By Arrol Gellner
In keeping with all the silly and self-serving awards handed out by the entertainment industry each year, I'm hereby inaugurating my own awards program. Every year from now on-uh, give or take-I'll be handing out the "Horrible Architectural Materials Better Off Not Existing" awards, or HAMBONEs.
They'll go to the least durable, most overhyped or most just-plain-pointless products on the home improvement market. With luck, a desperate wire service will pick up these results, distribute them worldwide and turn me into an icon overnight, like Mr. Blackwell, or at the very least like Mr. Peanut. Then I'll break into television fiction-I'll be asked to host yet another cable show that makes remodeling look simple and enjoyable. After that it won't be long before I lend my name to a new line of decorator paints ("Daring Northern European Beiges") and get signed to a lucrative deal hawking electric staple guns on TV: My big contribution to mankind, at last.
In the meantime, here are the Hambones for 2002. One caveat: These awards are painstakingly not researched, scrupulously un-evenhanded and invaluable to anyone with no opinion of his or her own. That said-
- A two-dimensional Hambone goes to those windows with fake divided lites sandwiched between the glass. From a distance, they have all the textural nuance of masking tape on Saran wrap. Up close, they do a fine job of obstructing your vision, while offering no other redeeming features. The very best of them even come with additional fake-looking grids on the outside to cover up the fake-looking grids on the inside. Apparently, the way to redeem a basically pointless product is to make it more complicated.
- An overly springy Hambone goes to that darling of home-improvement centers, plastic laminate flooring. The basic concept is like putting a Formica countertop on the floor and walking around on it. Laminate flooring is surprisingly durable, but unlike an actual wood floor, once the printed image of woodgrain wears through-and mind you, that's all it is-there's nothing much left to refinish. Moreover, to me, the foam backing that's advertised as being easy on your feet feels more like walking on soggy cardboard. Nor is there any environmental advantage to using this short-term product in lieu of hardwood, which can last centuries if properly cared for.
- A Class-B fire-rated Hambone goes to those "architect" series composition shingles that roofing manufacturers love to claim look just like shakes. They don't, and putting the word "architect" in the name doesn't change that fact.
- And if I can stretch the definition of "useless product" to its limit, a Hambone-that's-out-of-stock-but-we-should-be-getting-one-in-two-weeks goes to the big-box home improvement stores, who've managed to turn inventory chaos into a retailing norm. It's easy to claim you carry a zillion products when those items just have to appear on a computer inventory, next to the digit zero.
- Lastly, a cracked, faded and peeling Hambone goes to powder-coated anything. Here's a purportedly high-tech process that's plastics-based, costs a lot more than painting, doesn't last worth a damn outdoors and can't be recoated once it's hanging in tatters. Who could pass up a product like that? Not the Hambones, that's for sure.
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