I'm Calling It — These 12 Heinous Interior Design Trends Are Officially Dead To Me
If you're anything like me, you've wasted countless hours of your life watching Architectural Digest videos and HGTV shows.
They're just SO addictive.
Over those many hours, I've formed A LOT of opinions on which interior design trends look good — and which can eff off forever.
There's a great big world of ugly home design out there, so I made a list of the 12 most revolting trends that I never want to see again.
I want to emphasize that everyone has different taste, and I completely respect that. Your home is perfectly designed for you, and that's what counts.
1.Limewash plaster walls
Depending on the color and texture of plaster walls, they look either like a mistake or like an incredibly stoned college student took a single coat of primer-less paint to their cinder block dorm room, realized they only had 20 minutes before the dining hall closed, and booked it out of the room without giving the walls a second thought.
All this to say: Plaster walls look really bad.
In the interest of being fair, this picture is an example of plaster walls that don't totally drag down the beauty of a room. Still, this is the exception, not the rule.
Note: I'm only offering praise up top to show I have the capacity to love. I will not be this forgiving of the other trends on this list. Proceed with caution.
2.Curved plastic chairs
This trend was popularized by the Herman Miller Eames Molded Plastic Side Chair, and it's one of the most offensive trends on this list. Not only are these chairs ugly (in my opinion), but they also wage active war on the spines and lower backs of the world (allegedly). And if protecting your spine doesn't matter to you, congrats on being 22.
Even the highest quality versions of these chairs look exceedingly cheap, and they harken back to a period in interior design history when the general vibe seemed to be "fuck it!" I appreciate whimsy*, but I won't stay silent any longer; these chairs need to go.
*Nothing says "I'm a chill, whimsical gal" more than angrily shouting "I APPRECIATE WHIMSY!!!" into the void.
3.Glass furniture
The recent rise of "glam" helped usher in the return of glass furniture, and I'm not thrilled about it. Have you ever walked into the corner of one of these things? I'd rather walk barefoot across the LEGO-ridden floors of a preschool than endure a run-in with a glass coffee table. They are the Devil's furniture.
Even when glass tables don't have corners, they require constant cleaning because of how easily they smudge. Also, glass coffee tables are so breakable that Seinfeld dedicated a whole plot to their impracticality.
*cue bass outro* What's the deal with glass furniture? I think we should call it ASS furniture, because owning it makes you look like an ass. *entire audience starts crying, screaming, pissing, shitting, and throwing up*
4.Floating stairs
Architectural Digest / Via youtu.be, Pro Build / Via youtu.be
Not only are floating staircases ugly as sin, but they're too easy to trip on! My general rule of thumb for stairs is "if a drunk person has a decent chance of making it to the top unscathed, these are good stairs." Obviously, this trend doesn't pass the ̶s̶m̶e̶l̶l̶ stumble test.
5.Generic word art/Rae Dunn products
I am aware that speaking ill of Rae Dunn products is essentially a death wish, but I stand firm in my assessment.
I do not need "home" word art to know that I'm home or a mug labeled "coffee" to know that I'm drinking coffee (not to mention, I resent being restricted to a single beverage). And I certainly do not need a whimsical sign telling me to "live laugh love" — I am more than capable of laughing and loving on my own time and living by default.
6.DIY foam furniture
The TikTok youths are at it again with horrific DIY furniture made out of expandable Big Gap Insulating Sealer foam (aka the same foam my landlord used to fill in all the holes where bugs entered our apartment).
Thankfully this trend is already on its way out — presumably because people took one look at the furniture they ruined with a thick layer of toxic industrial foam and realized they'd been duped by Big Hardware.
Even when foam furniture is done well, it still kind of looks like something went wrong on the assembly line! (And "done well" is already a supremely subjective determination that I would not personally assign to any DIY foam furniture.)
7.Bouclé
For those who aren't familiar with this trend, I envy you. But to catch you up: Bouclé furniture is made from special loopy yarn woven into fabric that's lumpy and textured. It looks like if DIY foam furniture was professionally made. It looks like the cheap leggings I bought on Amazon that started pilling after a single wear. It looks like someone released an entire animal shelter's worth of cats and dogs into a furniture depot and said, "Go nuts!"
Most of all, it just looks bad.
8.Man caves
Man caves were never an acceptable interior design trend in civilized society, but even among their key demographic (men who own at least one LED beer logo sign), they've long overstayed their very limited welcome.
This is just one of many terrible trends that we can trace back to HGTV, though we shouldn't absolve the reclining leather couch industry of their culpability. But don't worry, boys, I'm not trying to rob you of your fun entirely. If you need a non-gendered place in your home to relax and unwind, you still have plenty of options, including but not limited to: rec rooms, dens, libraries, studies, offices, living rooms, family rooms, and home theaters.
9.Double islands
I have to assume the inventor of double islands had a thought process that went something like this: "Man, counter space is so great. There's truly nothing better on earth than one great big kitchen island. UNLESS..."
But despite what Boys Like Girls and Taylor Swift would have you believe, two is not always better than one. In this case, it's a rich person's monument to excess and performative consumerism; the only conceivable use for a second kitchen island would be when the proletariat rise up and need extra space to prepare the rich for consumption.
10.Open floor plans
I'm a long-time, vocal hater of open floor plans. Far be it from me to dictate how architects do their jobs, but I'm kind of a sucker for walls.
HGTV once again bears a large portion of the blame for pushing this trend on the masses, but ultimately it doesn't matter who's responsible; the fact remains that open floor plans are offensively impractical. Bad smells, sights, and sounds carry from the kitchen to the other open areas with no resistance, and these designs don't allow for privacy or solitude.
Famously, this Massachusetts home went viral in 2021 because of its open concept bathroom. With this house, open floor plan lovers could no longer ignore the flaws in their beloved home design because the lack of walls forced them to confront the elephant in the (bath)room.
11.Shiplap
The closer you are to a beach, the more shiplap becomes an acceptable design choice. But if you don't live near a shoreline, I genuinely do not know why you'd want shiplap in your home. My working assumptions are:
1. You want to feel like the captain of your bathroom and these walls contribute to the realism in some way???
2. You just read Moby Dick and making shiplap look good in your non-beach home is your own personal white whale. (I wish you better luck than Ahab.)
3. You just discovered SeaShantyTok.
No matter your reason for shiplapping, it's time to accept your landlubber status and put up some statement wallpaper or slap some paint on the drywall underneath.
12.All-neutral rooms
Everything about this trend looks awful, and I'm giving every CB2 and West Elm in New England exactly five minutes to fill their showrooms with colorful furniture before I start paintballing every boring couch and grey vinyl floor I lay my eyes on.
For more extremely specific opinions about interior design, check out these stories!
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What interior design trends do you hate? I want to read your wild rants in the comments below! 👇
