Hated Item Makeover

Why did you paint the walls?
Why did you clean the floor?
Why did you plaster over
The hole I punched in the door?

— Barenaked Ladies, "The Old Apartment"

In fiction, if a character gives someone else's possession (be it a car, house, or any other object) a makeover, the owner will not appreciate it. They might get angry, comically horrified, or even sad.

Perhaps they're a goth and find the makeover too "normie" or cheerful. Maybe the item was given a frilly or cute makeover, which the owner feels they're too tough or tomboyish or old for (or, if the owner is male, maybe he thinks the aesthetic is too feminine). Perhaps the other person removed wear and tear that the original owner liked or threw away something which wasn't actually trash.

Sometimes, especially if the owner is a young child, they find the makeover scary. Maybe the issue isn't the makeover itself, but the fact that it was done without permission makes them feel violated. Or it could just be that the owner hates having their possession cleaned or likes being disorganised in general, or they're just a plain old Ungrateful Bastard.

If the owner is a child, the person giving the makeover might be a parent or babysitter who got carried away cleaning something belonging to the owner or tidying their bedroom. It could also be the owner's Annoying Younger Sibling (usually a sister, since aesthetics are stereotypically associated with girls). If the owner is an adult, maybe a house-sitter or roommate did the makeover. If the owner is male, maybe his wife or another woman did it because Men Can't Keep House. No matter who did it, they're often either Innocently Insensitive or a Neat Freak.

Compare Pet Dress-Up and Unnecessary Makeover. For people, see Forced into Their Sunday Best.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: In Chapter 53, Chiyo rearranges the badges that Kusuri pinned to her book bag. Kusuri doesn't want Chiyo messing with her stuff and is about to remove Chiyo's glasses to make her cry before realizing she was just arranging them in a neat order.
• Fairy Tail: When Natsu first meets Zeref on Tenrou Island, Zeref's death curse activates with Natsu only surviving thanks to his scarf absorbing the miasma which involuntary turns Natsu's white scarf black. Once Natsu realizes his scarf is now black he's less than pleased and intends to find Zeref and beat him up for it, with Natsu temporarily wearing his jacket inside out in order to solve his fashion dilemma. His scarf is later turned back to normal by Wendy thanks to her removing said miasma, with Natsu being very happy about it.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Ed, on the run from the Amestrian military with Darius and Heinkel, disguises the latter's car by transmuting it to look like a dragon. He's the only one of the three of them who thinks it looks either cool or inconspicuous.
• One Piece:
  • After Franky joins the crew, one of the first projects he decides to take on is upgrading Nami's Waver from Skypiea... Which also includes decorating it to look like a hobby horse. Upon seeing it, Nami gives him a punch.. Partly for not asking her first, and partly for making it look so ridiculous.
  • After crash landing on Amazon Lily, Luffy wakes up to find his clothes missing. They had been torn up badly enough that a girl named Marguerite took the liberty of making a new set for him, of similar design... But adding on a flower pattern and frills, to which Luffy yells his displeasure. Which unfortunately causes problems for him, as these women have never seen a man before and not knowing most of them don't wear frills, take his outburst as a sign of hostility.

Comic Strips

• Foxtrot: Jason's mother cleans his room while he's at summer camp. He's... less than appreciative.
  Jason: AAAHHHHHH!!!! WHAT'D YOU DO TO MY DUST-MAN ACTION FIGURE!?!!
• Bloom County: A 1986 strip had Oliver's mother wallpaper his room with the giant face of Michael Jackson because "Darn it, Oliver, you mixed-up kids could use a good, healthy role model these days!" (which aged just as well as you can imagine) Later, Oliver is shown having put a picture of Albert Einstein up over Michael's nose.

Fan Works

• In Nicely Done, Lola cleans up her bedroom, including the side her grubby twin sister Lana sleeps in. Lana hates having her side of the room cleaned.

