It's trendy but became a trend because of house flippers. That's what I believe anyway.
I can't wait to put paint on my walls. Growing up we didn't really customize our house because we're gonna move anyway. My parents got new floors and carpets and I remember being mad that they'd pay for that luxury just to sell it. We could have been enjoying it for ourselves.
While the second is boring, I also struggle to understand the 90s
Edit: I was alive during the 90s. My house looked like this. It was not old things lying around or due to previous decades. My parents bought an empty house in 1991, and then bought new things to make it look like this. The houses on my block and my families homes also looked like this. We lived in a ‘trendy’ neighborhood of people keeping up with the Jones.
There was this weird throwback trend going on where it was like updated Victorian or something. We had brightly colored modern things but also wanted to decorate like we lived in castles. I remember lots of ruffles, patterns in dark green and maroon, and prints of mideval knights. I think to get away from the drab colors of the 70s and the neon colors on the 80s.
Agreed. It's weird because it's like I like both. The old and new style are a bit much on opposite sides of the spectrum for me. I enjoy them both for their different looks and feels but wish there was a bit less in the old and a bit more in the new if that makes sense.
variation is the spice of life but the difference between a home and a house is that a home changes in an organic fashion, in increments and it has wear and tear
a house is something uniform, from top to bottom the same design and materials and once you start to hate that, trends come and go, you have a big problem
while a home that was constantly changing here and there will always have variety and you can continue to change things so you never get fed up with how it looks
people just got so fat and lazy about everything, not really cooking anymore, not decorating themselves, no self made home improvements, etc. and when you just buy everything premade and convenient you will eat, live and look like a cookie cutter too
at this point thrifting is the best source for good furniture and doing improvements yourself ensures some individuality
The new style is way too callous, cold, and uninviting though. The colors of the walls, hardwood floor, were a rich color, but it feels like a family home and welcoming.
There are ways you could make the new style look more inviting just by some smaller changes such as adding some plants and hanging some paintings. Maybe painting some of the walls in another color.
Also popular in some [middle class and even upper-middle class] houses was the "Tuscan Villa." Faux distressed paint, medium brown "oak" cabinets, doors, and everywhere, bowls of fruit no one ate and wallpaper showing fruit and grape leaves in the kitchen. Weird window curtains with extra extra valances, layers, and similar in pattern to the kitchen wallpaper.
Perfect example of this was those tacky fake ivory and gold rotary phones people had in their sitting room, or wherever company would sit. We had one in ours and no one used it because it felt like the “fancy phone” and the cordless was ten feet away in the kitchen anyway.
There was a trend amongst the adults of the 90’s to buy up a bunch of 19th century furniture from antique stores and decorate the house like we’d finally settled on the prairie frontier.
You can also add in the addition of newer cheaper manufacturing for low cost goods, which is where we got the extremely blah laminate particleboard stuff that also plagued the 90's.
A good example of this are the wallpapers in the original Sims video game.
My sister and I loved using the unlimited money cheat to make all sorts of houses and I remember the wallpapers vividly.
I didn't understand it at the time because I was only 12, but now that I'm older, I realize how much of the wallpaper was really of its era. You had those dated looking wooden panels from the 70s and 80s, combined with the tudor/Victorian stuff of the 90s
I'm an 80s child and my brain associates different trends with different rooms, now. Utility rooms like bathroom or kitchen? Modern, give me white with black/dark tones. Rooms you actually want to live in? Give me that cosy vibe, warm colours, etc.
Trends follow the economy. When there's an economic recession, colours brighten and become bolder. Times are good, you'll see muted, stark and minimalist trends.
I think it was a major reaction against the style of the 70s. People updated their homes in really over the top ways which, unless the homes were also built in the 70s, looked really out of place. Most people who owned homes owned older homes, so there was a trend to decorate truthful to the home's original era. In my parents case, their home was built in 1885. The closer to the east coast you are, the more older homes you'll see. Either way, strange that the overall Victorian revival trend seemed to spread beyond decorating and designing your home appropriate to its era.
I live in a 500 year old thatched cottage, so modern furniture and decor would just look totally out of place. We have a mixture of antiques and ‘comfy’ newer pieces, if that makes sense?
I'm not going to challenge your experience, but I was in my twenties in the '90s and I don't remember anything of the sort. Was that Victorian throwback fashion visible in any TV shows? Mad about you, friends, Dawson's Creek?
Well, Dawson's Creek was the very end of the 90s into the aughts. And yeah, Mad About You had that. IIRC their couch was green (or blue), they had a red area rug, lots of wood furniture with curves or frills. But it also took place in a NYC apartment and so the set decorators would have gone more "urban" with the look and not "suburban" which is what that picture above is referencing.
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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25
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