Does your house just look dated

[Wavymess]

A few years after you moved in?

I’m just about to complete on a sale of a house that needs a full renovation. It’s my first time doing this and the whole house is going to be decorated all at once.

Styles come in and out, all grey is out in favour of all dark bold colours
And with regards to building and layouts an extension with an open plan kitchen/diner/lounge space and bifold doors is super popular right now, but will it be when I come to sell again

How do you stop your house being dated
Without having to just redo the entire house every 2 years?

Probably. I really couldn’t care less, though. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have far more important things to worry about and far better things to spend my money on than ‘fashionable’ interior decor.

Layout definitely dates: kitchens used to be for cooking in and pretty well nothing else, unless on a farm. Utility rooms unheard of (nearly). A “proper” dining room was essential. The thought of a dinner party in the kitchen....!

Interior decor does date. All of it, even the “simple classic colour I’ve always liked”. Of course some stuff dates very quickly, other stuff will only look dated after a decade or two. But if you were to add your mid-century furniture to a room with wallpaper and curtains from same era, it would look ridiculous.
Most rooms need repainted after 10 years (depending on use), carpet and wood and laminate don’t last forever. I’m therefore pretty relaxed about “will it date”. Yes, of course it will.

There are some housing decor elements that are currently fashionable which I loathe, so to be confronted with a completely grey house, or a house with that hideous fake herringbone flooring, bifold doors, open plan downstairs, plastic lawns, black quartz or granite worktops, plantation shutters - those would all be as off-putting to me as swirly carpets and Schreiber fitted bedroom furniture.

Do you think there should be a ‘theme’ throughout the house - should every room use the same colour palette for example?

I recently read this on dated spaces -- my new home's kitchen looks a lot like the 'before' picture used at the bottom and I like it way better than the bleached out after (after over a year of zoom calls, I could really do with less white walls, only having them in the halls to keep the previous owner's stencil work).

Dark green is back! As is dusky pink and sage! I shouldn’t have bothered decorating the house I bought in 2002 as every room would be on trend now.
Just wait long enough and it’s right back in fashion!

Maybe that's why it was so hard to find sage green for the kitchen. We just painted the walls of our kitchen to neaten the scuffed walls (which were a patchwork where appliances once were from people painting around them). We wanted a light warm green to go with the dark green counters already in place, ended up with a minty colour that I think works well.

And my DDs want a dusky pink-purple for their room - I would have never thought we were fashionable (then again, DSs wants a dark blue top half, and burnt orange bottom half in their room - clearly not having a matching colour scheme here! The only place I tend to think about that is hallways).

So true about just waiting for things to come around. Both my spouse and I kept talking about how our new place reminds us of our grandparents' homes. We're keeping most of it - including the swirly carpet in our front room and bedroom.

I saw a house with a kitchen that looked like it was from the 70’s. Turned out it was very recent...that was a bit awks.

We actually had a surveyor go on about how dated the kitchen cabinet and shower room is and how they'll likely need replaced soon... they're not nearly that old, just was the home of a little old lady who really liked particular styles.

Prior to buying my house I had a surveyor write that the bathroom is dated but I think they meant that it is tired/worn out - it’s a very standard white suite and white metro tiles but the bath and shower are totally knackered and the laminate floor is coming away. Unless metro tiles are very passé now?

@Wavymess I don’t think there’s a need for the whole house to use the same colour scheme. The furthest I would go is to make sure adjoining rooms don’t clash. Different rooms suit different colours due to light, direction, size etc.

All our walls are (wipe clean!) white with everything else that doesn't move, or doesn't move easily is very neutral, apart from the kitchen and bathroom which are modern but will also fit with an older house if you know what I mean...
All the colour comes from our accessories, so frames, light fittings, mirrors, rugs, cushions and curtains etc are the only things we change around if we want a new look.

A good rule of thumb is that by the time a trend reaches Home Bargains it’s on its way out of fashion.

Fail-safe.

We’ve got dark wood furniture, and love it. Waiting for it to come back into fashion!

Yeah it was as follows

‘What are your thoughts on the house?’
‘I do like it, but I’d have to offer under asking as that kitchen needs replaced immediately. It must be older than me!’
‘...it was only put in two years ago...’

tumbleweed

@Wavymess

Do you think there should be a ‘theme’ throughout the house - should every room use the same colour palette for example?

I think on different floors of the house it needs to be in the same pallete yes, but that doesn’t mean the same, so if you’re going for muted colours, then keep it the same, pale greens, pale greys, pale blues etc. I think when you start doing huge difference, like bright yellow in one room, the next one fushia, the next one navy , the next one pale pink , it becomes too much. But some folks do like that.

So for me it can’t be the same in every room, but also not so markedly different that it clashes. However that’s personal taste. You really need to do what you like.

I think it’s hard to have a “colour theme”. Partly because I’d not do the whole house at one time. Partly because (eg) the relaxing colour Id like for the bedroom wouldn’t tie in with the livelier feel Id want in the kitchen, nor the “cost evening” feel if the living room vs “daytime” for sun room or whatever.
IMO so long as it doesn’t feel like a shock when you move between rooms!