Why I’m starting to distrust perfect homes
Perfectly paired colour palettes.
Aesthetic corners styled within an inch of their lives.
A place for everything and everything in its place.
This is how a lot of homes are starting to look these days. Shining examples of the perfectly decorated home caught in the perfect moment. Encased behind glass - a beacon guiding the rest of us onto the path to interior nirvana.
No mess. No trailing wires. Nothing out of place. And definitely no cobwebs. Homes we can’t wait to share with the world, shoot-ready - just waiting for the perfect angle to be immortalised forever on the grid.
I have to admit I feel partly responsible (as a former interiors’ stylist) having spent most of my working career chasing the perfect setup. But this was a job. And I was paid to show off clients’ products to the best of their ability - so they could ultimately sell more stuff and make more money.
It was business.
But our homes are not.
Don’t get me wrong. I walk into a room and I’ll admit I do size it up for the perfect angle, the best shot etc. But I’ve been trained to do that - and I can’t help but see interiors through the lens of a camera.
But I think we’ve gone way too far down this path of perfection, and now a lot of homes have lost that slightly worn, dishevelled I-couldn’t-give-a-monkey’s attitude they used to have.
Random collections gathering dust on a shelf that’s way too high to be properly useful.
Floorboards worn to an irregular patchwork - highlighting the paths most taken throughout our homes. Half-dead plants you hang onto hoping they might come back to life.
But why do we need this type of laissez-faire attitude in our homes? Because without it I feel they might be in danger of losing their soul, their homeliness, their very essence of what, by definition, a home is. Which according to the Oxford Dictionary is, ‘the seat of domestic life and interests’.
And I find the ‘interests’ bit really interesting.
Because, just like us, our homes need to feel like ongoing projects I think. Places where we not only get to explore our creativity, but also places that can adapt to fit the emotional backdrop we need. Most of our lives are far from perfect - so why should our homes be? And doesn’t that just add another layer of pressure that we can all do without.
Don’t get me wrong. Our homes do require thought, love and an eye to how they can work best for us - both practically and decoratively. And our homes should feel beautiful to us, and are totally deserving of having love and attention spent on them. But I do feel they shouldn’t feel overly curated - as if constantly on call for their moment in the spotlight.
And I guess that’s the crux of what I wanted to say - that more than anything it feels like a lot of homes have stopped being places to simply live, and have quietly become places to perform. And perhaps we’ve started decorating not just for ourselves - but for an imagined audience too. Even if we never post a photograph, it's surprisingly easy to internalise the standards we see every day…until they become our own.
So what’s the answer?
Perhaps it’s that once we’ve found the perfect colour palette for our homes (for now), the right balance of mix and match pattern and the type of shapes and textures that really make us feel good, we all need to consider throwing things off a little - introducing a bit of randomness, pushing our supposed styles a little. Questioning why we’re decorating our homes the way we are - asking ourselves who we’re really doing it for.
And if you’re not sure, then just imagine you’re a child viewing your home for the first time - as I sometimes think a kids lens is the best one of all.
Because children don't notice whether your cushions coordinate.
They notice the reading nook/ den squirrelled away under the stairs, the super comfy, slightly battered chair next to the window looking out to the garden and the funny collection of dusty shells on the shelf.
Above all they feel your room before they see it - and notice character before curation.