Why is modern interior decorating so *boring*?
Who doesn’t love a good interior decorating show? At their best, they provide all the goodness of reality tv (mostly) without the manufactured drama, psychological trauma, or exploitative edits of competition- or social experiment-based shows.
In the last few years, though, I’ve noticed an interesting trend: shows that supposedly showcase ‘good’ design feature homes that all look the same. Tasteful, yes, but also fundamentally un-interesting in their muted hues, their bland benign-ness, their Hamptons-ness.
It’s a style typified by Netflix’s Dream Home Makeover, where interior designer Shea McGee’s answer to a request for an “eclectic bohemian” style looks something like this:
Compare this to, say, Monica’s apartment in Friends, a 1990s conception of ‘eclectic’:
Smart people explain why
You might have noticed this trend in real life too: every AirBNB, every café (maybe even your friends’ homes? maybe even your home?) look kind of … the same.
What’s behind this? It turns out, the algorithm.
Here’s what a few smart thinkers have to say about this topic:
Kyle Chayka discusses on the Decoder Ring podcast how independent coffee shops owned by completely different people around the world all began to look the same within the last decade or so:
“Wherever I would land, I could always find essentially the same cafe. It didn't matter if I was in Beijing or Revic, Kyoto or Los Angeles, Bali or Brooklyn. The places all looked identical. Like, a place with white subway tiles on the walls, and plants and ceramic planters, and reclaimed wood furniture, wide windows in the front, maybe a marble countertop, and the uncovered Edison bulb.”
Because coffee shops have to look appealing on social media and Google search to get new customers, Chayka argues, their aesthetics must have a broad enough appeal to be algorithm-friendly.
Ann Helen Petersen writes that similar forces are at play in our own homes:
“Homeownership is always shadowed by the specter of resale value. ... The home becomes overdetermined as both an extension of the self and a site of financial security.”
We respond, she says, by convincing ourselves that anything too personalised or quirky isn’t actually our taste. We only allow ourselves to like things which would appeal to the average buyer glancing at photos of our home online.
Yes, reader, me too
I see this in my own home décor, which over the last 15 years has become less personal, less eclectic, and more Hamptons-y.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc9aa795d-e31b-41f6-afea-d965c26de7ef_4032x3024.jpeg)
I like how my home looks, but next time I get the urge to overhaul a room I’m going to make an effort to think less about what’s in “good taste” and more about what I, personally, love.
Quirky interior show recs
One good way to nurture personal taste is to watch home interior shows which showcase genuinely personal or quirky taste. Here’s a couple of my favourites:
Architectural Digest’s Open Door series, where we get to peek inside celebrity homes. (Some are beautiful, others prove that money doesn’t buy taste.) A few favourites with lots of personality: Justina Blakeney, Kirsten Dunst, and Cara Delevingne’s (both episodes) homes.
Amazing Interiors on Netflix, which features the homes of “eccentric homeowners” who dare to thoroughly personalise their homes with no thought given to resale value.