More Decor Crimes

Cosy.

"You can't go wrong with mid-oak-coloured cabinets and a dark grey granite worktop." (thepropertymermaid.com)

"Net curtains, a trampoline in the garden and mirrored wardrobe doors." (Daily Express)

"Your red wall looks cool and striking, but not everyone will appreciate it." (www.brisbanere.com.au)

“with a show-home feel” (Zoopla)

single-aspect flats and houses: no light or too much, no ventilation

shoebox rooms with a window one end, furnished with a long sofa down the long side, opposite a wall-mounted TV

barrel roof added to brutalist flats (known as a “Blair hat”)

expensive hotel has a refurb and replaces shabby repro tat with new, rather more “richly” coloured repro tat

vertical blinds (Are they 80s retro, or do they make a house look like an office?)

ship’s wheel as decor

pale green onyx (especially a pale green onyx tissue box)

palatial bungalow modelled on an orangery (nice to live in, though, with lots of natural light)

ding-dong doorbell (or one that plays tunes)

stone, brick or wood-effect wallpaper (not seen for decades – but you can now get a very upmarket version imitating distressed or recycled wood)

shoes, coats and bicycles stored in the hallway (is there no room for a coat cupboard, a boot locker and a bike shed?)

“doggy odour” (Anne Maurice)

Garden crimes
a mound of earth and rock with water cascading down it trying to mimic the hanging gardens of Babylon (www.periodproperty.co.uk)

weird garden plants (apparently potential buyers think they’re all Japanese knotweed) (Guardian)

60s crimes
not exactly décor, but the 60s policy of removing gravestones and turning graveyard into a lawn or park (Like “church-scraping” in the 1850s. And it went with the fitted carpet in the church - those have all gone now. I wonder why.)

In the 60s, many classical plaster ceilings were either hidden by suspended ceilings or painted in pink and green.

Fireplace crimes
wood burning stove in a “Georgian” fireplace in a 30s house
Tudor fireplace in a 50s bungalow
gas effect fireplace with pine surround (www.periodproperty.co.uk)
fake fire in a faux chimney breast (after fireplaces and chimneys have been ripped out)
keeping all the Victorian fireplaces that will never be used again

In a Victorian terrace house
a kitchen diner with yards of granite
ending up "stripped down too far"

More money than sense
Apparently oligarchs now buy huge period houses and enucleate them – they knock down all interior walls and strip out all “features”.

kitchen designed to look slick and never be used in a Central London investment flat (They've had an unfortunate knock-on effect on kitchens people are actually going to cook in.)

huge living room containing nothing but leather sofas and a wall-mounted telly - in a house with a kitchen the size of a football pitch, and a garden that is one huge lawn stretching to the horizon. Apparently these are “light, airy living areas” (Escape to the Country). Yes, light and space and lack of clutter are good, but this is ridiculous. You could get the same effect by buying an old chapel and just removing the altar, the organ and all the pews. (What are they going to do in all that space? Yoga? Ballroom dancing?)

More here.