We recently refurbed the entire interior of our house just prior to arrival of DC. 2 visitors arrived round and although it clearly isn't to their taste as it's very IKEA (all we could afford and we were starting from absolute scratch, not owning a single item of furniture beforehand) - instead of saying "mmm, you've done a lot to it" or even NOTHING, began to tell me that I had created a bland interior. They even took it upon themselves to criticise the fact we haven't integrated our washing machine and that you can see our bin from the hallway... if I could have afforded a blinking £900 integrated washing machine, I would have done it!
I was almost 9mo pregnant at that point and just about held my tongue as they are from the generation above DH and I.
Would anyone else dream of going into someone's house (who you don't know all that well and have met about 6 times) and making comments like that? Or should I not expect people to have any manners at all? FWIW, I can't stand the decor in their houses, but always try to say something nice if I notice a new (mirrored / clear plastic with shells embedded in...) loo seat or something, whether I mean it or not, as clearly it's something they like.
I don't really give two hoots what they think about my house, so it's not the criticism that irks me, it's what I perceive to be plain old bad manners...