Why are so many houses so similar?

[PoorOldCat]

I get updates from rightmove every day and I think about 90% of the houses have really similar interiors.

Everyone seems to have laminate floor, brown leather sofas, the ubiquitous 'feature wall' in some awful oversized floral pattern, steel and black framed things and huge tellys. And the kitchens and bathrooms all seem to be the P shaped shower bath and the varying shades of beige tiles.

I don't understand why, it's like looking at a display in B&Q over and over again. It's so ugly. But most of all it's so dull.

Do people like this stuff or is it just fashion, which no one really likes aside from the fact it makes your house look identical to other people's?

Finding a house to be proper nosey at, that has some sort of identity of its own is hard work.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to do or why it pisses me off so much, and I certainly don't want to offend anyone who does like their house this way...all the agents seem to say these are beautifully presented and will be very popular, so maybe it is just me who hates it, in which case, I'll take the flack

But why is it so popular to have your house like this? Because I just don't understand.

The trouble is some of us me have no idea of what looks great and buying a prescriptive idea takes away the stress of getting it very wrong.
I'd love to be able to know what works but can't afford an interior designer.
I do ask MN a lot.

I don't have an "eye" for design. I am too practical. I can't design houses and gardens as I don't have the vision to do so, but I have green fingers and can grow things. I am handy with a paintbrush and I'm an imaginative cook. That is why my house would look boring to an interior designer, but it is homely and welcoming. (and I have boring, conservative taste)

You forgot the oak furniture!!

We have all the above and I accept its boring but my choice of mismatched furniture and cutesy shabby chic would probably be a no no as well

I really like oak furniture. I have just bought a solid oak dining suite to replace the old teak one and it fits perfectly size and colour wise in my small dining room. 20 years ago it was all pine.

We have a classic 60's house, I would love to have the money to decorate it in true 60's style

Personally I have most of the above, except oak and slate flooring.
I just pointed and clicked on the Next site. Some of us really don't give a shit about what other people deem naff. I love my 70s house

I didn't know that oak furniture was on the list of household items to sneer at.

Well said Rudy

Our house is 1930s but it's changed hands so much since then that there's not a chance of an original feature! We've just done quite a bit to it, the previous owner was a DIYer and it showed We've tried to add a bit more personality, but not too much because we want to be able to sell it ourselves in 3-4yrs time! I loathed all the laminate that was in, I'm thoroughly enjoying our snuggley new carpet!

Me neither! Im not that interested either. So i would err towards some neutral bland decisions so that all the other stuff i cant afford to replace doesnt make the overall look too busy!

I mostly do whole houses start to finish but in terms of rooms most people are after something simple and fairly plain with good storage and lighting and a feeling of space. Somewhere they can put their things not a finished 'look'. I have never deviated from natural materials and solid finish in 15 years and it always has worked. Wood/slate/plaster/glass/linen/etc. One decent painting can bring a room alive I don't see any need for wasting money on endless accessories. I have just finished a flat it is very grey but I know it will sell I am living in it though and its not my favourite!

I love sixties and seventies houses - usually so much light in them with big windows. Plus I'm partial to the eames/modernist fifties and sixties space age look which goes so well in those houses. I'm desperate of a Perspex hanging chair with a fluffy cushion inside.

Sadly mine was built in 1980 and from the outside is everything that is wrong with houses of that decade - red brick and totally fucking dull. At least it still has the big windows but they are those hideous squared panels jobs. I think they might be pre mock Georgian. I dream of a nice clean expanse of glass.

My first ever house was an 80's Laing starter home. Really that was the decade of bad house taste. It had a lemon bathroom suite. Lemon! And a tiny kitchen with cheap, mdf units and crap work tops that the puppy chewed through. When I think of eighties architecture I just think of endless estates with small roomed, small garden houses.

My house isn't conventional- it has things from the sixties and seventies plus furniture from the Middle East and then modernist quirky pieces. My living room is black, white, red and orange with some acid yellow thrown in. I love it. But I have had other people come in and look bemused or nose wrinkle at certain bits. Taste is such a personal thing isn't it?

I love when people have done their own thing.

Tastes do change over time

I loved stencilling, borders, two tone walls. Our house was a riot of colour twenty years ago

Then it got tiring and plain walls and neutral tones looked clean, fresh and new

I'm not feeling the love to go back to feature walls, so I'm whiting this one out

I love houses of all decades tbh. There was a fab 70s house near us for sale. Big stone chimney on the outside of house. Massive windows. Lots of open plan. Lime green kitchen,parquet floors. Lovely.

I like to stick to the decade the house is built in design wise, but not too slavishly. FWIW in think conservatories are on the way out, if not gone and open plan will look dated in the next 10 years and we will all be putting our dividing walls back in!

