To ask your interior design pet hates?

[Lotsofsausage]

Am I a horrible snob?
Here are mine:
Bowls of pebbles on coffee table (why?)
Black and diamanté furniture
Photos printed onto canvas (CRAP quality just get a good photographic print and frame it!)
Those shiny duvet sets and cushions
Fire surround but no fire place (not) even a hole in the wall!

Having been house hunting for ages my biggest pet hate is houses that look like show homes instead of a home.
Give me a house with three hundred dollies in it and nick nacks everywhere rather than a plain magnolia box with tasteful abstract pictures of flowers. At least I know the person with the nick nacks loves something.

ExPresidents

It's bollocks to say if you like books and reading you cannot possibly colour code your books.

If you have a lot of books it would be very silly indeed. If you only have one bookcase, though, I suppose it is possible. Still ludicrous, though.

Painted furniture - they do it all the time on that BBC2 interior design show. They get a beautiful oak piece of furniture and they then paint it white, sometimes they even make it look "distressed".. It makes me want to vomit.

Having a mix of furniture styles is eclectic.

Some rattan, some old, some painted. Love that look.

Oh I will defend colour coding books. It's brilliant for my toddler she's started finding and reading (well asking me to read) different books since I did it

When we did our house up we ripped up and chucked out all the old parquet flooring and replaced it with nice oak effect laminate.

I'm all for having what you like in your own home but Jesus Christ on a fucking bike, that's horrific.

H.O.R.R.I.F.IC

'nice oak effect laminate.

The four most appalling words on this thread.

I think we're looking the other way on that one River

Did someone upthread just compare Buddha to Hitler??????

I saw that too - hilarious.

Parquet is lovely! Especially if it's old. Criminal.

This band has the word in their name which makes me love them even more.

I have so many pet peeves that I could fill 500 pages (judgmental bitch here ) - but really my main one is decor devoid of personality. It's just so sad and empty! Magnolia walls, beige carpets, pale marble countertops, bland shit-coloured wood... - particularly when they've spent a fortune on it.

Oh - and also having white/cream carpets and asking people to take their shoes off as they come through the door. Totally get it if it's cultural - but otherwise it's just plain RUDE!

Ha I love this thread.

I hate massively disproportionate TVs, I'm all for a big one but it's a living room not a pub.

Leather sofas, clutter, posed photos (like the ones you can get at Venture that include the whole family) and too bright lights.

I actually get the parquet flooring dilemma. That sort of flooring reminds me of boarding schools.

I take it back.
Ripping up parquet to be replaced with laminate is criminal
I have no problem with laminate (have it myself) but why would you take up something amazing and replace it with something so much inferior???

Surely people don't choose to buy a house based on its decor and the current owners furniture.
The furniture will be going with them and wall colour/paper is easy and cheap to change.
I have moved several times and the only thing I looked at as room size, aspect, the area and houses around it as you can't change those.

Posed family photos, especially those Venture style ones, that are 'relaxed' and 'fun'

At last I have found my people. I fucking hate those photos. SIL got one done and it's actually kind of awesome because she managed to get BIL and DN1 to read the script and smile lovingly at the camera, but DN2 was too little and has this "what fresh hell is this" look on her face. They still put it up in the front room though.

Aside from those photos, I really hate Willow Tree figurines, wine glasses in a display cabinet in the dining room/living room, and uncomfortable furniture. MIL and FIL have a lot of design furniture from the 60s, I always come away with a sore back!

"It's bollocks to say if you like books and reading you cannot possibly colour code your books."

Of course, you CAN colour code them, but you'll never actually find anything that you want ever again.

Those who love reading will have a number of books that runs into the thousands, possibly tens of thousands. Try finding that particular volume you need when you can't remember the spine colour in that.

We have a lot of books and recently redid the house including a room which is effectively a library - bookshelves either side of a fireplace and over and to the sides of a window seat. Not only did I colour code the many books in blocks of colour, I also have a new rule that we are only allowed to buy books of seven inches or less until the narrow shelf over the window is completely full then normal book buying can resume.

I colour coded the cook books in my kitchen too.

I.have sympathy with anyone who isn't keen on parquet. When we moved into ours aeons ago there was dark parquet in the hall and it NEVER looked nice unless it had just been polished. And that's polished as in wax polish and elbow grease.

It's long been carpeted over and when the carpet finally goes - in the not too distant since moths have been at it - it's likely to be covered with rather lighter wood.

I have a black leather sofa
Grey laminate throughout
A brand new glossy dining set
All white walls throughout
No clutter
My aunts nao ballerinas on display

Looks fab. Just love it.

My bathroom is all white with black accessories
Kitchen same
Bedroolm almost the same
Hall...similar
Lounge similar apart from red rug

It's an oasis of peace and calm and it's staying that way.

This thread gives me the fear! We've just bought a pretty big new house and have a lot of decorating to do. We've moved around a lot in rented accommodation (8 counties and three counties in the 8 years we've been together) so haven't really accumulated anything we love yet (everything was just bought to be practical). Every idea I've had has been slated on here!

Chalk paint. Yuk.

'Every idea I've had has been slated on here!'

Just pick what you like*

*aside from replacing real word floor with laminate, and Family Rules decals.

Scrum you forgot TAXIDERMY.

Just stay away from dead animals and you'll be fine.