2023.. stop doing this stuff to your house..

WAS

STUFF

[NataliaCiolko]

Okay I'm coming with major drama!! My opinion: what you're not talking about here is regional diversity. Your east coast vibes are amazing but all those antique-y plaids would look totally out of place where I live in Austin, for instance. Our desert scandi house has a lot of limestone, inside and out, which we kept–but the builder-grade finishes from the 80s didn't provide much else in the way of original details to preserve. We don't even have crown molding... the plain drywall struggle is real. We renovated and now I love our light oak (not birch) floors and desert palette AND I can see how it'd look totally out of place in Chicago. All to say, I think people's interior style should integrate with the overall landscape and not just a particular sensibility.

[julieparker]

I love what you are saying, but I think sometimes ‘designers’ miss the point that so many people buy an Ikea couch or Wayfair table because 1) affordability 2) ease of access and 3) delivery options (many people don’t have access to a vehicle). I would love to buy more vintage but don’t have a car and the prices for a van delivery are astronomical (in UK at least).

[kathleenmcadams]

My designer seemed shocked when we redid our kitchen and I didn't want to knock down walls. I told her that when I was done cooking for guests, I didn't want to see the mess from the couch when I could be busy focusing on wine and conversation.

[SignalHillHiker]

Paige has a different thing in her hand every video and I'm not convinced any of them are mics lol

[sarahrichardson]

Completely agree about fast furniture, but don’t go throwing out your fast furniture! Upcycle, donate, move it to another area in your home. Hold onto it as long as humanly possible until it is unusable. So much fast furniture is ending up in landfill, and most of it is synthetic and won’t break down :-(

I despise people who decorate and then redecorate every single year, decorate with purpose and with items you live so you don’t have to continually be throwing stuff out.

[Milena-ssjh]

I love your videos, but I think saying fast = cheap and vice versa is problematic. There is fast furniture that lasts ages (if you want it to) and is more sustainable in the long run. My parents had their IKEA armchairs for 25 years and they are still going strong.
The even bigger issue I have is that you make it seem like expensive = higher quality. This can be the case, but in most cases the profit margin for the companies is just bigger.

[twoandahalfmonkeys]

Thrifting has become super expensive. It’s killed the whole point of thrifting, not everyone can afford to buy thrifted furniture anymore. Which is why - even though thrifting is “cool” - a lot of people still buy fast furniture.

I’ve just moved to Toronto from Pakistan, and I feel like if you want anything quality, you have to be rich. So with quality furniture and thrifting out of the picture, not a lot of things are accessible to everyone that aren’t “trendy” like squiggles or checkerboards or fast furniture. This is all one can find at (mainstream) brands that are somewhat affordable.

My home (and style) in Pakistan was so different than my style here but it’s also because of the things that are available to me as someone who doesn’t make a lot of money.

[Chaotic_Pixie]

The design styles you don't like are post-modern and boho-neutral.
Venetian plaster and limewash make sense in spaces they were designed for. They're weird in a suburban tract home.
Also, overhead lighting will never be out or not needed, but yes to the dimmer and yes to more outlets so that task lighting and accent lighting is possible.

[rkatecraig]

Maybe this is because I live in a place where people don’t have a lot of money, but all I can find in resale stores is just fast furniture from 15 years ago. It’s not like there’s “high quality” furniture everywhere for me to find. Can you do a whole video on how to find high quality non-fast-furniture pieces? What brands to look for, what features? I want to get on this train, but it feels like everything I find to buy instead of new trash is just old trash

[EvaSkewes]

On wood: using wood regionally has a huge impact. Your choice for wood floors should be based on what is historical to your region (for example, in the Northeast US, much of the wood in centuries-old houses is eastern white pine). I think this makes an aesthetic difference as well, but it's harder to pinpoint. More importantly, a wood choice that is local to your region likely grows there and is easier to harvest and grow in a fashion that is sustainable for healthy forests.

I also think this matters for furniture too, but it's harder to control if you're not working with a woodworker or are a woodworker yourself. There are so many "local" woods that are beautiful and can have special qualities. Have you ever seen turned curly maple? GORGEOUS - and if you live in a region with abundant maple - it's a sustainable choice.

[EllaDee]

I love the arch! I grew up in So Cal and living in NYC, I miss the arches of my childhood Spanish-style homes. The arch is not a trend to me, it is sentimental AF and I will never stop rocking them in my home 😂

[allforchristsglory]

I love, love limewash. It is pretty standard to use in various parts of the world and can definitely be used in a lot of decor styles imo. Limewash is an old, old way to paint walls and is actually healthy for people to breath and better on the environment. It's okay if it is not everyone's taste, but I think it can be done really well. :)

[bikothrifto]

Not Paige saying a $900 sofa is cheap...me sitting on my $300 sofa from FB marketplace (which is cheap I won't lie) 👀👀...

[jml]

your sofa is probably much higher quality that anything at C & B. As a former antique dealer (retired) I used to advise young people to look for furniture that is from the 1930's to the 1940's and bench made (a term now being recycled to mean "too expensive".) This was furniture that used manufactured parts, but had a woodworker or craftsman "sit at a bench" and whittle the pieces until they fit perfectly, then glueing and finishing and putting together a product that I sold 75 years later that was still stylish, real wood, and well built and still usable.

