Things you used to want in your home that aren't your style now!

[Echobelly]

I was just thinking earlier about some of the stuff have liked to have had in my first home (when I was 24), that aren't so much my thing now:

• a pinball machine
• a folding screen/room divider - I don't know why I liked the idea of a folding screen so much, I just did
• a gothic wrought-iron chaise-lounge upholstered in purple crushed velvet and zebra print. I saw it at an ironmongery and really wanted it at the time, OK?! 😂

Don't get me wrong, I still have no taste interiors wise but I have moved on from those things.

Oooh yes! Me too. You need the right house and acres of space

There’s something about glass block I love. Don’t think I’d ever entertain it in my house, but it does look good in the right setting!

I was convinced as a teen that inflatable furniture was the way forward. Honestly just thought it made total sense and why would you buy a sofa for a grand when you buy one for £50?! 😆 Safe to say I don’t have a single inflatable in my house as a 37yo.

Late 90s I stencilled sunflowers around our kitchen:) was very happy with them

As a late teen I chose orange and lime wallpaper with a matching border around the middle in my room. I had suffered with depression so wanted bright and cheery, honestly it did work.

In our first house I went overboard with lilac in our bedroom. Walls, bedding and curtains. I wanted my favourite colour but less clashing as my teen room but it was too much all together. We also had a bright blue sofa which was an odd choice.

Neither of these are my style at all now, I'm minimal cosy japandi neutrals with a splash of colour.

I wanted a proper hallway - as opposed to the door opening onto a tiny one which was just the width of the stairs.
Now I have one - with proper bannisters and everything... and promptly fell down the bloody stairs!

My dream for years was to have a kitchen island but never had a kitchen big enough for one. Then went to stay with my sister and her partner had one in his house. I stayed a week and by the end I was so fed up with it! Having to walk around it all of the time instead of just being able to walk across to the counter. It was so annoying. Plus his place wasn't really big enough for one so it absolutely dominated the space. Killed my yearning stone dead.

Years ago when I was poor, and pre Internet, I used to love getting the new argos catalogue and seeing all the house things I'd buy if I had the money 😂i kind of miss doing that!

This! I hate our feet walls, but their 14 ft tall and I can't bring myself to get rid of the cobwebs let alone repaint it all!

What are feet walls @DiaNaranja

@DingDongBella probably feature!

A spiral staircase. Wtf was I thinking?

My mum had a series of interior design books from the late 70s, possibly from M&S; each one covered a different part of the house (living rooms, bedrooms, kitchen and bathrooms etc. I coveted the interiors in those for years, and would probably still embrace some of them now! She gave them away without me knowing - I was gutted. Wish I could find out who published them.

I like these! 😶

A pine sofa with exposed slats and foam cushions, usually covered in blowsy roses. Didn’t happen.
A kitchen in decapé white which I now realise is definitely 2006.
A china cabinet/bureau bought second hand. I could have done better.

I’m currently stalking butler’s sideboards, the ones with tin-lined cabinets either side for the port(!). Hopefully that will stand the test of time.

In my uncles house in the 90s, the wall his fireplace was on was stone clad, with 4 square lights in it so it all sat flush. These lights were blue, green red and yellow. I actually asked my parents if we could move in how much I wanted these lights. I was 5.

In the late 90’s stencilling was in, and I did most of my rooms with it. Plus I remember having those borders of wall paper in the nursery, half way down the wall.

In the 70s I used to go babysitting in a house with orange and brown flowery wallpaper. I decided it was so lovely I would have it in my house when I grew up.

I doubt if you can even buy it now!

Another teenage inflatable furniture fan here - luckily it was short-lived. Sun moon and stars lasted longer, and the bedspread lives on as a dog blanket in my mum’s car 😅

as an adult, floor-to-ceiling bookcases covering an entire wall or two. I have this but they are cluttered af and the thought of clearing it all out makes me feel unwell. Also no one who visits comments on how intellectual and well-read I am, which was obviously the point…

I do still have a soft spot for some of the features mentioned here, notably wood panelling and partial wallpaper, kitchen islands and a grey sofa.

One of these, (just the chair!)

When I was a kid I read one of my mum’s ’good housekeeping’ magazines and it had a feature on small space living. I wanted a studio flat with a sofa bed (my 40yo back can’t even cope with a real bed) and a desk that you could fold away against the wall that was supported by big nautical thick ropes. Some sort of ‘writing cubby’ it was marketed as 😂.

I now want neither of these things. I just want my damp problem fixed and to stop worrying about the crack in the wall of the utility room 🙄

A spiral staircase.
In the corner of the living room.
No idea why?
They're bloody death traps 😂

Stainless steel kitchen...

@Echobelly

• “a gothic wrought-iron chaise-lounge upholstered in purple crushed velvet and zebra print. I saw it at an ironmongery and really wanted it at the time, OK?! “

I think this sounds fabulous, and I can just see it in my fantasy second home.

We had a kitchen with bright yellow, lemon walls. It brightened a narrow kitchen. Not sure I’d have it now.

Stencilling everywhere. Like another poster I did it myself and had ivy stencilled up the stairs. Also everything matching in the kitchen. Like literally everything. The eternal beau stuff Argos used to sell. You could buy wallpaper, curtains, pans, plates, knives and forks, utensil sets, I think I even saw a set of scales with the bloody pattern on it somewhere that I lusted after.

@Izzynohopanda you need to watch the series with Laurence Llewelyn Bowen about unusual homes . Lots of eclectic colourful homes . I think it’s channel 4 or 5

I actually rented a property once with the most beautiful spiral stair case. The owners partner had hand made it from wood, and even created a matching babygate when they realised we had children.

It was STUNNING.

And a death trap. The open backs, the slippy steps....I remember being about 4 days post partum, carrying my newborn down the stairs and slipping. It was horrendous. We moved 3 weeks later.