People Really Didn’t Think These Dumb Home Designs Through

Shannon Quinn - February 9, 2023

Photo: Credit: Reddit

We all love having a clean home. But there are very few people in this world who actually enjoy the process of cleaning. Even under normal circumstances, it’s a chore to have to break out the cleaning products to dust, mop, and vacuum. That’s why so many people hire a cleaning person once they start making enough money! But for most people, we’re left to clean up after ourselves. So it’s hard to imagine why anyone in their right mind would create a home design that is nearly impossible to keep clean. Today’s post is inspired by the SubReddit called Horrible to Clean, where people share images of nightmarish things that would be nearly impossible to sanitize.

A Chandelier Made of Broken Dinnerware

There’s nothing wrong with trying to recycle broken things by fixing or repurposing them for something new. But this chandelier made of broken dinnerware was intentional. It’s an art piece called “A Frozen Explosion” with some lighting added inside. And yes, it’s available for purchase, because the artist made several of these. And based on Internet comments, there are actually a lot of people out there who want to buy this for their home. But now just imagine trying to clean it. You’re literally trying to clean broken glass. Maybe a feather duster can make it through the broken plates, but it would probably snag in the process of cleaning. And it better be hanging high enough on the ceiling so that no one accidentally walks into it and loses an eye.

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This Home Theater Room Made to Look Like the Beach

Home theaters are one of those things that only millionaires can afford to have. There are a lot of crazy home theater designs out there, like one that looks like Batman’s cave or another that is completely Star Wars themed. But this one is the strangest I’ve ever seen. This photo was featured in another one of our posts called Zillow Gone Wild: The Most Over The Top Home Listings. It’s from a property in Mora, MN called Eagle Ridge Lodge. So it’s a large property that doubles as a vacation rental destination… Which makes this scenario even worse. Now, you’re not just worrying about cleaning up after your family. Now every guest (and their kids) is going to be tracking sand throughout your house. Out of curiosity, we Googled “How to Clean Sand”– and yes- there is a way. But we can almost guarantee that these homeowners aren’t doing it.

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Seashells Embedded into the Floor

We’ve all heard of nautical home design. That is nothing new- especially if you live near the beach. But this homeowner took it way too far when they decided to embed actual seashells into their flooring. There are multiple photos of this house on Reddit. So you can see that they poured epoxy on the floor, but it was not enough to cover the tops of the seashells. It looks like there are little bumps elevated on the flooring. Imagine trying to walk on that barefoot. And the thought of trying to clean it with a Swiffer seems impossible, because it will be snagged on the seashells every time you try to mop the floor. This also seems really difficult to change later, if you wanted new flooring. It’s easy to imagine that this would make it hard to sell the house to someone else later on, too.

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This Lumpy, Fuzzy Area Rug

Imagine paying $100 for this monstrosity. Your eyes are not deceiving you. This is a rug made up of little lumps sewn together. In the comment section, a lot of people share the sentiment that at first glance, they thought this was a photo of a herd of sheep or rabbits crammed next to one another. The caption on the photo says, “Imagine how filthy it gets in between the lobes” Just the fact that they had to use the word “lobes” to describe the texture of a carpet has me cringing. Honestly, though. Imagine trying to vacuum the top of this. It would completely miss the cracks in-between the lobes of the rug. This can’t possibly be selling very well.

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An Iris Shaped Toilet

There are plenty of novelty toilets out there, but this one seems to be particularly disturbing. It just reminds me of the artist Georgia O’Keeffe, who is known for painting flowers that slightly resemble vaginas. Not to say that this looks like a vagina- because it doesn’t. I’m just wondering if that was supposed to be the intention behind it. (Like those disgusting urinals shaped like women’s mouths.) This toilet must be a one-of-a-kind sculpture, because you can’t seem to find it anywhere else on the Internet except for Reddit. It’s so poorly done, that people are debating over what kind of flower it’s supposed to be in the first place, but the best guess is that it’s an iris.

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A Sink That’s Very Cool, But Horrible to Clean

At first glance, you could understand why someone would want a sink like this. It’s a very cool design that is reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. However, once you really stop to think about it, it would be horrible to clean. Imagine having to go over every single layer of this sink one by one as you wipe it down. Some people in the comment section of Reddit have argued that it’s actually not too bad to clean, if you have a large scrub brush. As someone who cleans her sink with Lysol and paper towels, this looks too time-consuming to actually be practical.

