Home decor internet trends, aaargh!

[AFierceBadRabbit]

(lighthearted thread)
Does anyone else ever despair at online inspiration photo's of interiors?

I'm about to move into a new flat, so been looking online for ideas and tips to save space, etc. Ikea really good for this, but have stumbled into a world hitherto unknown to me - instagram famous decor bloggers!
WTF?

So right now I am tired of seeing endless images of the SAME:
*Flokati rug, the one in cream with black diamond design.
*Y-back chairs.
*Sectional sofas regardless whether they fit in the room or not.
*Massive expanses of artfully designed desk space in vast sized rooms that appear to never get used.
*Geo shaped lamp shades or those Scandinavian style exposed filament bulbs hanging everywhere, even ten in one row over a small table.
*Homes that are so large it boggles the mind. I searched for inspo for small apartments and what came up? Tons of images claiming to be small spaces which were actually football pitch sized with ceilings as high as a warehouse (don't forget those exposed pipes!)......one tiny mid-century sideboard in middle of this wast expanse looking lonely and uncomfortable.

God why is everything trend driven so damn soulless?

Ok I like white, and I love the Soderhamn sofa, but I need to wind my neck back in and ponder some reality.

I do love quite a lot of those looks though! White walls, mid century furniture, etc. However, it is very 'of the moment' and it will move onto something else shortly!

Agreed though - EVERY time there is a 'real person' home in the magazine, the woman is an interior designer and the bloke has a massively paying job. Gah. (I'm jealous 😄)

Don't blame the Fiddle Leaf Fig, he is a thing of beauty

A lot of the individual elements are indeed really nice! It's the combination of all of them in every single interior photoshoot can make you feel like you've entered some kind of nightmarish Scandi otherworld where colour no longer exists, everyone is an an interior designer and the children are all called Tove and Leaf.

Yes to the endless interiors photoshoots/interviews with the antique dealer/financier husband and interior designer wife. In any of the more hipster magazines, it's compulsory to include a pic with the husband barefoot in the kitchen drinking coffee while the wife looks dreamily at her pristine child playing on the floor with something that somehow makes no mess.

Dog called Agnes. Love it.

I'd take a roll top bath, though!

For smaller spaces have a look at the site www.apartmenttherapy.com
It has lots of house tours and smaller spaces and I found it useful when we were doing up our flat. I like designsponge's interiors too.

I've just been round to next doors and had a sneaky peek (the builder showed me) at their new kitchen (although they're renovating the whole house). It's grey... with white quartz countertops! I do love a F&B colour myself and I love white and grey, French style mix, but the whole kitchen? It used to be cream units/black granite work tops, now its grey cupboards and white worktops.

Oh and apparently it cost £110k...

Re small spaces.

Check this out.

"To begin this House Tour, I must tell you that this house is actually a shed — a standard shed you'd find in the backyard of many Australian homes."

It is over 1000 square feet FFS. That is NOT a shed.

Ah, someone mentioned the dreaded Hygge!!!!!

I actually have come to despise this 'trend'. because you simply cannot recreate it with candles, books and pillows. It's actually more about a culture we are quite out of touch with here in the UK: they are so fucking happy because they have better working conditions, social care and a healthy system in place. No amount of candles and fluffy shite can alter THAT elephant in the room.

Agree about Hygge.
That reminds me that someone bought me a Hygge book (the popular one, blue and white cover, I think) a few months ago. I'm yet to open it! Can't imagine it would be good for the stress levels [grinl

Who needs hygge? In Britain we have central heating, and the ancient art of drinking soup out of mugs.

at the £100k kitchen and the enormous non-shed. Like in Shed of the Year, when none of them are sheds. They're just giant purpose-built follies.

I am also amazed at how many of the most recent trends remind me of furniture we had when I was a child in the 80's. The chrome leg chairs, glass table top in geo shape, shaggy rugs, etc. Except now it's all so extraordinarily expensive.

Mmmm.

I was recently reading a great blog by a 70-something woman who had worked in design and seen the fad s come and go over the years. She too was amazed at how many items she had in her home from decades past suddenly acquiring enormous price tags - when the original versions were dirt cheap.

Trending items, I am sure, quite cynically add ridiculous price tags because they know someone will be salivating enough to get it at any cost.

Such is life i suppose!

Think I'll just knock one of these up.
Why not?

Oh and that table from Hay with the sticky-up prong, what ever it means I do not know.
It even has a name : 'Don't Leave Me'.

Oh that swing is excellent and just what should be in every lounge.
kraken ooh which hipster magazines? I'm always on the look out for some new ones to gaze dreamily though.
I'm torn on the white walls, on one hand they look amazing on all the Instagram photos, but in real life they can be so stark and dull.
I have to say I much prefer the Instagram scandi/mcm style over the Facebook diy on a budget group which is all about glitter walls and crushed velvet

Feature walls, vile.

Lol it makes me sad because I have a slight obsession with Kettles Yard and mid century stuff since I was at Uni in the late 90s. So my house is currently looking quite trendy but it has always been my style and people who come around currently think we must be super modern but no! We have had this sideboard since 2004!

I think white walls looking good depends upon the available light and how you arrange light within the room. Or a mixture of both. It can have such a warm, comforting feel (maybe not what you'd expect) given the right lighting situation.
I used to live in a little flat where the white walls worked really well, yet a house I moved to later looked stark and cold with them.

Just seen another home with swing from rafters with a child using it. If she had swung back just a foot further she would have cracked her head in the metal staircase.

Here, for your delectation: a very toddler friendly staircase if ever I saw one.

Arthritic knees welcome.

I think you need to regroup with a little ponder of that tumblr called 'Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table'. It will make you feel better.

Here: ^fuckyournoguchicoffeetable.tumblr.com/^

Oh man, my new kitchen is grey with white Quartz counter tops. Chosen because I like them. Should I be congratulating myself for being on the zeitgeist or worrying about being an unwitting hipster?

Glitterspy, no! no need to worry - most of this stuff is lovely (not sure about the Hay table though) just a gentle chuckle about trends.

I think it is how the web saturates our eyes with a thing, whether it is gorgeous or not - it can lead to this weird sort of irksomeness I can't really explain. Oversaturation. I laugh at endless white walls but I have them too;)

Ha, that tumblr is hilarious

I've seen someone on IG do the thing where they've turned all their books on the shelf the opposite direction so the pages are facing outwards. I think it's one of the stupidest things I've seen in a while.

Glitter you should be ok as long you don't have some sort of ancient, vintage coffee bean grinder on the worktops

Glitterspy.. I love grey and white! I was just having a wee joke about that's what everyone seems to go for these days but it's very 'on trend'.. ahem.. I can hardly talk, I've done mine farrow and ball French grey (sage green) and a grey granite worktop! I think the picture shows I've done the epitome of the current trends.. but I like it!

I love this thread!

WiltingTulip "My pet hate is "art" that is bought or made purely to match furniture. It usually has no artistic merit or is unappreciated " - I've got the ouija board out and my mum is sending me messages from the afterlife to say give you a big hug for this one - she was a portrait painter and hated people doing this.

That tumblr is brilliant. What on earth is that photo of the bookcase with all the spines turned to the wall about? Bonkers.