Beach House Bedrooms Are Decorated Very Boring… I Found A Way To Fix That Involving Sports
So here's a random thought for a blog, but hey this is a company built on weird brains or demented brains (Go Buy Dave's Book) so here we are. It's the summer time and one of the most coveted things (at least for east coast people) is going to your beach house or shore house or cape house or lake house etc. Either way, the point remains, to escape the heat of a Manhattan or Jersey City or Boston or Philly Apartment is to pack up the car or jump on a train and go to the Hamptons, LBI, The Jersey Shore, Sea Isle or Cape Cod. It's an escape for both 20 somethings and families alike. It's an escape like no other. The minute you get over that bridge or sit in the chair on that beach or walk through the doors of your favorite summer bar down there or out there you have a feeling of happiness that's euphoric. Everything tastes a little bit better, the drinks are a little bit colder, and your troubles are less important, you laugh a little bit harder and you smile a little bit longer. Beach houses are sacred. People who have them adore them, the people that can't afford them - rent them, and those that can't rent them pray to be invited to one for a weekend escape.
The designs of them all seem to follow one simple pattern though - generic beach pictures or artwork on the walls, or if some people get crazy they have a "room" meaning like a "fish room" or "the shell room" which really just means that rooms has pictures of fish or shells or trinkets on the shelves. It's nothing crazy, it's minimal maybe 1-2 pictures or 3-4 tops but that's how they decorate the walls of the bedrooms.
It got me to thinking, are beach house rooms decorated too basic? I'm not saying redecorate the living room with graffiti on the walls like that skell Spencer Pratt.
but if you are lucky enough to have a beach house, give it some personal flavor. Which got my demented brain thinking that in my beach house, or in beach houses of most guys like myself who adore sports, gambling etc - I would decorate the bed rooms with a sports type theme. One room would be a Vince Carter room for example, his 2000 slam dunk contest to be specific. The iconic photos of each dunk on each wall. Or a room with the 2022 Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike because you bet it. The more random the better. It gives you something to talk about at breakfast or while pregaming for the night out, and the rooms can hold a different prestige of which ones the best etc. Think about it, everyone's obsessed with sports, you are likely watching sports with your buddies at that house, why not incorporate it into the bedrooms?
So, if I owned a beach house, which rooms would I decorate as the bedrooms in my beach house?
This is a much harder decision than you think, being 39 and been around sports forever as well as interests in variety of different sports, how do you narrow it down to 3-4? I did my best.
I think they would be this:
The College Basketball Room
If you know me you know I had to have college hoops in here and I guess I cheated because I went as generic as possible but truth be told I couldn’t narrow it down. I just love the fucking game so everything from random D1 guys I loved like Acie Law and Kevin Pittsnoggle to teams like that Evansville team that got their heart ripped out in the MVC Final, to upsets in the tournament to CHSAA guys who went D1, famous coaches… all of it. It’s generic but there has to be a college hoops room and I rather just give it a little bit of everything.
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The Donnel Pumphrey / Rashaad Penny Room
If you listened to Pick Em forever, you know my affinity for these Aztec running backs. Every fucking week they literally ran it down people's throats and these two would DOMINATE games. The Aztecs started with Pumphrey who ran for 6,405 yards in his career and Penny ran for 3,643 (first and 4th all time in school history), they also have the top 3 and 4 of the top 6 single season rushing records at SDST. Just ANIMALS. Born to run the ball, and every week they somehow felt like they were disrespected on the gambling line, and every week they outperformed it. BEASTS who would go on to win the MWC back to back years in 2015 and 2016. Each had their own individual season but they overlapped for 3 years in between and boy they were magical. 100000% earn a bed room, and it's also hilarious for people staying there to be like "wait why are they on the wall?" "Sit down … lemme tell you about the glory days of football buddy."
2022 Kansas Basketball Room
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One of my only College Hoops futures to ever hit. This team was special including when I hit a WHALE on them in the Final Four vs Nova -4 I believe. Braun, Agbaji, Wilson, Remy Martin, Dejuan Harris, and the GOAT Mitch Lightfoot. I actually picked them preseason and then bet them again before the tournament. Magical. For a guy who felt like he bet on Kansas a million years in a row to finally see one through the net (I had UCLA in 2008 when Kansas won the title for those asking) was magical. Add in the first Final Four I got to attend in person and see them win big vs Nova only adds into the mystique of this team deserving a room.
