Two Home Decorating Trends the Experts Beg You to Stop

Style isn’t static, and your home decor shouldn’t be, either. You must admit, even the most beloved design elements can start to feel unbearably stale after a while.  Remember when paneled walls, deep shag carpets and avocado appliances were all the rage?  Exactly.  These are the design hangers-on the experts can’t wait for you to ditch in 2019.

“Boho has to die,” says Portland Oregon designer Justin Riordan. “It’s totally flippin’ over.”  Yes, we’re talking to you, you who still adorn your walls with macrame hangings, insist on keeping waxy-fake succulents around the house (“You’re not fooling anybody,” Riordan says), and your Moroccan lanterns were super groovy – in 1976 – but it’s time to let them go.  “You can, of course, continue to buy $19 batik pillows at Target, but stuff like that is just fodder for your next garage sale,” Riordan says.

If you just can’t tear yourself away from that gypsy-soul-world-citizen vibe, Riordan suggests channeling those feelings into a truly authentic piece like a kilim rug, which not only reflects a real ethnic tradition, but actually has long-lasting value, and building the room around that.    Look, don’t think of it as losing a beloved design element.  Think of it as gaining re-sale value!

Can you believe the Word Art trend is still happening?  That’s because it’s not. And in 2019, the pros are determined to make it finally stop.  Yes, it says “Inhale – Exhale” on the wall in my yoga studio.  But that’s a yoga studio.  Even if you can “live, laugh, and love” and “dance like nobody’s watching,” with the best of them, those words don’t belong on your walls.

“Any text art hung in the home meant to be positive just comes across as cheesy and predictable,” says Jessica Boudreaux, an interior designer in Miami and New York City.  Ana Cummings of Ana Interiors agrees: “It’s about as hokey as you can get.”  If you really need to keep these life mantras close to your heart, consider getting a tattoo.  Then it will literally be close to your heart, forever.

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Photo Credit: Victoria Gripas / Shutterstock.com