Films - Animation

• Curious George (2006): George sneaks into Ms. Pushbottom's apartment room. He dips his hands and feet into buckets of paint to make the bare walls resemble a jungle. Ms. Pushbottom is most indignant about this, and Ivan the employee ends up evicting Ted for being responsible for George.
• Despicable Me: In the bonus short "Home Makeover", a social worker comes over to check if Gru's house is suitable for children. Since the house is full of weapons and rather intimidating-looking, the girls give it a makeover that results in it looking very cheerful and kiddie. When Gru comes home, he finds it so Sickeningly Sweet that he passes out.
• Unstable Fables: In Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, Goldilocks and her crew refurbish the Bear family's home by making them a new house made out of candy. They are rather put out by this; Mac thinks the bed that's made out of gelatin is too wobbly, and Junior thinks it's disgusting to use a toilet that's made out of donuts.

Films - Live-Action

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: When Greg tries to "fix" his friend Rowley, i.e. make him less dorky, one of the things he does is paint over Rowley's bike, which has a picture of a popstar named Joshie on it. Rowley protests this, saying, "But Joshie is cool!".
• Mazes and Monsters: Jay Jay's mother redoes his bedroom to look incredibly cold and sterile (and with tile floors...for some reason). Jay Jay is less than thrilled.
  Jay Jay: "It looks like a hospital!"
• The Muppet Movie: The Electric Mayhem paint Kermit and Fozzie's Studebaker in wild, psychedelic colors to help them hide from Doc Hopper. Kermit is at first miffed by the change, but it soon proves useful when they elude Hopper by hiding in front of a billboard that happens to match the paint job.
  Fozzie: I don't know how to thank you guys.
  Kermit: I don't know why to thank you guys.
• In The Smurfs, when the Smurfs convert Patrick's office into a nursery for his soon-to-be-born son, he exclaims in frustration, "What have you done to my office!?".
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture: As the old hands become reacquainted with the rebuilt and refitted Enterprise, Doctor Leonard McCoy declares that he'll go down to the ship's sick bay with a certain dread. "I know engineers," he forebodes, "they just love to change things." Sure enough, his report to Admiral Kirk is: "My sick bay looks more like a computer center."

Literature

• American Girls Collection: Lindsey is an overly helpful girl who always tries to do what she thinks is best for others, sometimes without thinking. When she has to stay behind to talk to her teacher Miss Kinney, she sees that Miss Kinney's desk is a disorganized mess and reorganizes it according to her own system. When Miss Kinney gets back, she's upset by the changes because she already had her own system of doing things and now has to spend the rest of the afternoon putting it back the way it was. Later, she plasters glow-in-the-dark happy-face stickers all over her neighbors' trash cans, which they dislike so much that they call the cops on her.
• Curious George: In "Curious George Takes a Job", George is tasked with washing windows. He sneaks into someone's apartment room as several painters have left for a lunch break and notices the bare walls. He paints palm trees on the walls and paints the chairs and a rocking horse to resemble leopards and a zebra, respectively. When the painters come back in, they chase George out and the woman who owns the place is horrified.

