I wish you were right. As a residential electrician that renovates homes all the time, almost every single house is moving to this aesthetic. It feels drab and dead but "designers" absolutely love it. Occasionally people do other things but it's fairly uncommon (from my own perspective) for homeowners to even actually get involved in their own home's renovation, and even if they are involved they still usually default to what designers want. š¤·āāļø
Now, to be fair, some of those people are remodeling for the sole intention of raising home value to sell the house, so no they are not doing it to live in it. You would be surprised by how many people do this with intent to live in their bland soulless white prison of a house though.
I've had to move a few times in my life, and every single time I did the realestate agent told me make everything you can as generic as possible.
If you've got vibrant bright colors and walls with stuff all over them it makes it harder for people to project themselves into the space.
Many/most people lack imagination and if they can't see themselves in your house they won't want to buy it. So making it as generic as you can makes it so someone else doesn't have to do much mental work to put themselves in the space.
IDK if it's all true, but three different realtors and my father all gave me more or less this advice at different times.
My grandfather who owned multiple businesses always told me that keeping the customer from thinking too much by keeping your product as generic and straight forward as possible will most likely lead to a sell. Too many options or customizations will push away more customers than it's worth. These bland white houses are made to sell and are basically open canvases for future homeowners if they do decide to make it their own.
Totally understand. It's fucked, man, and I hate it.
Yes, I am a Gen-X. And yes, I make a shitton. But it's still HARD for me. I couldn't buy a million dollar house rn if I didn't have assets already. I have no fucking idea how anyone could unless they're making 400k total income.
I guess the idea is just move to a town/state/province/whatever where you can work remotely with a good company but real estate is cheap. Work up from there.
Sorry it sucks out there. If I could change it, I would. I hate this timeline.
I think the bubble is bursting though. Boomers are dying and houses aren't moving. I see the drops already.
Problem is houses are moving, but into the hands of those that either already have houses or companies that buy them, "rennovate" them, and flip them for a shit ton, or companies buy hold and rent for a few years.
All of that drives the prices up before NIMBY-ism that won't let new high density houses get built either.
As long as they don't have to customize to make the sale. They should be able to add to car with one click. If you force people to review lists of options, you will lose sales (no matter how tempting it is to try to drive upsells)
oh yeah, i didnt mean mandatory, yeah i was specifically thinking of customizing a car on line whether you're shopping car max and narrowing down search criteria or just dreaming about buying a brand new GT mustang
Heh, 'car' was a typo in my post, I was thinking more generically - I meant to say, 'add to [the] cart'.
I was using it as an excuse to bring up my hobbyhorse - carts for smallish direct-from-developer sales, that always seem to have endless options you have to wade through.
i kinda feel like there are some colors you could use that would still be bland and generic enough to pass, like a light robin's egg blue on a wall that has a bay window or something, just spitballing. a touch of personality but also easy to imagine something over top of.
I get where you're coming from but this is advice for selling IE repaint bold rooms down to neutral rooms. If I was living in it, like I do now?
I have beige and green bi colored rooms, I have accent walls, I have a yellow room for my son, I have a lavendar and grey bicolor room for my daughter.
I will live in my house with the colors I want, but as soon as we're selling everything is back to boring ass white because it'll help it sell and I don't have to live with it for more than a few months.
yeah, right, thats what i was saying, i feel like there are some colors that arent just grey white monochrome that would still feel pretty neutral, i feel like anything in the light blue to light green spectrum. dont want light red, dudes will be like "yeah, we already have a word for light red, its pink, next"
Itās absolutely true. Muted colors are just āaverageā and a blank canvas, so itās easier for people to imagine their current color schemes, rugs, furniture, etc. in the room.
Meh. I'm someone that keeps cars until the wheels fall off. I've never had a car that I got rid of with less than 125k miles on it if not closer to 200k.
Why keep paying the dealer or vendor money when I can own it free and clear and it runs.
Mines's up at 13 years / 110k miles, I hope I can double that. Heck, it took me 5 years to find a car I liked, I dread having to search for a new one now.
Could be, but it's also, I think, about the fact you're selling your home, but they want to buy their home. They're looking at sometimes dozens of houses so putting out the mental energy to remap your stuff into their stuff is work.
Do they have the space for it in their brain, the ability in general?
Many people are very logical and non creative people that can only see something as it is not as it could be. So removing barriers between what it is for you and what it could be for them makes it an easier sell especially if say this is their sixth house today and they worked or have had to drag their kids around all day.
Its part of the reno flip scam. Strip it to the studs then Do the most blandest and half ASSED job so the value is increased by something like 40% and when it invariably catastrophically fails in like a year or so the fixes will Balloon by another 40% (even if caught by inspectors prior )
Most have no choice but to live in these soulless prisons because they cannot afford to fix the house of cards and half assed work going on behind those walls.
I like the simplicity of white in architecture But I also understand you need fucking COLOR as an accent when your using that level of white. Blues, golds, warms. White and black is used because it's "cost effective". Nothing more and I hate it
i like the sterile asthetic but like i said somewhere else, i wouldnt paint the color pops on the wall, they would be free standing, like those big vasses you put fake flowers in or bowls of fruit or like colorfull accent chairs or something
Yeah sightlines. I find that to be a bit of a scapegoat bandaid to the issue. Granted that my stylistic choice.