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Stuffed Animal Doors and Rugs on the Wall

Here is yet another home that overlaps with our Zillow Gone Wild post. Only this time, we’re going to focus on the fact that this artist’s home has at least one door that is completely covered with stuffed animals. Normally, it’s recommended to clean a stuffed animal by putting it in the washing machine or the freezer to kill bacteria. Obviously, you can’t do that when they’re all attached to a door. How can you even dust them off? For someone with allergies, this would be a nightmare. If you look at the rest of the listing, they also have carpet attached to several walls. How does that work? Are you supposed to vacuum the wall?

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These Specialty Tiles Would Be So Annoying to Clean

When it comes to organizing your bathroom, hooks are the way to go. They’re great for hanging towels on the wall. There are also suction cup hooks that you can use in the shower for luffas and razors. These are cheap, and not at all difficult to find. But somebody out there thought it would be clever to invent tiles with hooks built in. And they’re not just any hooks. They’re V-shaped, so they create a little crevasse inside of the tile itself, which is almost guaranteed to get filled with mold. The top comment on this post says, “I am upset.” Same. Someone else made a good point that this would be too easy to accidentally cut yourself on the ceramic while you were in the shower.

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Upsetting Wine Glasses Wrapped in Rope

These wine glasses are truly upsetting. Clearly, someone out there had a glue gun, some rope, and a lot of free time to kill on a crafting project. But they didn’t think it through. How are you supposed to clean this? It’s not exactly dishwasher safe. Even if you washed them by hand, the ropes would get wet, and potentially cause mold to grow in the fibers. And imagine trying to drink out of this. You can’t. They didn’t stop at just one, either. There are so many of them. Like they thought it was a good idea to make an entire set of rope wine glasses. Based on the shelving, this looks like the original owner decided to donate these monstrosities to Goodwill. It’s almost a guarantee that no one will buy them, and they will end up getting tossed in the trash.

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These Artistic Wine Decanters

We love a good wine decanter. They can be very chic, and it’s a fancy way to disguise cheap wine in a pretty bottle. But these decanters that resemble veins are another story. They’re designed by an artist named Etienne Meneau. Even in the fancy art magazines, they address the fact that they look impossible to clean. Apparently, you’re supposed to hand wash them, rinse, and they dry by letting it sit upside down. That way, the water pours out into a towel… in theory. Not all of the water will make its way out, and that it will end up leaving ugly water marks on the glass.

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Awful Jigsaw Puzzle Floors

For puzzle lovers out there, this might seem like really cool flooring. However, there are cracks between each puzzle piece. How are you expected to clean the floor property like that? Maybe if you used an old school mop head, it could get in-between the cracks. But there is no telling how difficult it really might be. To make it worse, there seem to be elevated wooden elements that stick up above the flooring. If you search for this online, it seems it won’t pull anything up. So there is a good chance that this person custom-made the flooring for their home, and that it’s one of a kind.

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A Bathroom Covered in Stones

The caption of this photo says, “It will smell like fish pretty soon.” Maybe, but only the owner of the bathroom will know. Not only is this horrible to clean, but it would also be incredibly uncomfortable to sit on that toilet! Every single accessory in the bathroom has been covered in stones, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. As some people in the comment section have pointed out, this seems like an idea that a child would have come up with… Not an adult. At least, one would hope that most adults had common sense.

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The Home Office Sandbox

A lot of people absolutely love feeling the sand beneath their toes. Apparently, it instantly helps you relax to feel the sensation. For some people, they enjoy it so much that they want it in their house. An artist named Justin Kemp designed a desk situated inside of an indoor sandbox. Earlier in this article, there was a picture of a beach themed movie room. We’ve already mentioned how it’s nearly impossible to clean sand. It would also guarantee that you track sand all throughout your house every time you get up from your desk. But apparently, that doesn’t bother people like Justin Kemp.

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Oyster Shell Chandelier

Some people out there love to eat oysters. At first glance, it looks like some person decided to hold onto the empty shells, and turn them into a chandelier. But a quick Google search reveals that this was actually sold for $231 at Michaels Crafts, of all places. There is also a more elaborate oyster chandelier sold at Ashley’s Furniture. This is pretty ugly. It would only make sense in a beach house. But even then, how are you supposed to clean it? Would you have to dust every single individual shell? The effort is too much, and nobody would want to deal with that.

