Looking at "insta worthy" homes gets me down..

I like Instagram (follow loads of home accounts) and sometimes feel like this too. Each to their own, I've just had a look at that account and it's not my thing at all. I'm much more interested in people who can create a beautiful home on bugger all budget/time - really creative design solutions etc float my boat more than everything looking the same as the next account. For me that's more inspiring as I can relate to them, but clearly those identikit accounts have tons of followers, so good luck to them.

I do stop myself looking sometimes when I start to feel pissed off with my house being unfinished and messy despite all my efforts. It doesn't take much for comparison to stop being inspiring and start being depressing. There's always someone with "more" than us, however we define "more", and always plenty with "less". I have to make a concerted effort to focus on the positives and keep it as inspiration rather than a stick to beat myself over the head with, but I definitely know what you mean.

Comparison is the thief of joy, OP.

Honestly, I find between juggling work, kids, pets etc it's impossible to keep a house 'insta-worthy'. Not to mention the fact that it often takes a lot of disposable income to upgrade a house. I'm still living with the previous owners wallpaper and carpets. I could let myself get really down about it or shrug it off and remind myself I'm able to feed my family and keep them safe and warm, so I'm doing a lot better than many people....

That garden is awful.

Alot of these instagram home accounts have a lot of their stuff paid for by brands so they dont actually spend their own money, and you following them and clicking on links gives them more interaction so they take that to these brands who pay them to advertise or send products which continue the lifestyle. Its an ugly cycle

don’t follow any account that makes you feel bad about your life. There is also someone out there who will be wishing for exactly what you have OP.

I don't have Instagram but I thought everyone knew that these carefully curated homes were all part of the influences job. Keeping an immaculate home is literally how they earn money. I bet the videos have loads of links to their Amazon store or similar.

If you don't see houses like that in real life it's because they don't exist in real life.

Stop looking at these particular accounts. There are plenty of influencers showing a more realistic picture of their homes and lives, they will also be making money but won't cause you to feel bad about what you have.

Social media influencer is a job just like your paid employment is, if you were rubbish at your job you would get the sack and lose your income, they may not get the sack because they are self employed but they would lose their income if they don't deliver popular content.

Actually your judgement is what’s grim.

Insta is not something I usually bother with but I've just looked at the Haddon Home - it's horrible. All that dreary grey and no signs of actually having a personality. Or a life. No signs of any fun at all.

When was the last time she made jam, or had the family round for a roast? Where are the mucky trainers her ds has dumped when he came in from running or the half bottle of red wine from last night? Does she allow anyone to sit on those cushions or are you just supposed to admire them? When was the last time she sent her dcs to PGL, and had a week of eating cheese, bread & olives while binging on box sets?

Grim. Just grim

Dont look. Its usually bollocks.

No, I don't feel like that. I'm not keen on bifold doors or kitchen islands.

My kitchen has old style french windows and no island, just glorious space to move about in. I hate feeling cramped.

At the moment, it's a mess because I'm making jam. Later today it will be tidy but not Instagrammable. It's my home, not a showroom. The cupboard doors have faded in the sun. Maybe I'll get around to having them painted at some point, but it doesn't stop it being a comfortable welcoming working kitchen, full of light and designed to suit our household.

Why worry about what others think?

I’d rather have my own home, even with crap everywhere and crumbling plaster, than renting at £1375 pm and paying my landlord’s mortgage.

What you have sounds like a dream that is out of reach to me.

Appreciate what you have.

She looks like she’s moved into the furniture display at the nearest Next

It’s not real life though. Enjoy your mess one day the mess (and the kids) will be off making mess in their own homes and yours will be tidy and clean but you’ll be wondering if you’ve gone deaf it’s so quiet

My instagram search feed is 70% images of Harry Styles 😂- and I don't even follow those accounts!!

I don't know how and I pressume the algorithm decided he's the one for me. The more you look the more they send. I'm in some kind of Harry Styles rabbit hole.

I've got no complaints to be honest.

