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!

Yes, Basket, that was a massive trend for a while wasn't it? Papier maché big game heads, and five years ago you couldn't move for deer antler motifs on everything!

When my brother was little he'd collect sheep skulls from the beach and store them in a box in his room. So far he hasn't shown any serial killer tendencies......but maybe he's just really good at covering his tracks!

cheap whitewashed shabby chic ornaments. The really pointless ones like graduated hanging hearts on a string. Even tackier if they have nonsense words on them like 'Live. Laugh. Love'
Block ornamental words like 'Relax'. (the only place for those is in places like a spa or a beauty salon)
And finally, 'inspirational' wall decal/canvas/tired wood etc quotes. I find these slightly irritating. As if you'd find yourself in a crisis and the first thing you think is 'bloody hell, that was a hard period of my life after the goldfish drowned. That quote I saw in Barbaras Kitchen really inspired me to keep on keeping on. It really tapped into my thoughts where friends support didn't quite reach.

those big paintings of cow heads close up, sometimes at a peculiar angle. Usually, but not always a highland cattle.

Especially multicoloured cowheads such as these

I can't talk though as I have fitted polyster carpets and UPVC windows and the arses of my pots on show.

My mum and DH, both from s. Europe think carpets are disgusting. I am almost brainwashed into agreeing. They reckon wall to wall carpets are a yucky British thing. Is this true? I just thought it was them both being awkward.

I laughed much too hard at "love like a fucking idiot". :o Maybe I'll get something that says that.

I have brown leather sofas and I love them. I'm painting my littlest kids' room gray in a few weeks.

I would IMAGINE I have an American style fridge.

I also like the toaster, and colourful appliances in general. I'd love a smeg fridge! I like metro tiles, too. And grey, it can be so cosy. I'd also keep my fabric Ikea sofa over an expensive leather one.

I even have a soft spot for a nautical theme, my grandmother lived in a seaside town and we would go to visit but stay down the road as she couldn't deal with all of us descending. Every single guesthouse, B and B, hotel - lighthouses were mandatory! I have some wooden boats that remind me of that and I don't care who knows!

I'd love to know how you lot do decorate your homes - anybody willing to tell? WHAT THEMES ARE OK? So much easier to criticise than to stick your head above the parapet, innit?

Mostly white but with a dark and dramatic navy sitting room which I love. Loads and loads of art on the walls (I think this is what brings my home to life), some original stuff, some cheap prints. Floorboards with rugs (carpets in bedrooms), some ornaments and 'stuff' that I've gathered over the years. A mix of furniture, some clichéd mid century modern stuff, Edwardian screen, two lovely Georgian chests of drawers that I inherited. A bland bathroom, as we're probably selling in a couple of years. Huge mirror over the mantelpiece that I fell in love with because most of the mercury had more or less peeled off.

I'm certainly partial to a trend and don't think of myself at being at the vanguard of interior design!

Oh AND I have a big clock on the living room wall above two massive framed photos of my children :o

We used to have three papier-mâché triceratops heads the DC made. I liked them, they died after a jousting rutting session.

I don't mind a nautical vibe either, especially if you're in a little fishing village, or Nantucket or wherever. It can feel very fresh and inviting.

I would happily have a full triceratops, or zebra, or badger. And wouldn't mind it if it was a mask, it's the connection to the severed head of something you've shot on safari I don't like.

They reckon wall to wall carpets are a yucky British thing. Is this true?

Yes

Not a fan of the bright yellow toaster but I did see a lovely copper coloured one in Wilko yesterday - is that naff?

I think that as long as your room doesn't look like the "after" on Changing Rooms (aka a tart's boudoir) you'll be fine.

People don't REALLY alphabetize their books, do they?!

People don't REALLY alphabetize their books, do they?
if we didn't we would need an index to find what we need?

I think lots of people are into their interiors. And that's fine. My sister lives in a small house and redecorates the whole place once per year. She gets tired of the look and wants something new. She likes the whole process of finding new things, working out how to put them together and getting the project done.

We have moved a lot and have never had time to redo an entire house. So we end up with stuff that other people have put in and you can feel free to criticise because the previous owners are long gone. There is no emotional connection to other people's tastes or things.

That is what we are seeing on this thread. The juxtaposition between people saying that they hate things that other people have done but they love the stuff (often very similar stuff) that they have done.

The difference between naff and cool is ownership.

What's weird about alphabetising books? What about when you NEED to read one particular book and the agony of not being able to find it? Admittedly my topic based cataloguing system does override pure author alphabetising, but what's the alternative? Anarchy??

I do have a friend who only allows sets of books on her shelves and groups by publisher so they look similar. Wish it looked awful but it's amazing.

@CheerfulYank, I'm genuinely puzzled... of course I alphabetise my books. Otherwise they would be in the wrong order, and that would be All Wrong.

But then, I nodded along up thread when @nina2b said "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." because we have rules like that in our house at certain times.

The only decor thing I can't stand is ornamental verbs, inspirational stickers, and sentimental cross stitch. Not awfully keen on family portraits
where the background is white and everyone is in matching jeans, white t-shirts and bare feet, but DH has a family portrait just like that which he thinks is lovely (and all his siblings have a copy lovingly displayed in their living rooms), so we've had to agree to disagree and hide it in the spare room.

I also have a friend whose entire living room is bedecked in Union Jacks - cushions, rug, little flags on the fireplace etc. I find it a bit much.

Other than that, there are things that aren't to my taste, but nothing else I really loathe.

I don't. Mine are arranged by a vague instinct-based system which means that a book is usually in the most convenient place when I want them. So I keeps books that I like to read when I'm sad, ill or tired near my bed. Books requiring concentration but not actual study go near the sofa. Reference books go near my computer. Books requiring actual study go near the dining room table. Big nineteenth century novels go by the comfy chair, as do magazines and crosswords and books about music because the comfy chair is near to the stereo and the music stand.

I think that as long as your room doesn't look like the "after" on Changing Rooms (aka a tart's boudoir) you'll be fine.

Moroccan tart's boudoir! They were obsessed with bringing a touch of Morocco to Slough, Stevenage, and Swansea.

Ha, this thread is hilarious.

I am guilty of:

• Grey walls (only in the office, v pale, quite relaxing as a colour when you are grappling with horrible financial stuff).
• Fairy lights (purple ones, in the hall, that switch on at dusk and off at midnight)
• metro tiles (dark yellow, in kitchen, quite cheerful on a dull morning)

I organise my books more or less by size (with a few exceptions to keep authors together). I quite like the idea of organising by colour, though. I always know what colour the cover of a book I want to read is. Though admittedly the spines are sometimes a different colour. Hmmm.

Keep, not keeps.

The thing I hate more than anything else (and I really fucking loathe the inspirational words and gloss kitchens and travertine tiles) is shiny hard horrible leather sofas. That's not what a sofa is for. They are meant to be comfortable to sit on!