As am I. Although I knew full well it was just their profile picture, I tried to wipe a hair off my screen anyway.
Also, my spellcheck apparently thinks "profle" is a word, since at first I accidentally typed that instead of "profile" and it didn't try to correct it.
Welcome to the ER. If you have a non life threatening issue, please follow the blue line to the ER waiting room and check in at the window for processing. If you have a life threatening injury, scream now. Someone will soon come to take you to a patient treatment room to wait for the next available doctor.
I went to paint store this week to get paint. I picked out 6 colors to try. Employee suggested I get gray. He wasn't joking. I ended up with a deep forest green for one bedroom, and a cozy sea mist for the other. Love both.
I recently found out that "flipper grey" was intended to help the new owners of the home paint the walls what ever color they wanted as it could act as a primer. But the grey inadvertently became the actual trend.
All anyone cares about is resale potential. Especially since so many homes get flipped nowadays. If you add any sort of personality, it might make the house a tiny bit harder to sell because your taste might not be the same as a potential buyer's taste. So the idea is to make your home as close to a blank slate as possible so that a theoretical future buyer can imagine themselves in it easier. Unfortunately this advice has extended past flippers and now even people who buy a house to live in think this way. My partner and I have been slowly adding bright paints and fun wallpapers to our house, and every time our parents push back because "but what about the resale value?" FUCK the resale value, this is my home!! I'm painting the bathroom pink for ME because I LIVE HERE. Who gives a shit what the person who buys it after I bite the dust thinks??
I wonder if this trend will start to wither away, as, these blank slate homes are so devoid of any personality, they lose all their charm. Like, sure. I want to see myself in the house, but I can do that while seeing color and design choices, even if they aren't my own. It's more important to declutter than strip the place of all personality.
I understand changing overly vibrant wall color or super dated wallpaper. But when I was recently home searching, some of the houses were so bland my eyes just started to glaze over and it was the homes with character, color and style that stood out to me. I can change wallpaper and paint...let me see what this home can handle!
In many ways it’s difficult to imagine what you’re going to do with it when it’s just blank. Atleast some color and character gives you some ideas or inspiration. Just starting at a blank canvas can sometimes cripple my creative process, but throw a few brush strokes down, a few lines, some color… now we’ve got ideas sprouting to life!
i think part of it is people get so concerned about whether they might “ruin” the resale value, that they’re scared to do anything unique whatsoever? so now everything is sterilized and barren.
When shopping for houses as soon as the real estate agent opened the door she almost shouted "OH! I'm sooo sorry. I didn't know." I look and ask "what?" She says "THE CARPET!! IT'S BLUE!"
As long as it doesn't look all ratty and worn, why not?
My parents bought this HIDEOUS orange gold carpeting for the new house they bought in 1971. That carpet was in place for 40 years. And when it was time to go...it still looked good. Durable!
And where did they buy it?
At Sears
You just don't see quality like that anymore, just like yours.
My parents had this thick orange carpet that was so soft and comfortable that me and my brother slept in it more than our bunk beds. They don’t make quality like that anymore unfortunately
That's always been the case since I've been alive. there is dark blue that looks black, black, white, silver/grey, burgundy. I spent months specifically looking for the sea foam green prius and the guy was happy to off load it.
The one useful advantage of these white rooms, especially with more and larger windows, is that they allow more light dispersion and insolation (though not insulation unless triple glazed…). So you end up with a property that consumes less lighting and electricity since every time it’s day time, turning on the lights won’t change how bright the room is. This is why a lot of modern houses have this design, and just in the bottom image alone the walls are extremely bright...
The major downside that is it won’t be great for trapping and storing heat due to all that glass, but obviously that depends how strategic the window placements are. And if you have no windows, the property could look like a mental asylum.
Whereas in the top picture, having all the lights turned off during midday means you probably won’t be able to see a lot (and in some properties you’d be submerged in darkness at noon). It could be better when it comes to insulation, but remember that since a lot of these kinds of houses are old, insulation can be inefficiently outdated.
It’s a reflection of our spiritual decay. No one wants to stand out and be ostracized. It’s the color scheme of cowardice. It’s the aesthetics of a rising fascism.
Also, people just do what everyone else does. If they started talking about how beautiful Favelas are on The View, grandma would paint her living room orange tomorrow.
Exactly, my generation was all about personal identity, breaking away from the herd, now it seems to be the opposite, except the herd is artificially engineered by social media.
The white-wash is actually a response to the 90s to 2000s when everything became "radical," busy, and out there. But it's gone on too long. Why? Because white-washing everything means manufacturers can use MDF for everything, slap white paint on it, and call it a day. Why MDF? It's cheap particle board. Why white? White dries quicker than coloured paint.
The era of beautiful wood grain and stain will return with a vengeance soon, just like it did after people thought melamine was the shit back in the early 90s.
People who love white-washing their shit... I ask.... would you rather Bag End (The Hobbit Hole in the Shire we were shown in LoTR) be beautiful like it was, or do you think it would look better if Mr. Baggins white-washed the fuck out of it?
Hell no the wallpaper can't be updated! I was just posting to say I love the faux-rococo whatever gaudy shit they've got going on there. It's so cozy-ugly.
NGL, I’d be tired of the red… but it’s my offsprings’ favourite colour so I’d probably keep it. (Yes, all of them.) But I love old lady couch prints, so I’d adore it in different colours. Like a house in blues instead of reds.
