Have magazines and home shows left us emotionally damaged wrt out homes?

[mulranno]

Just wondered if all the home stuff on TV and glossy mags has left us feeling inferior as well as stressed at trying to achieve the immacculate home?...Are we clear what a real functioning home is like...or do we assume everyone else's home is like the "air-brushed" magazine shoots? Do we then have an dysfunctional emotional relationship with our home?...so that all is not well until all is spotless?...which with children doesnt ever happen - unless you velcro them to the sofa or lock them in the cellar.

Is it all a bit like what has happened to young women who are body obsessed due to the unrealistic magazine images of skinny models etc.

tv is not to blame for my obsessive tiding - my mum is!

I am a dinosaur I still have carpets

I know what you meanto an extent.
I have bought and sold a number of properties in the last few years, and some people have ridiculous expectations. They expect something from Homes and Gardens at a Prima Home price.

However, wrt how we expect our own home to look, I know I am mainly influenced by my Mum for whom maintaining an immaculate home was a cornerstone of her self esteem.

I think that making over is a bit of an obsession. People used to keep kitchens until they fell apart. Now people seem to get new kitchens because they don't like the design of the one in their new house.

I think i agree with you mulranno

When i go to peoples houses of my grandparents generation, their houses are nearly always spotless, and everthing is good quality that will last, in a colour that that is practical and everything has a purpose.

When i go to my friends houses (or mine for that matter) we are always a bit more preoccupied with having nice things that look nice, walls in a colour that we like, matching curtains/furniture/cushions/candles etc, but we are less bothered with looking after these things properly because we know that we will get bored, or most likely read an interiors magazine that shows us that this seasons look is.......whatever.

Wrt people buying property to 'do up' i think there are very few people who can actually do this properly. The magority of these people on these shows where they buy a house quite cheap (because it is derelict) and think all they have to do is paint it a pretty (neutral) colour and put in a new kitchen are totally deluding theirslves. But because the show is only half an hour long and only shows beginning/middle/end product people think it is that simple. Hence the amount of half finished, shoddy diy jobs (my own home included ) that make us feel like we are failing. Perhaps we are just getting too ambitious and setting ourselves up for failure?

please excuse my atrocious spelling and grammer, apparently i am a climbing frame for my toddler

I think there has been a shift in people's expectations with regards to their homes in the last decade. As another poster has said, our grandparents' generation attitude really was "make do and mend". My great-aunts both have 'kitchenettes' they have had for donkeys years, one of which doesn't even have fitted furniture- it is freestanding from long before freestanding kitchens became fashionable again. They really can't understand the mentality that one would get rid of something simply because it was no longer fashionable if it was still useful and had life in it.

I do find there is a "keeping up with the Jones" mentality among my friends and a great interest in what everyone is doing to their houses. It almost feels competitive. I do feel under pressure to have a "perfect" looking home when hosting book club or having playdates or whatever and feel some friends are checking our home out. Sadly, I'm somewhat of a slattern and therefore am unable to meet these rigorous standards. I might want a perfect house but there are too many other things I'd rather be doing than maintaining a perfect house. It's sooooo dull. I just try and remember the maxim "Dull women have immaculate homes" whenever I feel the stress building....

I try to keep our house tidy & clean because too much mess makes me go a bit funny, but I fail miserably. I console myself by saying it's unrealistic for me to try to emulate magazines etc, then I go the houses of the DSs friends & they are really stylish & tidy so I am depressed again. However, there are a couple of people who would think my house super-neat compared to theirs, so it's all relative.

I agree with the OP though

Sorry, DSs' friends...