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?

It’s just a different aesthetic to what you like 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don’t really get it, people like different things to you.

@DeeDeesfabulouswardrobe I just think it follows a trend and lacks personality. What is wrong with debating and wanting to express an opinion? people seem to get really offended about this topic, I don't get it. Would you feel the same if I said I didn't like a certain fashion item and didn't understand the hype of it?

But why can't the sterile grey space be an indicator of a personality? Someone who likes their space to be trendy and uncluttered lives in that place, they don't have the time or inclination to rummage around flea markets or up cycle furniture or agonise over the story of their life being told by old tea cups they found in a charity shop, Next/Dunelm are much easier to get along with and anyway they have as much right to be the way they are as anyone surely?
The house you linked would irritate me to visit and stress me out to spend any amount of time there. Carefully curated crap everywhere, patterns an eyesore, hate the colours etc.
Luckily for me I get to live in my house my way (which isn't grey, I don't like grey either, but I will defend the right to freedom of paint) 😊

Well yes, if you came on here and said you can’t understand why someone wants to wear a flowery dress because you hate flowery dresses I would think the same, I may even agree with you that I personally don’t like flowery frocks but I can understand that other people do.

No, most people don't dust every day. But most people don't have books on every square inch of their house.
Both examples you've posted are big fancy houses. I'd be interested to see an example of an aesthetic you like in an average sized house, because most people don't actually have big fancy houses do they?. Why isn't neutral minimalism a personal aesthetic? Why is a posh house full of expensive clutter the marker of "personality"?

Peoples perceptions and tastes are wildly different when it comes to decor.
Personally, I love mid century modern / industrial / art deco living spaces and as sparse and uncluttered as possible, some would say sterile austere and boring. I would say clean streamlined and relaxing.

Others prefer ornament, pattern, decoration, frills, "memories" "mementos" "feature walls" "floral prints" and I see it as cluttered, overly busy, frou frou and claustrophobic.

The house in the video could do with a nuking from Marie Kondo imo. Not for me at all.

Why do you continue to pursue the narative that anyone who doesn't like to clutter their houses up with "stuff" lives in a characterless grey, soulless box?

As @DeeDeesfabulouswardrobe has pointed out it isn't either or you know.

The video you posted has too much clutter in it. My house is not a grey characterless box. I have photos, plants, pictures, books, CDs and DVDs, but they are not piled haphazardly they way they are in the video. I can put things on my coffee table and there is nothing on the floor that shouldn't be there.

Also, many people have no idea about interior design. I don't. They probably have neither the time, the inclination nor the money to imprint their "personality" on their homes

I thought 'personality' happened in a home because you live there. If you deliberately placed things to 'show' your personality, is that really you? My house just happened because we were in it. There's records and CDs in it because H likes music. There's books because I like books. Not because it's a design aesthetic. I read a lot, he listens to music, and Kindles and Spotify didn't exist when we were younger, so we have the physical things. I like rereading books, he likes listening to vinyl. I don't get why people would have those things just for show, or leave them strewn about. Ours are on their proper shelves.
I will say, we moved recently from a furnished rental and I was shocked at how much even IKEA furniture costs. Fortunately, we have a house with dark wood in it, so we took full advantage of the fact that people don't like old brown furniture to get second hand stuff that won't fall to bits. £30 for a wooden extendable dining table and four chairs! Nest of tables a tenner. Dark wood Welsh dresser, forty quid. Large chest of drawers for bedroom, £60. And the list goes on. To get all matching new would have been thousands. I couldn't believe how much a new bedside table that was made of MDF and looked it cost in the bedroom furniture shop.

@ObelixtheGaul but what you are describing is exactly what I mean, your house reflects you! Also, I would choose charity shop furniture anyday rather than ikea, it’s the point I was trying to make really. You are not just following a grey trend.