Try manipulating your algorithms to see if you can get more of Harry Style's smile in your life... but don't go comparing him to you real life partner whatever you do.

as everyone else says, turn off instagram.
i love interiors and stopped looking - when I was younger one or two books were really inspirational and I learnt a lot.. now I can scroll forever. Depressing! Mind numbing! Why bother! No sense of achievement because you don’t have to work it out for yourself.
chuck everything of any individuality, paint everything grey and start an insta page. Dye your hair blonde and film yourself sweeping an immaculate kitchen 🙄 you too might get a free mattress to crack eggs onto.
like a previous p, a friend takes pics of herself on the one sunny day, with big sunglasses in a thin dress on the freezing beach, pretends she’s in California or some such. it. is. staged. And boring af.
as pp says get some nice bits that you like and chill. After taking pictures of yourself shopping, unwrapping, arranging the things. Similarly as baileybros above says,murder partner, don’t forget to take pics!

I honestly think the best way out of a funk about your own house is to improve it in small inexpensive ways. Ruthlessly declutter. Rearrange your furniture, fix the little niggly faults that annoy you but don't cost loads of money to repair. This is what I did with my house - it's still a work in progress and it still needs some quite spendy things doing to it, but I've painted walls and put up fairy lights and bought some nice pictures and slowly working my way through the little bits of DIY that I can do.
It honestly does make you feel much better about all those perfect instagram houses, when you give attention to the little things you can do at home, which massively improves your space.

Re the 'be kind stuff - if people are earning money from their instagram accounts, they are inviting comment, positive and negative. It's okay to not like what they've done, everyone's taste is different.

Don't look at them then.

Remember what you see online is at best momentary, and often fake.

Just look at that 'perfect' couple... you know, the Influencers... where he's just killed her...

Clear the clutter, put nice cushions and throws, cook a home meal and if you enjoy sitting on your sofa and reading, decorate the space opposite the sofa with what will make you really happy , preferably things / images/ objects reflecting your positive life philosophy.

It must be a bit sad looking at the dead objects someone arranged and photoshopped and plastered on a website and making internal fuss about that

Why look if it not bringing you pleasure?

The haddon one is annoying

Her written English is abysmal

Her garden is made out of plastic

😳

This is such a cliché which I think people tell themselves to feel better about their own scruffy houses. I think a majority of people who have money will in the main, have a beautiful home, not a scruffy run down one, they can afford to clean, maintain, decorate and furnish their homes to a high standard. The people you are referring to are probably ‘old money’ where invariably the family money has run out through the generations and they now cannot afford to maintain the crumbling pile they have inherited.

No. I don’t because it’s not “real” IYSWIM. Its content to be sold, to make us buy into a lifestyle of wanting more instead of being appreciative of what you have. I’ve bought into it historically but I truly believe that having my privacy, taking pleasure in the little things in life and not having to flog an aspirational lifestyle that ultimately means nothing is far nicer than having a big house with a fancy kitchen etc. I do enjoy seeing folks renovate homes etc but I never want it for myself! And I’m lucky enough to have a good salary where I could have a big house with a big mortgage to boot! But I live in a flat-no garden and that’s good enough for me!

As people are saying it for inspiration and as you’ve similar tastes , like the persons style.and are the target market for the sort of thing they are promoting,

the issue comes in if you start following homes that you want but can’t afford, or can’t afford the stuff in them, when you’re not the demographic,

I looked at rhe influencer the ops envies. It’s not my thing, I live in the opposite to a new build, a very old period property , so I follow folks like Beth aspinall on oak home interiors, and others like her. I love her taste and she gives me ideas.

pther people won’t like it and will follow others where the taste aligns to theirs.

What @Janetime said. It's for inspiration. When we built our extension I got great ideas about what I wanted from instagram

Honestly, as others have said, just don't look.
Hankering for property and possessions you'll never be able to have will just ensure misery for you.
Be grateful that you have a roof over your head, even if it isn't perfect. Many people in temporary accommodation and hostels would give their right arm to have a property call their own
Also many articles on Instagram are made up - it's not a reflection of real life.

I genuinely don’t know why people would follow random people and look at their homes. I don’t do that kind of social media, but I can kind of understand following a popstar or actor that you like. I don’t understand why you would follow how some random person does their house, unless perhaps you were in the middle of a refurbishment and needed specific inspiration?