Live-Action TV

• 30 Rock: In "Respawn", Liz is chastising Tracy for invading her personal life, leading to this exchange.
  Tracy: After all I've done for you? How many times have I come over and painted your apartment?
  Liz: Three! And by the way, stop doing that!
• In The Baby-Sitters Club (2020), Mary Anne's father, realizing he's been too overprotective, agrees to let the girls redecorate Mary Anne's bedroom. The first time they try, he gets upset because he thinks they're changing too much — it is later revealed that he and his deceased wife chose the decor together. The second time they try, it's Mary Anne who gets uncomfortable because it's too different, but she's too nice to tell her friends outright. This attempt is remedied by returning a painting her mother had chosen to the wall and complementing it with additional pictures of her.
• Doctor Who: A Running Gag in multi-Doctor specials, such as "The Three Doctors" and "The Day of the Doctor", is a previous Doctor insulting the current TARDIS interior by saying, "Oh, you've redecorated! I don't like it."
• On an episode of Family Matters, Harriette is horrified by the "makeover" that Carl gave the living room with cheap furniture he found at a police auction, which included a broken cameo set, a lamp with bullet holes, a carpet with a body outline on it, and a large porcelain dog. After she banishes him to the couch, he soon regrets his decision.
• Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.: Private Pyle is tasked with painting a Marine vehicle in camouflage colors. While doing this, a group of hippies stop for directions, then volunteer to help Pyle. Pyle's side is done in mottled earth-tone blotches; the hippies' side looks like something hippies would create. Pyle and Sergeant Carter are both distressed at this, but it turns out that a rival Marine company failed to target the vehicle, since they couldn't believe anything with that psychedelic detailing could be a military vehicle.
• House: In "Lines in the Sand", House refuses to use his office after Cuddy replaces the carpet because there was a large blood stain on it from a disgruntled patient shooting House in an earlier episode. Instead, House works from a variety of awkward spots in the hospital, including the chapel, until Cuddy puts the blood-stained carpet back after Wilson suggests that he's autistic (but then tells House that he doesn't actually believe that, he's just an asshole making petty power plays).
• Married... with Children: While taking a design class, Peg wants to redecorate the house, to which Al says no. Peg then remodels Al's beloved bathroom. Upon seeing it, he screams and faints.
• The Muppets Mayhem: When the Electric Mayhem arrives at the shack they think they'll be staying at, they redecorate it to their liking - however, it actually turns out to be Danny Trejo's house, which was across the street from the shack they are actually staying at, and he appears rather upset about it. Subverted later in the episode, where Trejo happily points out that the Electric Mayhem painted his house, indicating he grew to like the change.
• The Odd Couple (1970): In "Take My Furniture, Please", Felix gets permission from Oscar to redecorate after repainting the apartment. However, Oscar so dislikes his quirky choices (such as hand-shaped chairs) that he re-redecorates with kitschy items that nearly drive Felix out of the place.
• Psych: In "Zero to Murder in Sixty Seconds," Gus is horrified to discover that Shawn paid for the Blueberry, his company sedan, to be pimped out by the chop shop they're investigating. He hates its tacky yellow flames, ridiculous hood scoop, and pimpage-obligatory spoiler. That is, until some women show interest. He gets it un-pimped after McNab pulls him over because he now fits a profile and the women drive off disinterestedly.
• Roseanne: "December Bride" has Roseanne decorating the wedding venue of her boss Leon in elaborate but stereotypical gay style, featuring Liza Minnelli impersonators, shirtless musclemen as ushers, and pictures of Barbra Streisand on display. He's so disgusted, that he tries to run off as he had on previous occasions.
• One two-part episode of Salute Your Shorts sees Dina and Budnick fall in love, only for Dina to become repulsed when Budnick tries to become a good guy so that her parents will approve of him. In a bid to get him to dump her, she takes his treasured Axl Rose guitar pick and turns it into an earring.
• Sesame Street:
  • In one skit, a man asks Oscar the Grouch to "do" his windows, i.e. clean them. He coats them with mud instead, since that's what Grouches mean when they talk about "doing" windows. The man gets angry.
  • In one episode, Oscar's old school friend Felix visits. Unusually for a Grouch, Felix is a Neat Freak, so he cleans Oscar's trash can. Oscar hates this, but they decide the conflict is good for their friendship since Grouches thrive on conflict.
• In Star Trek: Voyager, when Seven of Nine (an ex-Borg) first arrives on Voyager, she starts updating technology to make it more efficient. Other characters, especially B'Elanna the engineer, hate this, with B'Elanna complaining that Seven's trying to turn the ship into a "Borg circus".

