What makes the interior of a home look tired and dated?

[FindingMeno]

Interested in people's views as it's sometimes difficult to discern in your own familiar surroundings.

Black ash furniture
Shell shaped quilted headboards
Pleated lamp shades
Chinese lettering print anything
Striped sofas
Cane furniture
China dolls
Wall plaques about gin or cats
Decals of any kind
Rooms that are done with a theme colour eg red cushions, red rug, giant red flower canvas from B&Ms
Moon and stars bedding
Plastic toilet roll holders
Lino
Artex
Sliding glass doors
Square shaped lamp shades
Kallax everywhere
Borders

@ChilliMum

I am really surprised about the people saying wallpaper. I am middle aged and my house is probably quite dated and tired and I don't have any wall paper but my younger, cooler, no kids friends have wall paper!

One has a tiny visitor's toilet just off her hall completely decorated in jungle wall paper, it's truly fabulous

I think wallpaper is cyclical on whether you're old enough to remember what a royal pain it can be to get off walls without wrecking the plaster LOL.

@TheDuchessOfMN yes I thought dark blue cupboards were quite on trend. Not sure the issue with wallpaper!?

You may as well have titled your thread "list your personal decor prejudices here" to be honest.

It's just like the "how can I make my home smell lovely?" threads. There are some obvious answers (open windows, wash pet bedding, evict teenage boys to shed) and 90 percent of the rest is just people arguing minute points about cleanliness and engaging in snobbery wars about brands of scented candles.

A house will look tired if the things in it are old, broken or poorly cared for. Someone somewhere will judge your choice of decor whatever you have in your home. Choose it with love because you like it. Then look after it through cleaning and maintenance.

Curtains the wrong length especially patterned, blinds, HOME and FAMILY signs 🤮, dated lamps, clutter, the smell in the house is probably the most important thing (lack of fresh air and dirty oven fans)

@Im2022

Does anyone agree on net curtains though? Especially those ones that hang half way? Voile curtains are much more modern if you want that effect.

Cafe curtains are having quite the moment on instagram right now so no, not everyone agrees with you. The joy of insta being of course that you can always find someone doing something you like there.

People who bought "Louis" style furniture and Cath Kidston bed linen must be gutted now at how much they spent. Similarly chesterfield style sofas.

Well, not if they still like it...!

Walls and ceilings for me they are just so last year , and don't get me started on electric lights !

@AtomicBlondeRose

People who bought "Louis" style furniture and Cath Kidston bed linen must be gutted now at how much they spent. Similarly chesterfield style sofas.

Well, not if they still like it...!

Yes, I use Cath Kidston bed linen in the summer months, and still like it. Mostly hidden by a bedspread but that's also quite Kidston looking in design, so.

Not a fan of Louis style furniture, though.

The only things that really strike me as dated tend to be artex, woodchip wallpaper, net curtains or vertical blinds. Other than that, I think most things tend to be just taste. I personally hate the grey and chrome look, but others love it. I love lots of colour, patterns and mismatched-ness, but equally, I know many people would hate that!

Aren't we all trying to make do and mend and be environmentally friendly

I like my home and don't care what others think

If I wish to sell it then the new buyers can do as they please

Oh good. A thread where you can stealth bitch about perfectly normal houses.

There’s also the usual MN snobbery around ‘real wood’ ‘curtain length’

Not everyone can afford real wood, but want an easily cleaned floor, and not everyone can pay to have the curtains that get dusty and dirty draped on the floor dry cleaned.

The kitchen thing - to stay ‘not dated’ in a kitchen you’d need to refit every 3 years or so 😂😂😂😂

The scandi look? A bit formulaic now, and I personally find the ‘no stuff anywhere’ to look cold and clinical. But that’s a personal taste thing, not dated or otherwise.

@Bunnyfuller

Oh good. A thread where you can stealth bitch about perfectly normal houses.

There’s also the usual MN snobbery around ‘real wood’ ‘curtain length’

Not everyone can afford real wood, but want an easily cleaned floor, and not everyone can pay to have the curtains that get dusty and dirty draped on the floor dry cleaned.

The kitchen thing - to stay ‘not dated’ in a kitchen you’d need to refit every 3 years or so 😂😂😂😂

The scandi look? A bit formulaic now, and I personally find the ‘no stuff anywhere’ to look cold and clinical. But that’s a personal taste thing, not dated or otherwise.

The Scandi look isn’t about having no stuff anywhere though, it’s about having easy to clean spaces/furniture and more ’personal’ stuff..

Definitely fucking artex [glares balefully at large swathes of the house]. One day I will hunt the person who put all this artex all over the place down…

@MrsWooster
So funny- you've made my day😂

Pleated lamp shades
Absolutely massive right now and a bloody fortune.

@Wonnle

Walls and ceilings for me they are just so last year , and don't get me started on electric lights !

As others say, anything which is very on-trend and especially when whole rooms or the whole house is done in a particular style, will be out-of-date as quickly as it came into fashion.

Of course, very old stuff often looks dated. It can be good quality but trends do change. Quite often 30 or 40 years old can look better or more appealing than 15 years old. Those in trends often most dislike the most recent previous trend and see that as totally outdated. This is why some people are pointing to trends which others are just about to use, considering them to be very ‘now’.

Classic, decent quality and not replaced too often probably looks good for longest…it’s also more environmental. New sofas every 5-10 years, new kitchens every 10 years and the regular replacement of cushions, soft furnishings etc are signs of a throw away society and are filling landfill for thousands of years.

Get over worrying about looking dated, and consider how green your house is and what you can do to make-do and mend and keep things going for longer, rather than replacing with new and up to date.

Exactly Wombat plus a waste of money

I’ve found that the furniture/things I’ve bought because I really, really loved it are the ones I don’t get sick of..some pieces are 20 years old or more. Things that I’ve bought that are trendy or even Ikea furniture (love Ikea though) I get tired of pretty quickly and give away to charity.

Agree with everything Wombat says. All this ripping fittings out every 5 years and putting in new kitchens and bathrooms is incredibly environmently damaging.

I don’t think the majority of people rip whole kitchens etc out after a few years. Some might, but I imagine most people do the same as me in that if you buy to your budget in a timeless look eg- simple Shaker cabinets in colour that isn’t limited it can easily be updated with a few accessories or a new paint colour when it needs it. I don’t know if anyone who would change a whole kitchen or bathroom on a trend whim.

I suspect or at least hope that most people try to make things last for as long as possible and reuse wherever they can.

I recently had a new kitchen since we extended rather than moved but the entire old kitchen has been repurposed in the utility room.

I don't know anyone, personally, who replaces whole kitchens every few years. It tends to be paint, wallpapers and soft furnishings to match the latest trend, I've found. I agree not the most environmentally friendly.

Though I know of someone who furnished all the downstairs rooms with mirrored furniture then recently replaced the lot.

Confess that I have ancient Chesterfield sofas with coloured accent armchairs, with old dark wood furniture throughout the house. That's probably considered dated by some.

We fitted some of the old kitchen units in the garage as storage rather than get rid of them.