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City Themed Coffee Table

This coffee table looks very cool. It’s a piece of wood that has an entire city carved into it. But imagine trying to clean it. Dust would get into every nook and cranny. You’d probably have to crouch down on all fours, desperately trying to reach in-between the little buildings and roads. Sure, you can try to use a feather duster. But it would still be time consuming to clean this every time it gets dirty. You can’t find this for sale anywhere. So maybe it was a one-of-a-kind art piece, or a concept that an artist came up with. There is probably a good reason why it was never mass produced.

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Live Edge Kitchen Countertops

Sometimes, live edge wood looks very stylish in the right setting. But in the case of these kitchen cabinets, it might not have been the best idea. Most people prepare food on their countertops, so they can get dirty very easily. Normally, you can just wipe down a counter with some Lysol and a paper towel. With these live edges, though, you’re going to be spending a lot more time getting in between all of the little nooks and crannies of the wood. It’s definitely not the worst thing we’ve seen on this list, though. Hopefully this person loves the vibe enough to deal with the annoying cleaning.

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Keyboard Key Picture Frame

We all know that keyboards are notorious for being hard to clean. A lot of people buy compressed air so that they can push out the dust and food particles that may get in-between the keys. Now, imagine the thought process behind this picture frame. Sure, maybe it’s upcycling outdated technology by using old keyboards to make a picture frame. But that doesn’t change the fact that it would be incredibly annoying to clean this thing when it gets dusty. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where anybody would want a picture frame like this around a photo. Work is the first thing that comes to mind when you see a keyboard. It’s not like you’d have a picture of coworkers and clients sitting around.

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This Garden Themed Toilet

Wanting a view of your garden from the bathroom would be a nice luxury. And a lot of people build outdoor showers in a tropical setting. But this person decided to combine both concepts together into this indoor garden bathroom. We’ve heard of the concept of keeping plants in your shower to help them get watered. But this is a whole new level. The flooring of this bathroom also looks very outdoorsy, and uncomfortable to step on. There is even a huge rock over to the left hand side. They had enough room to put in a bench that would help when you shave your legs. But no. They had to have a rock instead.

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This Glass Table is Split Up Into Multiple Pieces

First of all, this table is just ugly. We hate it, because we don’t understand it. The serving sections are split up into glass circles, and the center is a large oval that is elevated above the rest of the table. The middle is where we assume you place the food. But you’re barely giving anyone any room to eat off of their plate. Definitely no chance you can put elbows on the table. And cleaning will take 10 times longer, since you would have to Windex each little circle and oval one-by-one. Some people in the comments of Reddit try to argue that it shouldn’t take any longer than cleaning a normal glass table. But we beg to differ.

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A Plush Manatee Mailbox

There are so many questions after seeing this photo. Sure, it’s normal for people to buy novelty mailboxes. But most of them are waterproof. This looks like a giant stuffed animal manatee. (Unless it’s like a statue made of concrete?) But no matter what the body is made out of, it still has a fabric skirt, hat, and plastic fruit sitting on its head. This is all going to be rained on. Based on the palm trees in the background, I’m assuming this exists somewhere where it’s warm enough to hopefully dry out the fabric. This could get ruined very quickly.

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This Wooden Map Sink

Here is another example of a genuinely cool design concept, but it’s just not practical to use in everyday life. This wooden sink is based on a map of London where the water flows through the ducts resembling the river channels. Upon further inspection, it’s just a 3D render. So it turned out to be a trick. It doesn’t exist in real life! Thank God, because imagine trying to get in-between all of those cracks in the sink. And the fact that it is made of wood makes it worse. Wood gets moldy if it gets too moist and is left in the dark for too long. If this really was installed in someone’s bathroom, it would be a disaster.

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This Artistic Staircase in Tokyo

Here is another example of a design that is very cool to look at. This is a very stylish staircase that was built in Tokyo, Japan. It mixes traditional wooden decor with a modern twist. But it’s as if they never thought about cleaning in the process of making and installing it. Imagine how much dust is going to accumulate in-between each of those wooden planks. It’s going to be nearly impossible to clean, because you would have to get up on a ladder and spend literally hours jamming a duster into the stairs. Hopefully whoever installed this staircase thinks it’s worth it for the sake of art.