Music

• The song "The Old Apartment" by Barenaked Ladies is about a man who revisits/breaks into the old apartment he used to live in. He expresses displeasure at how the new tenants have renovated - such as repainting the walls, paving the lawn, and plastering over the hole in the door - because he liked the wear and tear of the apartment's original appearance.
• Songdrops: Discussed in "The Mother's Day Song" and "The Father's Day Song". The kid, among other things, paints the ceiling for their parents and accidentally gets paint on the carpet. While they find this "cool", the chorus is very apologetic-sounding, indicating they believe their parent won't like it.

Video Games

• Persona 5: When the Phantom Thieves spend a day with Futaba in her room, Yusuke takes a moment to rearrange her Featherman figures in an artistic fashion. Futaba is understandably not amused.

Webcomics

• Full Frontal Nerdity: One strip has the guys watching a home makeover show where a 20-something gamer nerd's room gets redone, destroying his classic movie posters and original roleplaying game books in the process. According to Shawn, the show will be in reruns until everyone gets out of the hospital.
• Sabrina Online: Sabrina adorns her workspace with some Transformers figures while working as a webmaster at Zig Zag Studios. During Sabrina's day off, Zig Zag gets mischievous, and "embellishes" Sabrina's figures. The next day, Sabrina goes about her business, until she notices something off about her surroundings. She bursts into a studio where filming is underway to roar, "Who put phalluses on my Transformers?!" Zig Zag, in delicto flagrante, starts laughing her tail off.