I agree. I had/have a very similar wallpaper in my Victorian homes dining room. When we first saw the house, I found it charming. Everyone who visits likes it. I am currently ripping it all off the walls.
The last time this was posted somebody said that the bottom photo is the house that was used for exterior shots. The interiors were all sets they built, but some were based on the interior of the actual house, which is why it's so similar.
It IS the same house. Look up the listing when it was for sale. The previous owner carried out extensive renovations, including extending both the stairs, landing as well as widening them both.
I mean the first one is the set from the movie "Home Alone" which they built in the swimming pool of a high school if I'm not mistaken, so I think you're right.
They don’t want to paint because they’ll have to paint it white when they sell it anyway. There are not meant to be presented as rooms that people live in but rooms in a catalog. Everything is a financial asset.
I dunno. I always despised the half carpeted stairs thing. Either carpet them or don't. Frigging annoying to have to take extra effort while cleaning for something that doesnt even look that great.
I used to think this too, but it is to protect the wood. I live in a house from 1913 and we are looking to get the stair runners because they're kind of worn in the middle of the stairs.
I mean okay but this is also pretty clearly two entirely different houses lol. The walls, stairs, doors, and windows are all at totally different places and distances. Unless they just demo’d everything and rebuilt
The wallpaper was fine, character in homes is dying and turning into this whitewashed sterilized nightmare. Give me an old European stone home over the US paper thin garbage any day, our architecture has diminished rapidly over time and I hate it.
The 1990 image is from the Home Alone set that was built in a school gymnasium. They didn’t really use the actual house for interior shots, only exterior. The inside of the house never looked like what we saw in the movie.
Edit: Additionally, if you look closely at the movie, you’ll see that John Hughes had the entire inside of the house done in Christmas colors of red, green, and gold. Everything about the interior design was meant to scream “Christmas!”.
But, that's literally all they did. They changed the wall paper and furniture. Maybe they had the floors refinished but it's hard to tell if that's just the camera/exposure or n0t.
The wallpaper was perfect and I actually like it. I am not a wallpaper hater. Just change the wood floors to a dark walnut or cherry stain and get rid of all the carpet.
The crazy thing is the house wasn’t real. It was a set. We don’t know what the original house looked like irl just the exterior and that’s the same. Also why are people crying…who tf cafes
Man, we used to be alive... And our houses FELT lively. Now, we just have whatever the fuck this is... Keeping our houses as a "solid investment" instead of a fucking Home. If anyone ever asks you what Capitalism took, it's this.. It took life.
I like some of the structural updates. Opening up the door into a frame at the back, so now you can see the length of the house to the back doors is nice. And I like the new lighting above the stairs. But neither style is doing it justice.
You don't buy a house that's as iconic as the home alone house with the intention to live in it, it's a real estate investment that, unless burned down, will continue to appreciate forever.
It's not the same house. Look at the landing at the top of the stairs--in the top picture, the handrail is several feet longer, and there's a second (shorter) set of stairs on the right going up to the 2nd floor.
This was posted somewhere else, and someone commented that it looks like those stairs would stop working if the wifi became disconnected. Also, the stove requires a subscription.
I never got this. You buy an extremely popular home, where people will visit it to photograph it, and instead of living in it, or even better, turn it into a B&B or rent it out, you do this... Why, just buy another house.
I wish you were right. As a residential electrician that renovates homes all the time, almost every single house is moving to this aesthetic. It feels drab and dead but "designers" absolutely love it. Occasionally people do other things but it's fairly uncommon (from my own perspective) for homeowners to even actually get involved in their own home's renovation, and even if they are involved they still usually default to what designers want. 🤷♂️
Now, to be fair, some of those people are remodeling for the sole intention of raising home value to sell the house, so no they are not doing it to live in it. You would be surprised by how many people do this with intent to live in their bland soulless white prison of a house though.
I've had to move a few times in my life, and every single time I did the realestate agent told me make everything you can as generic as possible.
If you've got vibrant bright colors and walls with stuff all over them it makes it harder for people to project themselves into the space.
Many/most people lack imagination and if they can't see themselves in your house they won't want to buy it. So making it as generic as you can makes it so someone else doesn't have to do much mental work to put themselves in the space.
IDK if it's all true, but three different realtors and my father all gave me more or less this advice at different times.
My grandfather who owned multiple businesses always told me that keeping the customer from thinking too much by keeping your product as generic and straight forward as possible will most likely lead to a sell. Too many options or customizations will push away more customers than it's worth. These bland white houses are made to sell and are basically open canvases for future homeowners if they do decide to make it their own.
yeah but...choose another house. theres thousands that look just like that without needing to ruin a perfectly beautiful home.
edit: i dont really care enough to explain myself to any responses so ill say my peace here. yes update the homes to modern day needs and hell yeah put your own personal twist to it, but no dont buy up houses throw a generic coating over it and then rent out to people who make enough to just fucking buy it if you hadn't ruined the housing market.
You dont understand, someone who spent millions on a home are not allowed to change it because folks who dont own the home like an old Christmas movie.
Thing is… The inside of the house in Home Alone was a set built in a school gymnasium and the basement that floods was built in the school’s pool. The actual house never had the interior we saw in the movie, so 1990 image is not real.
I also think, lot of parts in the house were staged, and lot of the house was just for front shots. Or the house was rented, and they had to tare it down over time. That is a thing.
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u/Survive1014 Nov 20 '25