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A Shag Bed On Top of a Platform

Back in the 1960’s, shag carpets were really popular. So whoever thought of this just took the shag trend and turned it up to 11. If you look closely, the wall behind the bed is also covered in a brown shag carpet. This photo looks older, like it probably came out of an old magazine. We would like to think that no one would ever put carpet on the walls nowadays, but some of the other photos on this list will prove that the trend sadly continued for decades after this. How many years did this last before the owner was ready to completely makeover the space?

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A Wall Full of Priceless China

When you own fine china, the only way to clean it properly is by hand washing it in the sink. They are very delicate, so you could never put it into a dishwasher. Now, imagine having an entire wall in your house filled with this priceless china. Every time it got dusty, you would have to remove every single plate off of the wall. Or would you simply dust with a feather duster? Either way, this would be very annoying to clean. But it does look pretty. The solution to this problem would be to keep a china collection inside of a cabinet, which would prevent dust from settling on it.

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Apparently, Spray Foam Furniture Was a Trend in 2020

We must have been completely out of the loop, or just too preoccupied with the Pandemic to notice that apparently, in 2020, it was a trend to spray foam your furniture. Clearly, someone thought of this when they were locked in their house and had literally nothing better to do. One of the most popular items on TikTok was the “cloud mirror” or “popcorn mirror”. And as you can see from this photo, people were spray foaming their side tables too. But how do you clean it? Can spray foam get wet?This will quickly get outdated and end up being thrown away at some point in the future, if it hasn’t already happened yet in 2023.

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This “Wallpaper” is Made Out of Real Books

At first glance, this idea seems kind of cool. The entire wall of this cafe is a giant stack of books. It’s creating a very cool curved line pattern, too. However, it’s eventually going to get dusty. Normally, to clean bookshelves, you must remove each individual book and dust off the top of the pages. But with all of these books stacked into the actual wall, you can’t really do that. It will probably never get cleaned, which might end up smelling a bit musty after a while. Some people like the smell of old books mixed with coffee, though.

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This Wacky Artist’s Customized Living Room

Here is another crossover with Zillow Gone Wild. This entire house was filled with an artist’s customizations. In the room, you can see that they used spray foam to create textures on the wall, and even built a sculpture of a tree. There is a lot going on here. But all of those new ledges on the walls are just something else that needs dusting. And since all of the surfaces are painted over, I’m assuming you would have to be careful about it getting in contact with any kind of cleaning chemical. This house already sold, we have to wonder if the new owner is keeping this wacky style when they move in.

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A Terrifying (But Stylish) Staircase

The caption of the photo jokes, “The little statuettes at the bottom are in memory of the people who’ve died on those stairs”. This staircase really does look like a tripping hazard. If you look closely, they do have enough room to walk down. But all of the added wood makes it look like you wouldn’t be stable. And unlike normal staircases, it’s adding multiple layers and crevasses that need to be cleaned, now. It has a very similar problem to the crazy big Tokyo staircase we mentioned earlier in this list. This is just a smaller, suburban home version of the same problem.

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This Bathroom is Covered in Carpet From Floor to Ceiling

This bathroom has so much potential to look beautiful. It’s a huge space, and it has beautiful sky lights. But they ruined it by covering the entire thing in carpet- even the ceiling. Even the inside of the skylight windows have carpet on it. Or is it velvet? Either way, it’s horrible. When you get out of the bathtub, you’re going to drip all over this fabric. If it’s velvet, that actually has a greater chance of retaining water, and takes even longer to dry off than most fabrics. Velvet clothes should be dry cleaned. So basically, they have created a bathroom that’s destined to get ruined and moldy.

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Another Carpeted Bathroom With Not Just One, But Two Bathtubs

If you thought the last one was bad, this carpeted bathroom is even worse. This photo must have been taken from a real estate listing, because there’s no reason you would just leave fallen bathroom tiles laying on the floor. For some reason, they have two bathtubs next to each other, which is just double the cleaning. This is one of the ugliest things on this list. Maybe on any list. It must have been absolutely horrible to clean. The worst part about it is that it must have been expensive. And they have a bidet. So they were fancy people with terrible taste.