Western Animation

• 3rd & Bird: In one episode, Muffin paints the whole tree with multicoloured paint. None of the older birds like this. In fact, when her brother Samuel discovers it, he dramatically yells, "It's RU-INED! RU-INED!".
• Arthur:
  • In "Arthur's Baby", D.W. practices diapering the upcoming baby by putting diapers on some of her brother Arthur's toys. He yells at her to remove the diaper from the Bionic Bunny action figure.
  • In "Cereal", D.W. thinks Arthur stole her cereal. Buster asks her why she thinks that since Arthur doesn't even like that kind of cereal, so she suggests it was revenge for putting his Bionic Bunny action figure in a dress.
• Back at the Barnyard: In "Home Sweet Hole", after Otis accidentally destroys Pip's mouse hole and Pip keeps Otis up all night with his wild parties, Pip moves into Pig's stall, since Pig can sleep through anything. To thank Pig for being a wonderful host, Pip decides to clean his stall for him. As a Messy Pig, Pig is horrified when he finds out that Pip cleaned his stall, as it took him years to get it dirty, and he kicks Pip out.
• Charlie and Lola: In "This is Actually My Party", Lola takes down her older brother Charlie's decorations for his birthday party and changes it from a monster theme to a ballet theme. This annoys him to no end, partly because he doesn't like the change, partly because a lot of the decorations were pink and he hates pink, and partly because he feels Lola is acting as though it's her party instead of his.
• In an episode of Handy Manny, the tools clean up a man's studio, but accidentally throw away a sculpture he made, mistaking it for garbage. This disappoints and offends him, though downplayed because he did ask them to clean up.
• Lalaloopsy: In "Tower of Treasure", Marina cleans up the inside of Patch's ship, but since Patch is more used to the disorganization, he's not particularly pleased about it.
• Little Princess:
  • In "I Want My Treehouse", the Princess and Algernon make treehouses, but the adults keep trying to one-up one another by adding more and more furniture to the treehouses. The kids hate this, to the point where neither wants their treehouse anymore.
  • In "I Want to Be Good", the Princess makes fake snow out of torn paper and tries to decorate for Christmas. The Maid, however, sees the decorations as nothing but a mess and this (along with playing with her food and later using a makeshift sleigh indoors) gets the Princess sent to the Naughty Step.
• The Loud House:
  • In "Insta-gran", Myrtle paints the bedroom of two of her boyfriend's granddaughters, Lynn and Lucy, does their laundry, cleans away the cobwebs, and kills the spiders. The girls disapprove because Lynn deliberately kept her sports jerseys dirty for good luck, and Lucy hates pink rooms, likes the cobwebs, and was keeping the spiders as pets.
  • In "Room With A Feud", when Lola and Lucy try sharing a room, Lucy gets mad at Lola for giving her bust of Edwin (a vampire from a Show Within a Show she watches) a makeover.
    Lucy: What have you done to Edwin?
    Lola: Brought him into the 21st century. You're welcome!
    Lucy: That's my least favourite century.
  • In "No Spoilers", Lana tries to decorate for her mother Rita's birthday party with brown balloons and "balloons" made of used gum. Her siblings hate this and think that the gum "balloons" are gross and the brown balloons look like cat poop.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In "Sisterhooves Social", Sweetie Belle cleans Rarity's messy room, but all this does is piss her off, as she prefers it to be disorganized so that it can give her inspiration for her dresses.
  • Downplayed in "Castle Sweet Castle". Twilight's castle, magically created from the remnants of her former home in the Golden Oak Library after it was destroyed by Tirek, is so cold and intimidating to Twilight that she avoids spending time there at first. Her friends almost make this worse by trying to redecorate based on their own preferences rather than Twilight's, but subvert this by scrapping their plans and creating a chandelier of memories from the Golden Oak Library to make it feel more like home.
• Rugrats (1991):
  • In "The Odd Couple", Tommy is staying over at Chuckie's house and rearranges the latter's toy village so that items are at the wrong buildings, one building is taken apart, and people are hanging out of the windows. Chuckie hates this and yells at Tommy.
  • In "The Art Fair", Angelica is instructed to paint the Finster household's den. She orders Chuckie to help her, but he runs from her, and when she chases him, she knocks over the cans of paint, resulting in very colorful walls. Charlotte's impressed by this, but Chas clearly doesn't share the same opinion, as the scene cuts to the outside of the house as he screams in horror. Charlotte later tells Angelica not to take it too personally because he doesn't know what real art looks like.
  • In "Changes for Chuckie", Kira puts clothes on her two-year-old stepson Chuckie's teddy bear Wawa. However, Chuckie, due to being a Shrinking Violet who fears change, is scared of the makeover.
• The Simpsons:
  • In one episode, Marge and her son Bart play an online game together. When Marge gives Bart's character's room a Hello Kitty makeover, he gets mad (since Bart is playing a tough warrior) and starts wrecking it, but ends up killing Marge's avatar by accident.
  • In "Summer of 4'2", the friends Lisa makes while at a beach house redecorate the family car with seashells as a gift. Lisa is genuinely touched; Homer, on the other hand...
    Homer: Sweet, merciful crap! My car!
    [Next shot is the car surrounded by seagulls as they drive back home.]
• SpongeBob SquarePants, "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy": When SpongeBob and Patrick try to bring their favorite superheroes out of retirement, all they do is annoy and unintentionally harass them. What puts the final nail in the coffin, and ironically actually does bring them out of retirement, is the two paintings Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy's Invisible Boatmobile black:
  Barnacleboy: [with great frustration] AGH! GBHH...!! IT'S SUPPOSED-TA-BE-INVISABUL!!!
• Tangled: The Series: In "Rapunzel's Enemy", one of the things Rapunzel tries to win over candymaker Uncle Monty, who seems to like everyone in the kingdom except for her, is repainting his store sign with a more elaborate design. It just makes him hate her more because the original sign was painted by his great-grandfather when he first built the shop.
• True and the Rainbow Kingdom: Subverted in "Grizeldalocks and the Three Yetis". In True's parody of Goldilocks, Grizeldalocks refurbishes a family of yetis' cave by covering it in glitter and diamonds. At first, they look annoyed, but then it's revealed that they actually love the facelift their home got, unlike the original story where they were not pleased to see Goldilocks. Bartleby is quite surprised by this plot twist.
• In the Wallace & Gromit short A Matter of Loaf and Death, Gromit returns home from a delivery to discover Wallace's love interest Piella Bakewell has redecorated their house while he was away. Gromit is angry about the changes, especially after seeing his room getting the same treatment and his personal belongings thrown in the trash.

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