Why are wooden letters so popular?... What are your decorative bugbears?

[Whirliwig72]

One of my pet hates are the ubiquitous decorative wooden letters featured in every homes magazine and style magazine since forever. They just seem so unoriginal to me especially when they spell out the action to be performed in the room they are put in, i.e E....A....T in the kitchen, L....O...V...E in the bedroom, C...R...A...P in the loo and so on as if the inhabitants might forget what happens where without 3 foot high gold letters reminding them at every possible occasion.
I also have a dislike of most wall transfers and also of feature walls decorated with flock or metallic wallpaper - stinks of 'Chavez' IMHO.

What decorative horrors make you shudder?

I am partial to a wooden letter though.....

I don't have any photos on display. I know what everybody looks like already.

I agree re Cath Kidston.

I bought a friend some CK plates for her birthday & felt it necessary to tell the woman on the till in John Lewis that they were not for me!

I love lots of photographs on display too, but in miss matched frames.

I was half kidding re the skips, it was an excuse for not knowing the names of anything. Sheeshammy? Wenge? They sound made up.

It mostly comes from the tip

Those stupid countertop bowl sinks. They look immensely dated now. Limestone-decked bathrooms will be going that way in a year or two, if not already.

What the chuff are Lilliput houses?

Oh, and for those asking what IS acceptable on MN: I hope it goes without saying that these threads shouldn't be taken seriously! It's just people having a laugh at anything that has got over-popular and tedious (like despising the fashion choices of two seasons ago).

I'm a great one for despising twiggy shit and union jack cushions, but I'd never pretend to be this great trendsetter with a fabulous home. My house contains all the cliches of the SW London suburb: white-with-brights, wooden floors, charcoal sofas with citrine cushions, loads of Farrow & Ball, rather too much vintage/industrial zinc stuff, an Orla Kiely casserole dish, yes even a Dandelion clocks bean bag... (I'm only lacking a lovely extension with open plan kitchen/diner and stripey runner up the staircase). Already dating fast and will no doubt be considered naff within a year.

But you know what, I like it. Just as people are entitled to like their Keep Calm teatowels and Emma Bridgewater teapots. Just accept a little light teasing now and then.

Flock chandelier, anyone?

YY to everything dating. So true.

You know what would never date? A Pedlars Fox Pouffe.
How I with I'd invested.

WISH not with.Fool

Yes agree that wall to wall Farrow and Ball will probably look very 2010s. Also those concertina bifold doors, especially on a deeply unsympathetic box of glass extension on a period house. This is a Very Bad Look for dating IMHO.

Yes, and all those people who knocked out endless walls to create one big 'space', or who converted barns with double height ceilings, will be desperately erecting plywood panels lined with eggboxes once they realise that they can't afford their heating bills/ they have no wallspace to put storage against/ there is no escape from little Ned's drum practice...

See now Devora, I think your house sounds amazing

I know what you're saying Devora, but the light teasing is actually barely disguised contempt!

I accept that my home isn't to everyone's taste, but I wouldn't dream of snorting derision at the interior deco choices you or others make.

I love the big photos of my DCs that make me smile as I'm laying in bed; my DCs are very excited about the vinyl stickers with their names on which I've just bought for their rooms; my neatly written chalkboard makes it easy to see what we've got for dinner to save me rooting through the freezer every night and most importantly every item in my house has been lovingly picked by me even if it was from the Argos book

Whatever happened to live & let live?

sorry smiley overload!

I think the problem with the light teasing is people like me. I am a social numpty. I am just getting started in the world of coffee mornings with posh parents from dd's school and our house is a fraction of the size of theirs so I'm already conscious of that. It's nicely decorated I thought but now I wonder what they'll think and if it's the same as you lot. It's irrational I know but there it is. It just sows the seeds of doubt and my mind is a newly ploughed field for seeds like that!

I have brown leather sofas, I don't care if they are naff they are the only thing in life that keep me sane.

Come 6.p.m you will find me in the corner mumbling incoherently whilst the children chuck food at me like a scene from Overboard with Goldie Hawn. If I had sofas made with a non wipeable fabric I fear I really would lose the bloody plot...

My house is decorated with
Lego
Sylvanians
Handprints
Bits of wire
Computer innards
and artistically arranged teetering piles of paperwork.

I think I've forgotten what it looks like underneath.

Add in a moulting, lightly incontinent cat and a cageful of frenetic guinea pigs for that extra 'textured with straw and hair' effect...

Dd has the four letters of her name in flowery fabric covered letters for her room.

Always hated cushions and curtains with Latin written all over.
And signs in the kitchen about gin and tonic, wine, coffee, or not being very good at running a house.
Video cases that looked not muchlike books, back in the 90s.

Oy, Nit -- what's wrong with my 'Coffee. Do stupid things faster with more energy' sign? DS got me that, I'll have you know!

Luckily, my kids have stupidly long names, so we couldn't afford to sink ourselves further into the decorating doldrums by buying enough fabric letters.

Devora - I feel the same about open plan! Can't bear it on Grand Designs when everything is open plan/mezzanine bedrooms and the only place you can go to be alone is the loo!

There was a barn conversion recently where even the bathroom was open plan from a mezzanine bedroom...the couple who owned it had a long-suffering daughter who at least had a private non-mezzanine bedroom and bathroom to herself...

DH's dream home would be a barn conversion, but my pet hate is open plan kitchen/living/dining rooms where everything happens in 1 room. My compromise would be, open plan is fine as long as there is a separate utility room so the washing machine can chunter away in private, and ideally, a second reception room, even if it's only a tiny snug, so the adults can escape family chaos of an evening and have a proper grown-up sit down.

I will happily admit to having stripy stair runner carpet, wooden floors and brown leather sofas (those belong to DH before he moved in with me, and wouldn't have been my choice but I do like them now), an Emma Bridgewater teapot & cake tins and a Keep Calm and Carry On mug.

Oh and in my spare room is my doll's house which I've had since I was 7 and is my most treasured possession. Anyone who sneers at that, I will cold-shoulder you good and proper.

The letters were a requested birthday present... At least she didn't want WOW like Kirstie ....

Just the overkill on signs about coffee and wine and vintage faced women on magnets... You know!

And lucky for me, both my girls have long names which have four letter shortenings which we always and only use! The cleverness of me.....