To think a lot of homes are “soulless” and all people care about is size?

Different people have different tastes, but I really dislike the trend of downstairs being all open plan.
I know it seems to be the default layout for new builds, but I bought a fixer upper a few years ago, so follow a lot of people who have done similar on social media, and it’s so common to knock everything through downstairs. To me it looks so soulless. I can get on board with a kitchen/diner, but when you get the lounge involved, I think it looks terrible. The thought of sitting in a big cavernous room instead of a cosy lounge is so unnatural to me, plus the fact it means that everyone is involved in everything, all the time.

So it’s not really about bits and pieces picked up from different travels that tell a story or evoke a fond memory? It has to be the right kind of souvenir 🙄

It so does

I agree, Emily Norris renovation looks soulless

@Lifeischaos12 that sounds AWESOME

I live in a large new build house that would give the OP a conniption fit. Every single wall is white and all the floors are shades of grey. The kitchen is grey, as are all the bathrooms. The garden is basically entirely lawn with a teeny tiny patio.

Thing is, we can't repaint the walls until the house has dried out properly and we moved at the beginning of the summer so it's the wrong time of year to be doing massive garden works, even if I had any money left for them.

Sometimes you just have to live with the soulless box look until you've worked out what exactly you want, how the light works through the seasons, and have the funds to change the stuff you dont like.

But pas de panique, I have lots of stuff in my house. I know this because every fucking removal firm that came to quote us for the move told me.

My house is literally no one’s cup of teas other than ours and our kids. 🤣

we have a marvel kitchen, cinema hall way, beauty and the beast reception room with bookcases , music themed living room
3 bathrooms are - ( adults - just multicoloured themed with toilet seats on the walls as frames etc )
younger children’s bathroom - tv themed ( bluey etc ) older children’s bathroom is “ salon “ themed.

bedrooms - 1. Japanese themed 2. Space themed 3. Safari themed 4. Pretty bland but comfy ( mine )

then we have playroom which is hand decorated by them and is update regularly by them 🤣🤣

stiff wise we have declutter so we don’t lots and lots of stuff.

our house is ours and people would judge it but it’s well loved and lived in.

We have a large sandstone, it's full of character

What a silly comment.

Any home can be decorated however the owner wants.
If you need a house to accommodate children and have room for an office why on earth would you choose a small house?

You can decorate a large home however you want though 🤷🏻‍♀️.

When I was searching for a new home, we were looking for a large home due to requirements, children, home office etc, and I agree with you. The big homes lacked personality in terms of decor, and I was more drawn to smaller homes.

What country are you in? What you describe sounds more like Selling Sunset than the UK.

The people I was referring to AIM for bland, good for them, but they look down on anyone who doesn’t conform- those wacky types with their dirty trinkets, filthy plants and colour everywhere.

The only posters looking down on other people's tastes on this thread are the ones who think that they need to cram their homes with all sorts of clutter "to reflect their personality"

My home sounds pretty much like yours @Newusername3kidss

I am sat in my light and airy, reasonably spacious, neat and tidy living room. I can count 16 pot plants, 10 photos, 4 pictures, hundreds of CDs and DVDs and books on the shelves as well as the usual furniture. A show house it is not. A family home it is.

My walls are a pale pastel colour.

Is a reaction to the judgers ironic? Oh well. I think it’s far worse to assume non-minimalist homes are “full of shit, tat and anxiety inducing clutter” and dirty. The people I was referring to AIM for bland, good for them, but they look down on anyone who doesn’t conform- those wacky types with their dirty trinkets, filthy plants and colour everywhere.

Me either. I have a personality for that! My house is finished and decorated in a way that suits me and my family, it’s not a display of how interesting we are for other people’s benefit.

I’m definitely onboard with sensory overload. I don’t feel the need to display how ‘interesting’ I am.

Our room has lots of personal items but not clutter which honestly sounds like what you are talking about. Would hate a house full of clutter. At the end of the day absolutely everything is tidied away and has a place. We have lots of photos on the wall / kids artwork etc and soft furnishing but no crap

Grey everything, black bathroom fittings, astroturf gardens without a flower in sight, fake houseplants, fake FRUIT, candles that never get lit, no books. A local interior designer apparently makes a living from this. Despair.

I hate colour and clutter, it would drive me nuts

My home is decorated in muted tones as I find that calming

Oh the irony 😂

I know exactly what you mean OP. The people I know IRL with clinical houses like that are very judgy about houses with personality. It’s seen as WEIRD which is absolutely the worst thing anyone can be. They don’t have stuff anywhere just cream walls, kitchen, sofas (or grey if they’re pushing the boat out), bland furniture, always a massive telly, kids aren’t allowed to make mess (play), no plants as they’re dirty, no pets same reason and boring as hell gardens.
I find it’s always nice to watch old episodes of Come Dine With Me to see what normal houses looked like before Instagram ;)

I’m wondering whether there’s a correlation between the most ‘housework-focused’ Mners (the ones who squeegee the shower stall while showering

I’m not really sure there is a direct correlation between joy and low standards. Joy filled is not about how you decorate your house. I mean you basically write life’s to short to dust as I’m making memories. 🙄

For the online ones I was mainly thinking of staged homes for sale. I don’t see many other homes online.

I've just spent a couple of weeks at my parents' place. It's bloody fabulous. Historic house, original doors and windows lovingly restored by my dad, giant antique fire surround, paintings and ceramics by my mum's artist friends, antique furniture, old light fittings, interesting objects picked up in flea markets all over the world, lots of family photos, crafts made by grandchildren, paintings and wall hangings from my late grandparents' house. There's a frigging glass-ceiling atrium with a babbling fountain (that they designed themselves) in the middle of their house. Potted plants absolutely everywhere.

(I fear I've made them sound like lord and lady of the manor. They're not. They're an adventurous, bohemian middle-class couple who bought a derelict mansion in a cheap rural part of a cheap country for a song ages ago and lovingly fixed it up themselves over several decades, pouring all their money and time into it in dribs and drabs.)

However (and this is kind of the opposite of the OP's argument), it's so spacious that it can absorb incredible amounts of stuff without seeming cluttered. The overall feel is still one of light and space and calm. I, on the other hand, live in a modestly sized flat. If I tried to hang one of my parents' smaller paintings in my living room, it would immediately become the focus of the whole room. A small fraction of their stuff would make my place feel unbearably cluttered. Clutter makes me feel anxious and overwhelmed. I also don't have an eye for interior design, or the time or inclination to prioritise it. Nor do I want to live in the middle of nowhere (where I could afford that kind of space). My home feels very characterless by comparison, but it suits me at this point in my life.