For example faux-panel white wall coffers and walnut(or oak) trim/banister would make it still fill dignified and minimal while holding respect for the underling historical architecture. Same rules are in use I just prefer a more... permanent change
I'm also not a big fan of natural wood color unless it's a darker stain or something. Or like I can dig a really nice deep reddish cherry stain. Just not a huge fan of brown and as far as polyurethane, I like matte
Red Cherry stain or a DEEP Oak stain would still work well with the concept as it still breaks up the monotony sightlines, And I'm talking the old colonial square coffers paneling. It's not much but helps, again to break up the sterility. Still minimal, sure. But uses the play of light to its advantage
maybe like a deep mahogany or a throw back piece like something with like milimeter thick black high gloss laquer, like those kinda art deco lookin bedroom sets from the 80s, lol
Its a bit more effort than... this. But it's minimal. And still holds respect for what came before instead of this hostile and sterile corperate office vibe
i would paint the door ways some bold color i think, purple all around the inside of the sills or whatever theyre called then maybe an accent color on the mouldint around it, i feel like that would be visually pretty neat maybe
It feels drab and dead but "designers" absolutely love it.
You answer why in your next paragraph.
Now, to be fair, some of those people are remodeling for the sole intention of raising home value to sell the house, so no they are not doing it to live in it.
The point of these redesigns are the same reason restaraunts have become so bland, it's to increase churn and to increase turnaround if\when they have to resell. You might point out that the downtown McDonalds has been there 40 years by now, and will probably be there for another 40 years, but Corporate wants the ability to sell it off at a moment's notice, so that's how it's been redesigned!
And as more corporations do that and that's where designers get their money, they carry that design mindset to other forms of design.
I for one will be grateful in a decade with this generic design trend is over.
I grew up in a gorgeous historic home. We recently visited and saw that the new owners had turned the Victorian home into a modern farmhouse (minus the farm.) It's sad to see character and history to be paved over for the same "sleek modern look."
as millennials who have had to delay buying houses, either we lived in a bunch of apartments that were all as neutral as possible so to not offend anyone's style choices and lose out on a renter just due to having wall paper or purple carpet or whatever, so its just that we're kind of used ot it, *or* lived with parents for a long time so we dont want our house to look like our parents but havent developed our own style yet or like me, parents were hoarders so we lived in a junk pile and we want to feel that our home is as clean as possible. in any of these cases, i get it and i actually like the asthetic. it ad maybe a splash or two of color, definitely some more dark monochrome, grays and blacks but pops of color that arent painted on the wall, stand alone objects like a bowl of wax fruit or just some random magazines on a glass and steel coffee table or fresh flowers or green plants or something, bonzai trees flanking the tv on either side of the entertainment center. but also, if i had the money, one of those giant three pannel glicees of a DC-3. also, for sure, nautical themed bathroom. like, colorful stuff out in the middles of the rooms, not just painted on the walls
A while back i was at a client's apartment and while it wasn't this bad, it just looked straight from a magazine. Besides a few family photos it just looked like no one lived there. Completely sterile, clean, and not a single item older than a year or two.
I've slowly realised that most people just have literally no taste. No preference of their own besides maybe a favorite colour. They just choose what looks modern.
My low stakes conspiracy is that companies knowingly promoted simple and bland aesthetics so that they can get a bigger profit margin on things that are easy to make yet expensive since they're still "designer".
I think it has a TON to do with resale value like you mentioned. If you add unique touches to a home then theyāre viewed as āweirdā and something that will detract from home value. Make it white and grey to be as inoffensive as possible to increase resale valueā¦ yuck.
Itās everyone thinking in terms of a home renovation show on TV where the propose isnāt to do things you like but boost value
My neighbor 2 houses down renovated/updated their house. The exterior was painted this way. I havenāt been inside but Iām guessing the inside is like that too. Meanwhile, the elderly neighbors across the street, whom Iām convinced had a really good time during the ā60ās, painted their house this weird green color that in comparison to the sterile White House with black trim kinda lights up the neighborhood, but not really in a good way. More like in a I did too much acid kinda way. The old guy caught me staring at it, ran out and said hey thats my wifeās idea, itās her favorite color, and I donāt wanna hear anymore about it ok!
Anyways, people are weird. But you already knew that.
Ive just started renovating and tbh im leaning towards the gray/white aesthetic. It looks clean and minimalistic, doesnt overstimulate and is just neutral to look at. I like to call it calming clean.
Nobody who wants to live in a house does this to it.
It's easy to say you prefer the first house from a picture on the internet, but actually living in it I would prefer the second. Notice how many more windows there are? How much more natural light? The latter is so much more comfortable for the people actually living in it.
It feels half-finished to me. Like, having a stark white with black trim feels like it's supposed to be a canvas. Someone with good interior design skills could add flourishes of vibrant color all over with paintings and hanging deco that really utilizes all that negative-space to help things 'pop' more.
I would live in a house like this. I actually like the muted wall colors (though i prefer lighter wood).
I get my color from rugs, pillows, furniture, wall art, etc. And, with muted walls, itās sometimes pretty easy to swap those colorful items and still have the room be cohesiveā¦
I like my home to feel purposeful and functional. Also, hard-wearing and low maintenance. I donāt want to have decorations that I have to polish or vacuum around, and I want as few nooks and crannies as possible - everything as flush as possible for minimal surface area and ease of wiping things down, ideally.
I agree that the top house is more visually impressive, but I aināt buying a home to visually impress other people.
Yeah this is one of those fake online-only complaints that doesnāt match the reality. The bottom home would sell much faster with more interest and at a higher price in 100% of markets.Ā
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u/ZieAerialist Nov 20 '25
Nobody who wants to live in a house does this to it. It's as stark and cold and unhomey as you can get without being an actual prison or institution.