No, he can't have 1 room full of all his stuff. We don't have any spare rooms in our house, we live in a tiny little cottage.
I don't care if you think it's sad!
I spent over 10 years living surrounded by all of his collections of artefacts, wall hangings and swathes of Asian fabrics. Ornaments on every surface. Wooden carvings hanging on the walls. Fabrics thrown over the sofa and on the bed. Statues on shelves. Huge great wooden cravings on the floors. All his worldwide collections literally everywhere. All of it was bought whilst we were in those countries together. And on every single occasion that he bought those things from markets, street stalls and shops, I said "I don't really like that". I pointed out things that I did like, and he point blank refused to compromise and stuck to buying all this stuff that only he liked. Other times I said "John, you're buying so much stuff from all these countries, every country we go to you buy all these things, where on earth are we going to put them all when we get home?!?". It was a genuine question every time I asked him.
So when he did fill our home, OUR home, not HIS home, with all his stuff, it made me feel claustrophobic. I kept telling him none of it was my taste. I kept asking if we could compromise and maybe keep some bits out but perhaps put some things in storage? So that maybe I could enjoy my living environment too, by making it less cluttered and less full of things I don't like? Nope. He wouldn't entertain the idea and would start arguing and shouting at me. Saying I had no taste. Saying I wasn't cultured.
So one day, after 11 years of living like this, I boxed everything up and put it all in the loft. He went ballistic. I stuck up for myself. And that's where his stuff has stayed.
As I say, he argues at me every day about it.
He's controlling.
He's selfish.
He demonstrated for years that he didn't care about what I liked or didn't like, or about my tastes, or about how little I was enjoying living in the way our home was furnished in all his stuff.
So I did something about it.
And if that makes you sad, then so be it.

Why can't shopping for grey furniture at ikea be "personality". Neutral minimalism is a legitimate, deliberate style choice. Why does something being second hand give it more "personality"? Why is deliberately seeking out used furniture any more personal than deliberately going to ikea?

I think interior design is the least of the problems in this relationship..

I agree! I have asd and cannot cope with clutter, it makes me stressed. A few special pictures on the wall, coordinating walls/ curtains and soft furnishings and as little of everything as possible or I start to go mad. Each to their own.

But I'm not doing all that for someone else. It's not about deliberately and consciously showing my personality as a design feature. It's how we are comfortable living.
Several people have told you their minimalistic homes with muted colour schemes facilitate their own comfort/needs. They aren't doing it for a 'trend', it's because it's their home and they want to be comfortable in it.
I love our house, but it's got no more soul in it than the home of someone living in a 'grey box', if the someone living in that 'grey box' feels comfortable and happy in that space because of that.
My point is that whilst I do probably have the sort of home you'd like, it wasn't a conscious decision, because it wasn't made with what other people will think in mind. It was about what was practical for us and what we like looking at.
That's no different to someone having the nice new furniture and the grey walls because that's what they like.
The one isn't more indicative of personality than the other. It's just different needs, practically and visually.
The reason you are getting a lot of flack about this is because you have made assumptions about why some people's homes look the way they do. I wouldn't like people assuming I only have brown furniture because it's 'trendy'. I have the furniture and things I have because it's right for me and my husband. I therefore assume that others have the things, or lack of things in their home because it's right for them. It doesn't make a difference if they saw it in a magazine if it's what they like.
Of course, some may have a specific look just because it's 'in', etc. But equally, some people have books on display they don't read, antiques for the kudos of saying they own a genuine original whatever, pianos they don't play, etc, to appear to have interests they don't have.
The fact that you don't like an aesthetic isn't the problem. It's the assumptions you make about those who have it in their homes.

Exactly. I couldn't really afford to furnish my whole house with new IKEA stuff so fortunately for me I like the much cheaper mismatched second hand stuff. But if I didn't like it, didn't want it in our house, I'd be saving for the IKEA stuff. Ultimately, people's choices are usually based on what they like and what they can afford. There is absolutely no reason why what someone likes and can afford shouldn't be IKEA.

I’m with you OP. And what you’re describing doesn’t mean clutter at all.

We renovated our house 3 years ago. It’s a 1960s brick built long bungalow with a tiled roof that’s not necessarily the traditional type of bungalow people think of. It’s versatile. It’s in the heart of a rural valley with beautiful views. It’s only about 1200 sq ft, detatched and was quite run down when we bought it. We went for wide plank, knotty, different length engineered oak floors throughout in most rooms (it’s gorgeous), black and white octagon and dot tiles on the hall floor. The bathroom has a black slate floor with floor to ceiling mid blue tiles that have an irregular surface and slightly different tones. A free standing bath. The sink was second hand. The kitchen surfaces are staved oak with knots. White kitchen cupboards with black cast iron handles. The bedroom has a gorgeous mural. Everything, inc kitchen and bathroom fittings, I sourced separately myself even though the builder originally tried to just get me to go to Howdens like everyone else…

We have second hand Persian style rugs, second hand furniture, like a bureau and dining room table which we bought from fb market place and sanded down and oiled. The wardrobe, chest of drawers and bedside tables in the master are second hand YP furniture. What we spent on the high quality floors and tiling we saved by buying second hand in other areas.

its not cluttered, we just make the most of space, eg shelving and tall kitchen cupboards. I learned from our last house, that if you dont want to use up floor space or clutter up surfaces, use the walls more efficiently and go up instead.

