I have a love/hate relationship with trends.
It’s always fun to see ‘popular’ designers make their predictions for the year and introduce new and tried and true ideas to the mainstream.
The trouble begins when we start listening to and following the ideas of ‘experts’ instead of our own intuition.
Then there’s the ‘pack mentality’, where we follow and copy the designs of those that we deem are ahead of said pack. They may be bloggers, you tubers or instagram influencers. But we find some we like.. and we imitate. Why? Because they’re popular and their homes get thousands of likes, so instead of figuring out what WE like and don’t like, we just adopt their style and claim it as our own.
Because at the root of it, we all want to be popular with our homes well liked by our peers.
Gulp.
One such trend is decorating in light neutrals.
Disclaimer: if you have done the hard work to figure out your home color story and truly love a light neutral palette, this post is NOT for you! Please don’t take offense where it wasn’t intended. :-)
Everywhere you look on Instagram and Pinterest you will find homes decorated in a light neutral palette. EVERYWHERE. It’s like these homes are mating and birthing new ones everyday. I’m serious! LOL
In every style you can imagine, with one thing in common, the lack of color.
(For the sake of this post let’s define “light neutral” as any shade of white or ivory, light gray or light tan.)
My concern, if you can even call it that, is that ‘going neutral’ can be a socially acceptable alternative to having to make tough choices about color.
There, I said it. Neutral = non commitment.
It’s much easier to:
a.) copy someone else’s style on Instagram than to figure out what you really love, and
b.) buy anything and everything in white, gray or tan than to figure out your home color story.
Here are three common reasons for going with a (default) neutral palette:
- Folks don’t know where to start with their home color story
Figuring out a color scheme for your home can be difficult, I understand. But if you are drawn to color but are living in a (default) neutral home, this is work that’s worth the effort! I highly recommend looking up various colors and color schemes on Pinterest and finding out which ones speak to you. Take fifteen minutes a day for a few weeks to invest in this exercise and I promise, the colors you are drawn to will start to jump off the screen. Make a note of them! - Folks aren’t brave enough to embrace their own choices
I gotta say, this really makes me sad… and angry. lol Social media has made it commonplace for friends and family to give their unsolicited opinion on.. well.. everything, including your home, and it can make a person gun shy about stepping out of the norm.
I encourage you to do it anyway.Life is hard enough without putting ourselves in prisons of our own creation.
When thinking about what colors you want in your home, how they are going to be received by others should never enter your mind. This is your home. It should reflect you. When you put in the work to figure out your tastes and have the courage to embrace your uniqueness, your home will be a place you love to be in!
- Folks just want to fit in with the crowd.
It’s high school 2.0. No one wants to be the oddball or the outlier. Everyone wants to fit in, with the in-crowd.
We are all created so uniquely, why do we try so hard to suppress those characteristics that make us special?
So many neutral spaces that I see, lack personality and contain what so many other neutral homes have in them. If you’ve seen one, you’ve likely seen them all. I can tell absolutely nothing about the homeowner by looking at the photos of their homes. :-(
I’m not talking about standing out just for the sake of standing out, but I am talking about embracing your unique personality and tastes and letting that shine through in your choices for your home.
I realize this is harder for some than others, but we can do hard things. Oh, yes we can! :-)
Again, if you truly like a neutral palette, embrace it! But if you have defaulted into this color scheme because ‘everyone else’ is doing it, first of all, don’t beat yourself up. Secondly, take some time to figure out who you are and what you really like and thirdly, start by adding in small touches of your color story to see how it feels.
Above all, remember that the journey of discovering your color story and your decorating style is a very personal exercise. Quite closely linked to your journey of personal discovery.
Our homes are reflections of us. In their current state. (Gulp)
The more confident we feel personally, the more confident we will feel in our choices.
We’re all in this journey together friends and our homes (and our lives) are worth the effort. :-)
Blessings,
Catrina