Adam Dunn Room
This fucking guy hit BOMBS and was on my fantasy baseball team every year. He deserves a room FOR SURE. Horrendous batting average and struck out a ton but man was he built to CRUSH a baseball.
Now again, these are not my favorite teams but they are random, quirky and mean just enough to me to decorate a beach house bedroom with. I wouldn’t have to see them everyday but every time I crossed the bridge into that little summer town and walked into the doors of the room to change the sheets and set up the guest room, I’d smirk at The Adam Dunn picture or the Rafer Alston Fresno State Jersey on the wall.
Here’s some coworkers responses.
Clem
The Jalen Brunson Room is the trophy room of the house, since all Jalen Brunson has done his whole life is win. It is also the place that the winner of the house sleeps. Who is the winner of the house? Could be anybody. The bread winner. The de facto leader of the house. Whoever gets the biggest piece of chicken at dinner. Essentially sleeping in the Jalen Brunson room means you are the king of the castle just like he is King of New York.
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Cons
The Army Navy room - it’s not always pretty but it’s always a battle
Notre Dame room - because sometimes you find yourself alone at the end of the night without a conference
Pac12 room - when it’s late but you still need action
Tommy Smokes
-2005 Shawn Chacon. The most underappreciated run of great Yankee pitching ever. Guy was guaranteed 6 innings 1 earned run every start but he got outshined by Aaron Small just because he went 10-0 despite having a HIGHER ERA and pitching LESS INNINGS. And Chacon delivered in the playoffs, going 6.1 IP with 2 runs in a win against the Angels in ALDS Game 4. Meanwhile, Aaron Small didn't even start a game. Just had one relief appearance giving up 2 runs in 2.2 innings and earning the loss. But Aaron Small got invited back to Old Timers Day while Chacon never did. Also, I liked how he wore his hat.
Pat
Vacation homes are about bringing people together. One team did that better than any other - The Team USA 1980 Miracle On Ice men's hockey team. Even though I have a plethora of Boston-based (championship) teams to choose from, I want a cause that (almost) everyone can get behind…The United States of America. If you walk into a Team USA themed room at a lake house? Forget about it. Beers on beers on beers. Lets good times roll.
Reags
90s college basketball themed, different things on a wall.Wall 1 - easy, Randolph Childress. Wore 22 my entire life because of him. Tried to crossover anyone and everyone like he did when he turned Jeff McInnis' ankles into dust /insert video Wall 2 - the iconic jerseys. I'm not talking the ones everyone know but throw Fab Five in there. I'm talking denim Kentucky, shorts down to the ankles even if that bleeds into early 2000s, things of that nature. NCAA Tournament theme Wall 1 - Cinderellas, led by FAU making the Final Four because they sent me to Ireland #BracketBuskersWall 2 - Moments like Ali Farokamensh hitting the shot vs Kansas, Tyus Edney shot, Jermaine Wallace from Northwestern State, of course Kris Jenkins all painted on
Nate
I would have a Braden Holtby "The Save" room. Entire room dedicated to his save vs Vegas in the 2018 Stanley Cup.
Getty Images.Hubbs
2015 Jordan Spieth, randomly started betting on him to win the Masters and US Open that year
2009 Hideki Matsui
Klemmer
I’d do a Mets HOF room. Any Met who has made Cooperstown gets a section of the wall. But it would depend on how long they played with the Mets with how much space they get (Tom Seaver gets way more space than Rickey Henderson for example).
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And now a really sad one which I don’t fully understand - maybe he hates the beach.
Eddie
I would have the 2004 Cubs room be a place I'd walk into if I wanted to feel sad.
You'd be greeted by the famous SI & Cubs Opening Day pictures that I attached where we thought having Prior, Wood, Maddux, Zambrano, and Clement meant we were sure that this was the year. Little did we know that some dude wearing a walkman with glasses was going to haunt us for years (until 2016 at least). The TV would play old World Series' on loop.
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2003 - The Marlins who beat us
2004 - The Red Sox who snapped their curse
2005 - The White Sox who are our crosstown rivals
2006 - The Cardinals who are our true rivals
2007 - The Red Sox who get to have ANOTHER one after breaking there curse.
It was truly a miserable, miserable time in my sports fandom.
Did I mention we got swept in the playoffs both in 2007 & 2008 too?
Oh, and if you wanted to turn the TV off and listen to the radio then too bad. You're out of luck on that too. It's Sammy Sosa's (one of my childhood heroes) replica boom box that was broken the day he left Wrigley Field for the last time and was not on speaking terms with the organization for 20 years.