Change This Immediately: 10 Interior Trends to Forget

Some of them have always been considered tasteless, others are morally outdated since the appearance of new technologies and materials. There are also anti-trends that simply bore everyone – they're used too often in appropriate and inappropriate situations. Take a look at our list – if this picture is painfully familiar, it's time to change something!

1. Neon Colors in Striking Combinations

Green sofas, pink cushions, turquoise cabinets and bright yellow photo frames – this was trendy just a few years ago! Such a cocktail exploded the mind on its own, and placed on a white background, became a decoration manifesto of a new generation.

The most advanced designers and home craftsmen served acid tones with a sauce of "pop art" – the situation was somewhat justified by bright designer furniture and Marilyn's lips on posters. But the call to "not be afraid of color" quickly tired both developers and clients of such ultra-modern interiors. Leave this trend of recent past too, if you want to keep your eyes and nerves in good shape.

2. Maxi Prints

Fruits, flowers, and sometimes even dolphins and nearly crocodiles – huge photo prints first settled on glass kitchen aprons, then invaded bathrooms as so-called 3D floors.

The deceptive appeal of such a design lies in its naturalism. Objects in the photograph look exactly as they do in nature, which modern urban dwellers endlessly yearn for. But what natural correspondence is there if fruits and berries are bigger than a human head? Be careful, this raspberry might eat you!

3. Black and White Photo Walls

Views of world capitals instead of room walls were a super hit for fast home makeovers over the last five years. The logic behind such a decision was not disputed: black-and-white photos are elegant; Manhattan skyscrapers and Golden Gate Bridge are cool and luxurious. Of course, photo wallpapers always make space look wider. And they blend perfectly with the bright colors mentioned above.

The scheme was so simple that it went into mass production instantly. Now such a design is trendy in all student dormitories. Maybe it's time to break the pattern? And hang a photograph of Venice on the wall – the normal size. Perhaps even in a frame...

4. Glamour with Crystals: The Castle of the Naked King

At the beginning of the 2000s, homeowners of country houses and large apartments wanted empire, art deco, and baroque. Historical stylizations and modern chic dominated interior fashion. Of course, budget replicas lacked crystals and gold, but had many crystal chandeliers, carpets with high pile, and polyurethane moldings. All this magnificence somehow fit into small apartments. Probably, the strongest impression was made by kitchens and bathrooms in a "luxury-rich" style.

Today, only chandeliers, carpets, and plastic outlets remain from the "luxury" furniture. But fortunately, designers and owners of small apartments use them individually, not as part of an imagined palace decor – in the absence of an actual palace. And this is the right approach!

5. Fully Ethnic Interiors

At that time, in the middle of the zero years or early 2010s, along with downshifting, Japanese and Mediterranean styles entered the fashion. Also, Arab style and other Indian motifs were trendy. However, the Mediterranean style, probably, still holds its position – it's the most reasonable way to combine eco-friendly materials, handicrafts, modern and classical furniture items.

But with the other consequences of interior globalization, it seems we've managed to sort them out: we are not Bedouins who sleep on carpets, and we're not Far Eastern monks who eat from the floor. And perhaps we are slightly tired of faded multicolored silks with crystals and monistas if they wrap all walls and ceiling without discrimination.

You can easily and simply de-ethnicize the design without losses for your wallet and image: elephant rugs and Arabic lanterns will look great in rooms designed in modern eco-style.

6. Fake Reliefs: The Era of Gypsum Boards

We had to go through this. Typical apartments, leaving no room for fantasy, were transformed into strange curved spaces using gypsum board. Their creators felt like real architects. Gypsum boards gave the possibility to build a new reality in small one-bedroom, two-bedroom, or three-bedroom flats – a house within a house.

Multilevel ceilings with various lighting, niches, arches, fake shelves, false mantelpieces, even fake columns – their popularity was fantastic. But finally, it subsided. It turned out that everything around is just artificial walls. And what's behind them – brick, slag blocks, concrete slabs – seems truly beautiful today, in contrast to the smooth gypsum board imitation.

7. Glossy Ceilings with Photo Prints

Everything said about gypsum board constructions applies here too: imitation of a smooth surface, glossy and bright, monochrome or printed. There were simply too many photo prints. Ceramic tiles, cups, dresses – all covered with photos, but the most vulgar and ordinary pictures were printed on ceilings.

The most harmless variants are large butterflies and flowers. On the second place by popularity are galaxies and star clusters – such as they're not seen even by Hubble telescope. There are also motifs and fragments of old masters' paintings, vividly colored in modern style and skillfully arranged – no comments here.

The pinnacle of design thinking – a cat bursting through the ceiling. If you look up every day, you'll probably get used to the idea that it's possible.

8. Walls with Ombre Effect

Ombre, gradient or degradation – a late trend that really held minds of designers for a couple of years. But in independent renovations, it didn't take root due to the high complexity of execution: even craftsmen can't achieve smooth color transitions. It's much more honest to paint several bands of different colors in one hue on the wall than to try to depict an aquatint blur where it simply cannot exist.

By the way, this effect is also reproduced on furniture – different doors or drawers are painted with a uniform layer of paint in similar shades. Ombre on fabrics looks very natural – silk and cotton dyed with natural dyes often have exactly such a gradient transition of hues. But on walls, when trying to make it "like in the magazine," you usually get a strange smudge that you want to immediately paint over with one calm color. Probably, that's exactly what should be done!

9. Layered Drapery on Windows

How many times have we told the world that small apartments are not a place for voluminous draperies. But owners of small flats stubbornly hang kilometers of jacquard and organza on windows – thick, tightly folded. Which, as everyone knows, visually reduces the space and light in the room. Besides, such curtains torture the eye with their laces, coverings, and ruffles.

Drapery on windows in small spaces is possible only if the curtains are very light and white. If you really want folds, take a thin mesh or heavy sheer cream-colored veil and gather it onto special tape. Choose Roman curtains or narrow woven panels made of linen if you need to close the windows tightly at night. But thick jacquard, taffeta or plush for windows are definitely a thing of the past!

10. Meaningless Decoration: The Habit of Ornamentation

Everything in modern design is subordinated to functionality – if something doesn't work, it needs a purpose or should be removed to the storage. Don't hang pop posters with primitive graphics on the wall – your four-year-old child has already drawn a whole gallery of images in the same style, only real and from the heart.

Why do you need empty boxes in the hallway and porcelain jars on the kitchen shelf if you don't use them? Who brings joy to artificial plants? If you look around, you'll see that for many years you've decorated your apartment with lifeless things (giving them space in your own life).

It's time to change the setup: remove the dusty old vase and put a movie projector – it will inspire you, reminding you of film shoots you participated in or might participate in one day. And it will also illuminate dark corners.

Remove the silly stickers – half the country pasted them on the wall, and they don't express your individuality at all. Be yourself and create around you honest space – imitations are no longer trendy, only real life is relevant!