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

[Spicegirl1234]

I love homes that are full of personality, stuff picked up around the world in trips, fleamarket finds, family objects, homes that are not perfect but keep your eyes “busy” when looking and fully reflect the life of people that live within them and make you feel warm when you go in.
I very rarely come across such homes, the majority of the ones I see (in RL and online) tend to be very boring with no personality whatsoever and people mainly seem to be focussed on buying the biggest possible places with their money and then upgrading/extending etc rather than enjoying what they have and make it “theirs”.
Does anyone else feel this way about home decor?

That's a very narrow view

Its no more "narrow" than assuming if you dont have lots of items from abroad in your home then its impersonal and "boring".

I dislike 'stuff' but neither do I look at homes on instagram. I don't feel the need to broadcast my personality through my home either. It's where we relax, and our nearest and dearest know our personalities ( currently my personality is abject rage thanks to menopause ( and/or annoying people 😎)

The space thing I can get behind having brought up our family in a house that was a bit too small for us.

It’s also a very ‘narrow view’ that people can a) afford to holiday abroad, b) spend that holiday perusing antique stores and flea markets (I spend mine trying to stop my autistic child from injuring himself, mainly), c) afford to buy furniture there and c) afford to ship it home.
Most of my furniture of from IKEA. Is it what I prefer? No. But my autistic child habitually ruins/breaks things and if it’s from IKEA it
doesn’t matter too much. Do I value space over antiques? With 3 young children, one disabled who needs a lot of his own space, absolutely.
On the other hand, I can’t bring myself to care how others choose to furnish their houses.

What part of the OP was polite?

The part where they called other people's homes (including presumably their own family members' and friends'), as soulless? Or when they suggested most people's homes lacked warmth and personality? Or referring to everyone apart from them as materialistic snobs without taste who only care about how big their houses are.

If that's reasonable and polite I wouldn't want to hear your idea of rude?

A reasonable and polite would have been 'What sort of decor does everyone like, personally I'm a big fan of....'
Not 'I like this style and everyone who disagrees is soulless, materialistic and boring.'

Which is not only rude but (for someone so apparently creative and individual) shows an embarrassing lack of critical or imaginative thinking - perhaps lots of people have comparatively minimalistic homes not just because they like them (which in itself is perfectly fine and says nothing about their personality), but because they can't afford lots of overpriced shitty little trinkets which just because they've been marked up in flea markets doesn't mean they weren't themselves mass produced in their country of origin, or move a lot so aren't able to transfer full houses of crap to each new country, or have recently escaped domestic violence, or who grew up in a hoarder's house and have now deliberately gone the other way for their mental health....

So just because I said I enjoy buying local crafts on holiday people are now assuming it's all I do when I travel and don't spend time with my family because I am too busy doing that? LOL

Well not they think you also buy artesan items. You little inferior design guru you. 😄

i looked at Pinterest the other day as I was thinking of painting my living room a certain colour and I wanted to see how it looked on other peoples rooms. Some people are clearly into their accessorising, working out what works with what etc. Thats all very well, but a lot of us work full time and have kids, and so as long as there is no ingrained weetabix on the dining table, dead mice that the cat brought in lingering anywhere or trip hazards on the floor that’s a win. We can live with that. Our houses aren’t boring or soulless, they are joy-filled.

Haha yes, so true!

I work FT and have kids. Most people I know do. It doesn’t necessarily mean your aesthetic standards for where you live to come down to ‘Is there ingrained Weetabix or a dead mouse?’ I mean, there’s a lot of ground between ‘chateau de Versailles on a particularly froufrou day’ and ‘Who cares, as long as there are no trip hazards?’

I said upthread OP would like our house and it's true that it it's got things in it that tell a story of our lives and interests. Not really our travels because we didn't bring stuff back, but stuff we like.
But the key is that our home isn't about what we want to show somebody else, it's about what we enjoy living in and with, what we feel we need, what we can do without. Our house has nothing in it that is there to show somebody else our lives. Everything in it is for US. Because we are the ones living there. And from everything I have read on this thread, everyone, from the minimalist to the maximalist has a home that they need to work for them. Not the eyes of the visitors, busy or otherwise.

So if our second hand but not antique brown furniture, etc, wouldn't please somebody who likes IKEA stuff, it doesn't matter. They don't live here. If I don't like somebody else's grey walls etc, so what? I don't live there.
The only mistake you can make in home design/decor is to design your home with somebody other than those who live there in mind. If it doesn't work for you, there's no point.
Our homes aren't about telling someone else who we are. They are about doing the best we can with what we have available in finance and time to have a space that suits our needs and wants.

Another factor with home decor is that many people rent, and don’t have the same security of tenure as ownership. Some rental contracts don’t allow as much as a picture hook in the wall without the landlord’s permission. I think that’s a pity really.

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.

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

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. 🙄

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

@VosgesViper I am guilty of squeegeeing the shower door in our new bathroom after I have had a shower. However, I don't live in a greige, soulless house.

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 ;)

Oh the irony 😂

I hate colour and clutter, it would drive me nuts

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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