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

[JackSpratski]

I try so hard to keep my house nice.. but it's just, not. I don't have a hallway, just a tiny porch. No big bifold doors, no kitchen island. Walls that the plaster crumbles just by looking at it. A garage you can barely walk in as we have no storage space.

Looking at all these insta houses (the one I'm looking at at the moment is the haddon home.. they're usually working mums too.. and their houses are immaculate. I don't know how they do it.
Anyone else feel this way?

I gave that account views by having a look too! Not my style, but that’s fine - we don’t all like the same thing.

OP, social media is affecting your happiness. Step away from it. Only follow accounts that make you really happy (“good news broadcast”, friends you love to see, or similar) and put a limit on it. I have a 30 min limit a day on Instagram and mumsnet (!). I don’t have any other social media. (I could do with the limit being 15 mins to be honest!)

There have been so many studies on how social media makes us unhappy. The cliche is true: “comparison is the thief of joy”.

They sign with an agency who gets them sponsorship deals. That's why 25 of them start advertising Sky Glass TVs or Lenor in the same week. Or "I love these #Disenio prints, use code BUYMYSHIT to get 15% off".

Paint is cheap enough, just wack ten litres of battleship grey everywhere and tell your kids never to play or eat again. Slogan shit is basically free at B&M.

I have a home insta account and follow lots of others, they are very clever to show pristine corners of the home and don't show the hours of cleaning and decorating that go into the pristine corner. Mine's a reno account and will show the nice finished work but I haven't posted the awful kitchen and bathroom or office as we cant afford to do those yet. I do like the inspiration of instagram and pinterest and see it as a modern day magazine where you can choose the content of fashion/ holidays/ home decor etc to suit you.

I would agree with the others, unfollow anyone that doesn't make you feel good though.

Instagram is their job.

Personally I couldn't live in a mausoleum.

My house is held together with sellotape and blu tac. But we are all healthy and the bills get paid,

Unfollow snd start doing a gratitude diary.

PS I think the Haddon Home is horrible 🤣 to each their own, of course!

I DO love looking at interiors - I subscribe to World of Interiors which fills me with joy and inspiration, but the houses in it are SO wildly out of my sphere (like, chateaux) that I don't find it makes me jealous. I just like looking at beautiful things, and there is always inspiration there - colour combos, smart ways to use or enhance space, ideas I'd not get myself, but it's more about being a magpie and filling my mind with beautiful images. It's more like a trip to the V&A or a National Trust property. I'd recommend if you like looking at homes that won't inspire direct comparison!

Do you do Tiktok? If not I'd consider switching and binning insta. Tiktok is so much more balanced - sure there are loads of fancy lifestyle vids, but there's a big thing of 'real' homes - people doing modest improvements in normal homes, cleaning vids in average houses, people with no money sharing tips etc. I find Instagram is focused on perfection and is much less nuanced/realistic than tiktok

I might start instagramming our flat. Just to make people feel better. From where I am sitting now I can see:
A tv unit that has buckled under the strain of too many admin folders(child with EHCP). Literally sagging in the middle, bit like it's owner.

We still have 2 Christmas cards on display, and not forgetting the Halloween pumpkin who is hoping for another year in situ.

A white board with a to do list (not done)

Some random items on the table from when we decluttered the stationery drawer and useful drawer yesterday (99% of items not useful).

See also, window frame needing painting, a bit of wallpaper hanging off (cat decorator at work) and chipped skirting board needing attention.

It will all get sorted at some point, when there is money/time in the future. For now, the house is warm, cleanish (the bits that matter), and there is food in the fridge.

I have to admit that I do get hung up about anyone we don't know coming round but DH just sighs and says its a real home not a show home.

Even I have been influenced by the social media ideal...it's quite insidious isn't it?

So - count blessings and keep reminding yourself that real life is often messy and uncoordinated. Some people have a whole room they can use as a junk drawer.

