousness, I really want the sofa pit. However, I will admit that I like to do everything laying down (watching TV, reading, doing homework…) so I may be biased. The microsuede would have to go, though.
#5 and #8 (the multi-colored chairs) are kind of cute in a Shabby Chic kind of way. I could see something like that in a simple room that is very country looking with lots of white or light wood.
Granted, they’re a bit over the top and overdone but cute in a way.
As for the rest of it … wow, there’s a lot of ugly stuff indeed.
I know this discussion started a long time ago but I’ve only just discovered your site (thumbs up, btw)
For me, the absolute definite NO WAY NOT IF MY LIFE DEPENDED ON IT is #4 – the plastic side cabinet of nightmares.
Everything else can be covered up, even the godawful Bengals chair
My favourite (no shame) is #7 – the round seat your son liked. I immediately pictured myself going round and round saying ‘Squeeeeee’ at the top of my voice. What’s not to like?