Boston Designers Cease to Surprise

What happens when you take two dozen New England interior designers and put them in a house? Do they stop being polite? Um, no, there's no indication that they're no longer polite. But do they start being real? Well, kind of…if "real conservative" counts.

In the recent Junior League's 34th annual Decorators' Show House, in which a bunch of designers get together to exhibit their skills for charity, New England designers didn't stray far from tradition. They worked hard on the 19th-century Richard Henry Dana Jr. House near Harvard Square. At first glance the results were, according to the Globe, "appealing" due to its "timelessness" and "refinement."

But (and of course there's a "but"), the same Globe article provided its own counter-point with some sarcastic comments. It seems all that refinement can only take a designer so far: "What the show house is not is bold, contemporary, or heaven forbid, avant garde." Slap. "But well-appointed as the house is, you have to ask: What decade is this?" Oooo. Bitch slap.

The Globe dealt one last final kick to Boston's proverbial conservative interior-design ribs by comparing it to the "innovative design" of New York interiors at a similar event. Each mention of a "creative" New York design makes the pain a little more vivid: Lucite furniture, an ejection seat from a 1955 bomber, oil paintings of dogs acting like humans! Stop! It hurts!

Can't the interior design world all just get along? Work together. There's nothing wrong with a dogs playing p0ker painting above the antique mahogany mantle.