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This Golden Velvet Toilet

In the comment section of Reddit, someone was kind enough to point out that this is a 3D render, so it doesn’t actually exist. Out of curiosity, we searched “Velvet toilet seat” just to see if one exists in real life. And it turns out that someone did actually make one. There is a YouTube video titled, “We Made an Awful Velvet Toilet Seat.” At least they’re self-aware. And there is another called, “I Made a Velvet Toilet to See What Using It Feels Like.” In both videos, you can see the process of what goes into putting velvet onto something. It’s more difficult than you could imagine. Even more reason to never have a real velvet toilet in your home.

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A Tuba That Was Repurposed Into a Sink

At first glance, this might seem like a very cool upcycling project. Why not turn a Tuba into a sink? Well, I grew up doing the school band. When your musical instrument gets filled with spit, you need to get a rag on a rope or a long cleaning stick to empty out the moisture that accumulates. And that smells disgusting, trust me. So I can only imagine how this Tuba sink must smell, after allowing it to get wet over and over. Maybe they tried to make it water-tight, but I can only imagine that some moisture is ending up in the other parts of the Tuba that might rust or corrode over time.

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The Sausage Couch

This image was originally posted on the “Forbidden Snacks” subreddit, which is a place filled with objects that look like you could eat them, but you can’t. (Like Tide Pods.) So this was dubbed “The Sausage Couch”, and thus cross-posted on Horrible to Clean. Since the couch is made of leather, you should really use a specialized leather cleaner and go over this with a rag. But you would have to reach down into the nooks and crannies of each little sausage roll as you go. It would take at least a half hour. Compared to a regular couch, which you can vacuum in less than five minutes.

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An Oyster Shell Fireplace

Remember the oyster shell chandelier from earlier? Well, it’s back. And this time, it’s an entire fireplace. There is no way this person bought it from a store, which means that it was done by hand. They must have eaten a lot of oysters to get these. People sell used oyster shells. There is a business called Simply Oysters, and they sell the shells for 10 cents each. Buying oysters with the meat still inside costs between 75 cents to $2 each. So it would have been more cost-effective for this person to get the empty shells. But we will never know the truth behind this stupid DIY.

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This Gamer’s Fluffy Cloud Ceiling

A fluffy cloud ceiling has become an interesting addition to some game rooms. It was probably inspired by a GameStop store front. It seems like this gamer borrowed the idea and decided to do this in their own home. It looks visually stunning. This room has a whole vibe. I understand why they chose to do this in the first place, because it’s very cool… Especially if they have some sort of social media following where they need to dress up a room. But how do they clean it? You would have to just remove the fluffy stuff on the ceiling and throw it away. You can’t clean it with soap and water, surely.

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A Beach Basement

Here we go again with the indoor sand. This person decided to turn their entire basement into a beach room. We already talked about the obvious downsides of having sand in your house. It’s impossible to clean the sand, and it will also guarantee that you’re tracking sand into the rest of your home. Most people love the beach, but getting sand everywhere afterwards is a definite downside. There is a good reason why many boardwalks will provide an outdoor shower for you to clean yourself off before you go back to your car. So does this person have a shower in their basement? Probably not.

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A Toilet Made Entirely of Glass

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who flush before they stand up, and those who glance down in the toilet before. If you go to the bathroom in this glass toilet, though, there is no hiding what’s floating around in there. And would you clean it with toilet bowl cleaner? Or would everything need to be cleaned with a glass cleaner like Windex? Or both? And what happens when it gets smudged by fingerprints, and presumably butt cheek prints? It’s just far too annoying to even think about cleaning something like this.

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This Amethyst Sink

Some people think that crystals have healing power. This has been a New Age practice for a very long time, but crystals have become especially trendy over the past few years. Apparently, amethysts are supposed to have healing properties to improve things like your digestive and immune systems. Obviously, this is a bunch of woo-woo nonsense. Crystals are still very pretty, though. (I have some myself, even though I don’t believe that they heal people.) But how do you clean this sink? It would really suck to have to try to rub your hand against all of these sharp little bumps inside of the giant amethyst. On top of that, this must have cost a fortune to buy an amethyst that big.

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