4 Outdated Interior Design Styles To Avoid

When decorating your home, you may find it useful to look to the past. Some styles are eternal, and even old-fashioned designs can look new again when you bring them into a modern context. Unfortunately, some ideas have aged like yogurt on a shelf. While they might have been fab, they now look drab. When you’re updating your home, don’t let these make your home look hokey or ho-hum. Here are four outdated interior design styles to avoid.

One-Track-Mind Themes

Themes are good if you apply them in moderation. Keeping a room sparse and ascetic or generally cozy is perfectly fine. But letting a single theme overtake a room, as people did in the past, can be overbearing. As much as you enjoy fishing, football, or a farmhouse look, such themes shouldn’t dominate. Keep things subtle. Celebrate your tastes and pastimes with the occasional photo or decoration, but don’t go whole hog. Subtly suggesting a theme always looks better than screaming it through a cluttered shrine.

Exactly Matching Furniture

There’s nothing wrong with keeping a consistent look in your living room, bedroom, dining room, or other spaces with a matching set of furniture. However, keep things from getting boring by adding other pieces that match the aesthetic but not the exact color or style of the set. Adding varied pieces creates a more visually interesting space. Keep things from looking staid and stodgy like a floor display at the furniture store by mixing things up.

Shag? Agggh!

Truly, much of the middle-20th century was an age of shag carpeting. Wall-to-wall shag and other types of carpeting dominated the interior design world. Now, wall-to-wall shag carpeting can look tacky and dated. It’s also harder to clean. Moreover, carpets are subject to potential soiling from pets. Carpeting makes a room look smaller as well. While that may help make it cozier, you still need to deal with the problem of maintenance. Area rugs are a better choice, still providing comfort for the feet while looking smarter and adding visual appeal.

Faux Finishes? Feh!

The 80s and 90s were obsessed with creating fake finishes. People used paint and other materials to make surfaces that weren’t marble appear to be marble, cracked paint to make brick and other materials look old, and so on. Cheap artsy-craftsy techniques and textures designed to trick the eye aren’t fooling anybody anymore and look more dated than antique. Use the real thing when you can, and stick with quality finishes that’ll look better for far longer.

Those are just four outdated interior design styles to avoid. Need a few ideas to bring your interiors to life? Contact us for a consultation. We offer a huge selection of tasteful buy now, pay later furniture that will beautify your home while providing a cozier and more stylish atmosphere.