[vespervictrola]

Painted arches on the walls I agree with, but I looove ached bookcases -- they have a little art deco vibe and the curves can soften up other sharp lines

[northwoodfalls]

A lot of design “mistakes” come from people not understanding what a design style IS, how and where it developed. Those “dusty” walls look ridiculous (IMO) in a cookie cutter suburban home, or even in most homes in a northern climate. Plaster and lime wash is a technique used in traditional design and construction in certain regions where a lot of stone is used, like the south of France or in Italy, or the adobe of Spanish style homes although it can look natural and in keeping in, say, an older English home where you’d also find stone being used as it’s a texture at least adjacent to that, but the colour and where and how much used would be what makes it land or look odd. Same with open concept. Other than an industrial loft space, open concept is a design that works well in a climate where you can have the house open to the outdoors and heating is not an issue, where you’d want cooling breezes to circulate around the interior and the light is bright and warm most of the year. Who the heck wants that in a cold, Northern climate? The all one colour design is inspired by Georgian and Federalist interiors which were a much more pared back, “minimalist” counter to the more glitzed up styles that preceded them, but they were done in homes with substantial trims, mouldings, heavy wooden doors, etc. The all one colour actually highlighted all of that, just in a more subdued way (although they still used bright contrasting colours and wallpapers, etc. Just more constrained. Not every room was all one colour) Doing that in, again, a cookie cutter suburban home or apartment that lacks those details quickly looks like a tomb (unless you have a minimalist design and, again, you are considering the light and the interplay of all the spaces and what objects fill the space which isn’t likely to be a suburban developer build home or a city apartment ). Gustavian design isn’t going to translate well to southern climates because the entire colour palate is designed with the light of a colder, darker, northern light. A Spanish style interior in New Hampshire would just feel ridiculous and the colours likely won’t ever work because the light isn’t amenable to them. Personally I hate all super warm toned colours in a Northern environment because they always look blech in the light. People want to “warm” the space up, I get it, but that’s what textures like wood and textiles are for. The whole Studio McGee aesthetic is like that …. She started in California. Why are people in Utah building open concept McMansions and decorating like they are in Southern California? All those light woods AND fabrics AND gaping cavernous rooms …. Utah get’s freaking COLD. God, the heating bills must be immense and I’d be desperate for a sense of warmth and cosiness somewhere. Light tones can work, but ALSO the open concept? It’s too much in that environment IMO. You can, for sure, tweak your home by adding mouldings and such, but you have to go WITH the bones and the light and the climate of your home, regardless of what style you like. You may like mid century style, but if your home is not built anything like a mid century home, it’s going to look odd. Adding elements of it, for sure. A piece here and there, a nod to the textiles and colours, but you have to take the whole space and it’s environment into consideration to make it work. Those painted arches look ridiculous because they are just totally out of place. Arches in general ….yes, they can be lovely in ANY space, but there is a difference in execution depending on style and technique. A plastered arch in a New England home? Eh, probably not gonna stand the test of time. An arch with Federalist era inspired mouldings is probably a better choice. I’m generalizing of course, but I think any style, any one trend can work if it’s incorporated in harmony with the surroundings. It’s the superimposing one aesthetic onto another without an understanding of either that just doesn’t ever work. And that, I think, is the crux of the “problems” with design trends. They tend to be packaged as a whole to encourage over consumption. The industry has sh*t to move. They want you to think you have to redo your entire space in the new trend. It never works unless your entire home was built and developed in complete harmony with that aesthetic. Adopting bits here and there can blend seamlessly into your existing space IF you understand the basic tenants of good design. It’s like fashion. You can adopt most trends seamlessly if you understand your own foundation (your bones and how they frame the visual proportions of your body, and your colouring) and you understand how to balance textiles, patterns, shapes, colours, etc. to create a cohesive and harmonious whole. You can have a Classic body type and manage a punk rock style IF you know how to incorporate the two. You can manage low rise or high rise waist lines, IF you know what leg style suits you or what sorts of tops to pair them with, etc. It’s all in the mix. In interiors, designers tend to become “trendy” for a time and everyone wants to get that “look” but when they don’t know what they are doing, it just looks …. like a bad designer knock off.

[hillfarm]

Thank you for commenting on no fast furniture- I love the young folks getting into this thrifting binge, gives me hope. Also would be interesting to hear you talk about relation of geographic location and interior design choices. Living up north it is all about the most light coming in. I would think in AZ for instance someone might not appreciate that so much.

[jlloeppke]

It does make me so sad when people with beautiful old homes knock down their walls 😢😢😢

[nataliac]

In an architecture class we learned about open concept offices coinciding with the rise of midcentury corporate culture & allowing bosses to monitor productivity more easily (disguised as modernism). Maybe the kitchen thing is similar, making people cook as a performance and entertain guests, like a keeping up with the Joneses thing. Or maybe I just like to overanalyze lol

[sashac]

I think the earthy design style reminds me of how many people did the Tuscony/Italian thing in the 90s. The faux brushing and sponging on walls, the tiles, the colors.