Tulle, solid wood kitchen, breakfast bar… Seven outdated trends that should never come back.
1. Solid kitchen
Provence style kitchen, Tuscan kitchen, solid wood kitchen were the most popular requests in the 1990s. These styles were supposed to give the comfort and luxury of a country house. Decorate sometimes very modest meters. Their characteristic paneled facades, friezes and cornices, the upper row of wall cabinets, fancy figured handles are a thing of the past. The modern kitchen is a functional and open space for culinary exploits and socializing. Factory handmade imitation, heavy solid wood furniture from factories that do not have “green” certificates (i.e., use raw materials from cut down forests) is not the best way to emphasize your noble status.
2. Stretch and suspended ceilings
Suspended and stretch ceilings, in addition to being non-environmentally friendly, steal valuable centimeters of height. The purpose of installing suspended structures is simple – to minimize the cost of repairing ceilings or painting them. As a rule, annoying cracks form in old houses every 5-10 years. In multi-storey new buildings and on the upper floors, a false ceiling or plasterboard ceiling is designed to get rid of the unpleasant appearance of possible smudges. However, like everything false, false ceilings do not stand the test of strength (they can even be pierced with a pin), sometimes they smell bad, worsen air exchange and, most importantly, reduce precious centimeters of height, distorting the proportions of the room.
3. Skirting board in floor color
In addition to the fact that the search for a plinth in the color of the floor (solid plinth, ceramic plinth) is a costly task, any, even the most beautiful floor with it will begin to resemble a trough. It is strange to emphasize the junction of two planes, especially if one plane is light and the other is made of dark material. An unpleasant gap today can be masked in a variety of ways, including completely abandoning the plinth. Other options are to paint the baseboard in the color of the walls, choose a laconic, with minimal relief, flat and high, or make it contrast, with a color accent. It is important to remember that the baseboard is part of the wall, not the floor.
4. tulle curtains
A relic of the past, tulle has remained a favorite of those who call the living room a hall, modern style is modern (or hi-tech), and art deco is pronounced with an emphasis on the penultimate syllable. Meters of rags do not always create a cozy look. Any textile, especially on a large surface, automatically attracts dust. Recall that dust is the main enemy of healthy interiors. One of her thimble contains 5 million microbes: you can find half of the periodic table and more than 100 organic compounds in it. In addition to harmful impurities, dust particles are full of microscopic mites, bacteria and viruses. Any fabric prevents the penetration of natural light that kills harmful bacteria. When it is impossible to do without curtains, designers offer concise options from natural and easy-care materials (without layers or complex draperies).Fashionable curtains are plain, they do not draw attention to the window, they are selected to match the walls. The most trendy window decor is a complete lack of decor.
5. Bar counter and aquariums
The bar counter in the kitchen is a truncated version of a full-fledged kitchen island for small apartments . Even if you call it a breakfast bar, it has no right to exist in a residential interior. The only possible use for bar counters is in drinking establishments. And what in return? There are two options: put a compact dining table or, if space permits, equip a functional kitchen island, for example, as part of a combined kitchen-living room. Facing towards the front space, it makes the transition of zones more harmonious. Another element that does not make a home a home is an aquarium, a frequent visitor to hospitals and childcare facilities.Large aquariums with lighting and plastic grottoes, like traditional glass spheres, are not the best place for living creatures: not many owners can cope with frequent water changes, filtration and the right choice of food so that the fish grow up happy, healthy and live their measured 3-5 years.
6. Jacuzzi
Bulky hot tubs have left modern interiors. Laconic built-in shower systems and compact volumes have come to replace them in order to improve vivacity of mind and body. Sometimes, in order to install bulky “jacuzzi” in the apartment, it was necessary to change the concrete screed (and sometimes the floors), deliver a monolithic heavy structure with a crane through the window and have a lot of unpleasant conversations with neighbors. Why are these sacrifices not justified? One of the reasons is environmental care accessible to everyone: we reduce plastic consumption, sort waste and save water. Responsibility for the planet no longer allows us to fill monstrous bowls to the brim.
7. Heavy furniture
The new generation no longer buys huge desks and wall bookcases, refuses large furniture, ignoring everything heavy in favor of soft, cozy and mobile. You can now carry almost your entire life with you in one laptop. “We no longer want a lot of furniture, we stick to the principle of “one thing instead of many,” new people say. Among other things, large, heavy headboards, textile quilted or made of wood, went out of fashion. Today it looks a little stuffy.
Anti-trends are the trends themselves
Trends are no longer trending. If everyone fixes the vector of development, then it has existed for at least one or two years and is not new. At the same time, one of the trends in interior design today is the setting for timelessness, for a space that is not tied to a specific era. The absence of trends in the interior is also a trend. It makes no sense to use words from the last century: modern, provence, art deco, loft or high-tech. There is one modern “style” that involves a harmonious mix, cultural choice of subject matter, comfort and insight into personal daily needs. This is conscious consumption.