There’s a good balance of colour and neutral paint on the walls and some of the ceilings are painted. The colour scheme flows well throughout the house which is important because it’s all on one level.

It’s very easy to keep clean. Everything ihas a place and there’s a place for everything, things from our travels are generally on shelves, wall display cubes, artwork on the walls or something that can be used eg, plates. We don’t buy it if we can’t think of a space or use for it.

People who come into our house, view it as more of a country cottage now and we had it valued recently and it’s value has increased significantly.

Trouble is, we were thinking about moving to a different rural county recently for an easier commute and trawling through all the soulless samey, bi fold doored, open plan kitchen/lounge/diner, cream carpeted, boring same old plastic bathed bathroom and bland kitchened houses is depressing, I just don’t want to renovate again so soon after I got our existing house exactly as we like it, not to the same extent. The 3 houses we found with soul (2 were grade 2 listed) in a similar style to ours in beautiful rural village locations are about to get new build developments of 30plus houses on their doorsteps which stops it from being rural and peaceful.

So we’re staying put. We love our house, we love it’s heart and soul due very much to the interior work we’ve done and a 3 hour commute twice a week is not too much to pay to keep it,

Keep true to your own taste and style whatever that may be x

@ScrubbedCauliflower your house sounds lovely!

@WhiteButtonMoon please get a divorce! Imagine how happy you'd be, living in a home without an arsehole controlling husband moaning at you every day.

Re the YouTube videos posted, I think most of us are somewhere in the middle. I liked the colour and style of the first house but the clutter made me twitchy - I cannot cope with random piles of stuff scattered everywhere. The second house was beautiful but probably too clinical to live in comfortably - how would you relax in a place where even the towels are placed at specific angles?

@ScrubbedCauliflower your last line says it all. Keep true to your own style. And it is perfectly possible for that to be grey walls and minimal stuff on show.

The Ikea aesthetic is much easier with a small family. I find all those carefully chosen and displayed knick knacks and momentos trend to jar with a Barbie Dream house and Paw Patrol Mission Tower. It just looks like an episode of Extreme Hoarders

I would love a big soulless extension with shiny appliances and white walls.!

Did it ever occur to you OP that some of us just aren’t interested? We only buy stuff for the house if something breaks or wears out. It only gets decorated if it needs it.

I wouldn’t have a clue what interior trends are, let alone have the time/energy to follow them. The clutter in that video would drive me insane.

😄 yes we definitely don’t have all that toy clutter to contend with

we actually don’t have knick knacks or that sort of thing. I’m picturing a china cabinet or a snow globe collection when you say that. It’s mostly books on shelves, wall art or usable practical kitchen stuff and all our families are given the no clutter items please instruction for Christmas and birthdays

everyone seems to think the OP means loads of Knick knacks but I don’t think she does necessarily at all. Souvenirs from travels can be stuff that blends in or is practical

good luck with the extension, I think most tradespeople generally prefer your kind of style so the project will be smoother

I detest clutter but it is just a personalty thing - if you like it that's great. I joked when we moved to this big house my aim was to empty it and due to children's stuff that never seems to happen. My bed room as out in it less than you would see in a hotel room and that is perfect for me!

The more stuff out the harder to dust for a start but everyone differs - have your own stuff and style if you want. My son said yesterday someone had seen a photo in our kitchen and said my tiles were awful and who would choose tiles - that person has massive student debt; my son has no student debt because I have lived with the white tiles in the kitchen which were put in when it was built in 1990 and ensured my son had no student loans.

Oh I'm far too poor for one of those extensions I have watched enough home improvement shows to realize that I will have to live out my dreams via tv.

I don't like knick knacks but I do actually have a lot of prints from my travels that I have gotten framed so I have a lot of those around the house . Its just surfaces that are minimal.

We’d like an extension to add a second full bathroom in an ideal world, but it’s also not a priority with current finances. Can’t do everything.

Your prints sound like the perfect way to display your unique travel memories and experiences in your home.

In my ideal world, if I had a big house, I'd want one room as a dedicated library. With one of those wheely ladders. Always wanted a library.