My house was like this (1930s semi). When I asked the builder I bought it from why he'd removed all original features, he said "that's what they all do isn't it." "'Cos it's easier to maintain with UPVC windows & doors and without fires." So style and historical reference are pushed aside for fashion and easy living. A tragedy in my opinion. I covet the one next door which hasn't been touched. They covet mine. I might swap!

Lagoon I want that house! There are never any houses like that for sale near me.

I get what you are saying about times and houses but .... I can't do eighties pre- mock Georgian. And does anyone remember sponging? I was massively into stencils at one point, stencilling ivy all over my fucking stair well. There were stencils in every room.

I used to be an all white girl but since I got back from living abroad I've had a colour thing. Loving my peacock blue walls and dove grey unit kitchen. It's not for everyone though as my daughter's friend pointed out one day by saying "my mummy would hate your house"

My house that I'm in the middle of selling has a lovely purple and grey living room. The couple,who are buying it love it, but one viewer said "who on earth paints a house like this!" So there's your answer, people with no imagination like beige interiors.

The house we've just moved into is magnolia central, but I'm actually happy with that because I'm looking forward to putting my stamp all over it.

Starting with the bathroom. Not a p shaped bath either!

In about 2000 I had an old handyman repairing some doors for me in a house that I had made open plan and he said he had taken down walls in houses first time round and had returned to put them back in teh same house! I am living in one of my developments atm and it isn't open plan first time I have had a separate kitchen like this in years. And I do like it! I think its because my ds is 19 and at uni and I don't need that any more. When he is home with all his mates and they cook etc I can leave the mess there and not see it. I am hoping to buy a home for myself this year and will be having a separate kitchen this time.

When I was selling my last house (1990s semi) a lot of feedback was that viewers were disappointed that the house had wooden windows and doors and not UPVC. Strangely, they went into raptures about the bog standard white B&Q bathroom.

I know this isn't AIBU but I think you are.
You do sound snooty about other peoples homes. We should all decorate to your tastes and keep original things that might not be practical so you can nosy round our houses!
You like tatty second hand stuff. Good for you. Other people don't and they get to choose what they do like.
My first home was full of tatty second hand, donated stuff because DH and I were really skint. I hated it!
It had no bathroom, just a toilet in an outbuilding, that had been attached to the house. There was a bracket for a washing up bowl you had to fill in the kitchen to wash in. It was original and quirky but funnily we shoehorned a bathroom in. It was tiny and we wanted a shower and a bath so we put a cheap B&Q P shaped bath in. You might think it boring and ugly but it was functional for our family.

Many original features were taken out years ago, not just in this decade.
I would love to have an original fireplace in my current Victorian house for the look of it but I can't afford to buy one and if I could I don't know if I want to have a coal fire. Coal is expensive and not very efficient.

"My living room is black, white, red and orange with some acid yellow thrown in."

I wouldn't be able to relax in that colour scheme.

You would hate my living room - aqua blue and very, very pale grey. I like plain walls so that I can display my pictures on them. I have lived in houses with wooden window frames and they are a PITA to maintain (they need repainting/revarnishing regularly). UPC for me every time.

"So there's your answer, people with no imagination like beige interiors."

Or people who don't like bright colour schemes? Our house was magnolia throughout when we bought it. I find that boring, but it is liveable with until I have time to paint. Every room in our house is a different colour, but they are all pastel colours.

It's bot fair to judge a modern 80s/90s/00s house by previous decades style standards. Period for those houses IS neutral with artex ceilings - would you really call it a good choice to keep those things because they're 'period features' even though the owners don't like them/find them impractical?

It's the same with earlier houses. People took the features out (probably much earlier than the current feature wall brigade) because they thought they were impractical or didn't like them. People who move in now are just making the best of what is left, and the most accessible/easy things to do are often the most popular.

The more I think about this the more annoying I find it.
SIL and her husband bought a house in a conservation area. It had been empty for a long time and was badly trashed.
There was no front door or downstairs windows. The first thing they did was to put them in, with what they liked within their budget.
The door was a wooden one they painted a pale sagey green.
They had a letter from the conservation people, saying the colour of the door was not approved and they had to change it.
Then they put up a fence in the front garden behind the original wall to give some privacy. The house is on the main road with a bus stop outside the house. People waiting for the bus would stare into the house and garden and the bus stop was used at night by drug addicts who throw needles into the garden.
Another letter came saying a neighbour had complained because she wanted to see into the garden she had lived there all her life and none of the houses had had private gardens. The conservation people agreed, the fence had to be moved as people from the past would never have put a fence up.
So it was fine for the house to be falling down and ugly because it was an originial eyesore but try and make it nice to look at and you can't because it's not original.