Just has a look at the Haddon home,my one and only look.It is cold,no colour,soulless and dull.Makes me beyond grateful for the house I have,full of colour and life.It doesn’t have that many followers for Instagram.

The Haddon Home looks crap, a load of generic white/navy/pale grey which to me is a bit passé now. And a new build style… thanks but no thanks. When I look at the photos the smell of Zoflora and plug ins gets up my nose!

I like following some renovation ones, they show some beautiful rooms but then also show the rooms which are literal building sites - keeping it real! And the befores and afters. I like following them as they are useful for DIY ideas. Eg Claire Kennedy, her house is beautiful but she's been working on it for a year and there's still a lot to do. I literally don't have time for that!

Definitely take it with a pinch of salt, there is a pile of crap off shot somewhere

Meh, I don’t have a porch or a garage. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest that you do. But I also have no interest in looking at other people’s houses on instagram, so I don’t. If it makes you unhappy, just unfollow them.

This is why I don't do social media.

OP, when you look around your home you see it exactly as it is, in all its unfiltered glory. But then you look on SM and compare your home to carefully selected and edited snapshots of houses that have been meticulously staged down to the last detail. They're more like a film sets than homes. It's the same as looking at yourself in the mirror and then going on social media and comparing your face to pictures of women who have been airbrushed, edited and filtered within an inch of their lives. It's fantasy, not reality so of course you can't compete.

Seriously, just stop looking. Life is too short.

That house is nothing to aspire to, no character and the same as a thousand other houses on Instagram!

Why spend time on it then?

Why do you look? That’s like some form of masochistic activity. If you’re not renovating, and don’t have a budget, why spend your time making yourself feel jealous and depressed looking at what others have and you don’t? I don’t get it?

Good God that house is bland as fuck, & a carbon copy of all the other bland as fuck insta houses. I would really try to concentrate on stuff in your home that you can make little changes to, so you feel you're getting somewhere. It's really easy these days to feel down when there's so much out there shoved in our faces but the key is to focus inwards, I find. Easier said than done at times, I know, but comparison truly is the thief of joy.

Cmon. Now it’s not their job to make folks feel bad, that’s ludicrous, yes it’s to advertise,sell, promote, but they are ni more trying to make folks feel bad than Dfs is when they advertise a sofa.

Influencers lean on the pretence that they are relatable, "normal" people whose lifestyle is just within reach. All you need to do is buy an Emma mattress #ad #gifted and you can be just like them.

No, I have both a home and a life.

I lot sympathy when I saw you had a garage I wish I did!

Stop following, it's not real and no-one's life is perfect. Find joy in imperfection. I am not being dismissive when I say many people have it much much worse and struggle everyday. Enjoy your precious life.

Why on earth would someone feel the need to ‘be kind’ to a total stranger who is putting their house on social media for profit, any more than you’d be kind about a garment you don’t like in an ad?

I agree it’s a standard-issue newbuild people-box decorated by someone with no imagination and a lot of time on her hands.

I know someone who’s stepmum has a perfect house that she has an Instagram account for.
It is largely as seen in the account, but it involves a lot of slinging everything out of one room to create the look for the picture of the day. It’s also entirely lacking in character - no books or art, just pleasant modern clean lined things and a few banal bits of writing in picture frames.

For most of these influencers it is literally their job to have their home looking nice (even if they have another job as well, by the time they get to having sufficient followers as the ones you're looking at it's a very significant second income).

So of course their homes are going to be nicer than the average. Same with fashion or cooking influencers - if you've got not only a strong interest in a particular area AND a large financial incentive then of course your house/clothes/make up/meals are going to be nicer than the average.

It's as ridiculous to compare yourself to them as to a Cardiology Surgeon and wondering 'why are they so much better at heart surgery than me, my attempts at heart surgery are rubbish!' Or a professional ballet dancer, etc.

Also as others have said you never see the whole house at one time! Pretty much anyone could make 1 single room look really good for the five minutes needed to do a video!