"Hot mess", you got that right!!!

Well, it definitely has a lot of pattern. :)

If I were going to wallpaper a bathroom ceiling, I think I'd go with leaves, though I do like the blue of the cabinets and the floor tile is cool.

Donna

The bathroom looks remarkably restrained compared to most of the other rooms. The dining room almost did not go "over the top". I loved the chinoiserie pieces used throughout.

With the exception of the she-shed, most of the rooms were more restrained than I usually see in designer showcase houses. Maybe some of the pros here could explain why showcase design are so often over-the-top in their mix of pattern, color and furniture style. I've certainly never looked at a designer showcase room and thought how much I would like to hire that designer; in fact, just the opposite is true.

Ok...I love the she shed. And I like the front foyer.

I love that bathroom! TR you hit the nail on the head with the "hot mess" title.

A quote from the article: "It was like design camp." That sums up my impression of the interior design. That house has no "flow."

The she-shed made me want to scratch my eyes out. While I like the colors in the foyer, the wallpaper was just too much. Yet there's something very soothing about that bathroom.

Definitely no "flow" whatsoever!

This:

And this:

should not even reside on the same planet, much less in the same house!

Love the front exterior, the inside would have me loony toons in no time flat.

But the bathroom is so cute! Whaaaaaaat happened??

This is what happens at Design Show Houses, each designer tries to upstage the other, dontchya think?

It gave me a headache lol.

Looks just plain tacky to me.

I love the outside, but the inside is too visually stimulating for my taste. I would go bananas in there.

LOL . . . I actually yelled "Oh . . . no!" out loud when that first pic of the living room popped up on my desktop computer's big screen! Yes, hot mess is an apt description. Well it's their home and I'm sure the homeowners are very happy there . . . God love em!

TR, yes that's a perfect comparison; serene blue bathroom and the crazy busy wallpapered bathroom.

I can't believe wallpaper on the ceiling is coming back into style. I was a wallpaper designer up until around 2000 when the wallpaper market tanked. Goes to show you, what goes around, comes back around eventually.

Well, it's a Designer Showhouse! It's not SUPPOSED to flow, lol! It's not the Parade of Homes where one designer is doing a whole house to highlight the builder...in a Showhouse each designer is most likely trying to portray how creative they can be. I loved the wallpaper and table in the kitchen, and thought the family room was really fun. The wallpaper in the foyer was too much for me. I liked many of the light fixtures, especially the big brass lantern.

The living room (which is not livable) made me want to scream out loud in horror. Who in their right mind would put their name to this mishmash? After that introduction I didn't want to see more, and really none of it was quality design. Shock value -yes, decorator value - not to me.

However, I have seen the turquoise chandelier in another house in a magazine, and against a more restrained background it was fabulous. That could be a statement piece in the correct setting; here it was just another mistake.

Nola caricature home.

Designers are told in advance that unless the rooms create "conversation", the designers are likely to not receive any press coverage, A 'cohesive look' is a determination made by the organization sponsoring the showhouse.

Designers have to dip into their pockets to do these showhouses, and beg manufacturers to be allowed to borrow items for the rooms. So often you just work with what you can get. I know many designers that simply use furniture from their own homes to get the rooms complete. It costs the designers $$$

OMG, that bathroom with the leafy blue ceiling paper is amazing. I would love to know that paint color. Can anyone identify that wallpaper? Anyone? I really, really want it . . .

When it's too much for me, you know it's a hot mess. :))

Framed picture inside a shower. How practical.

The two houses' exteriors are lovely, but the insides are "too much". However, in their defense, a part of our reaction due to the fact that today's trend is neutral, neutral, neutral ... and this goes too far in the other direction.

Also, as a photographer, I can tell you that these photographs were taken with a fish-eye lens (why?), which distorts the photograph -- that's a part of what seems "off" in the pictures.