Reasons Why Your Home Doesn’t Look Like #DesignInspo on Instagram
(And no, it has nothing to do with your eye for style.)
- You actually have to live in your home.
To be perfectly honest, many of the posts you see on social media may be staged homes. No one may actually live there. Or, you may be seeing the photo JUST after a space was redesigned or touched up by an interior decorator. This isn’t the case for every single one of the #DesignInspo pics on your feed, but it darn well covers a lot of them.
2. You have kids, or a pet, or a job.
In short, keeping your home decor up to date is NOT your number one priority. Maybe you work full time and have other obligations in the evening that keep you from constantly being on the lookout for new decor ideas. Maybe you have kids that like to follow you around and immediately make a mess of whatever you just tidied up. Maybe you have a pet and it’s a constant battle to try to keep fur from taking over your entire home. All of these are perfectly valid reasons for your home to look less-than-immaculate (and in my opinion, attending to these things is much more important than having an Insta-worthy living room).
3. You don’t believe in throwaway culture.
The fact of the matter is that normal homes are full of stuff. In a society that glamorizes minimalism and other such stuff-free lifestyles, it is important to recognize that choosing these minimalistic lifestyles requires a certain amount of income. You have to be able to get rid of items you may need in the future, and be willing to buy them again when that need arises.
In her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo tells a story about getting rid of her hammer because it didn’t spark joy. Sure, this sounds great and all. But the reality is that for many people, it is not realistic to throw out what is generally considered a necessary household item, just because you don’t want it anymore. (No shade to Marie Kondo, but when a single good hammer can last a lifetime or longer, it does not make sense to spend more money on hammers than absolutely necessary!) Not only is this approach not economically intelligent, but it is also environmentally harmful!
4. You can’t afford (or refuse to pay for) designer décor items
Purchasing trendy designer items is probably the most cost-prohibitive element of home decor. Your Insta-idols likely have access to many of these fancy products, whether they purchase them out of pocket or are gifted them in exchange for publicity (#InfluencerLifestyle). Buying home decor items can be expensive and add up quickly, even if you aren’t looking for designer items. (Have you ever shopped for home decor at Target or HomeGoods, only to be shocked at your total when you reach the register? I sure have!) You likely don’t have the same resources that these influencers do. Don’t sweat it. Do the best you can with what you have!
5. You don’t have a photo filter on your daily life.
Social media, especially Instagram, truly is a highlight reel of our lives. Influencers are choosy about which photos they will post so that they can maintain their page’s aesthetic. Odds are, they have also used photo editing software, presets, and filters to get the color and the lighting just right in their pictures. Obviously, your eyes don’t have an Instagram filter on them, so don’t beat yourself up if your space doesn’t look like their posts. (Their space probably doesn’t even look quite like their posts either!)
6. You can’t afford (or don’t want) to constantly renovate and redecorate your space.
As previously mentioned, home decor items are often very expensive, so it makes sense they constantly redecorating can be quite costly!
Keeping up with the Joneses (or the #influencers, I suppose,) just isn’t for you? No problem. Don’t. That’s right. Don’t. Your home should be decorated in a way that makes YOU happy, not your followers. So what if you don’t want to stay up to date on the latest design trends? Leave that to the influencers. You do you, boo.
7. You don’t have a junk room.
Ok, if it’s not clear by now that I’m an Instagram skeptic, here’s one more point to drive it home. Sure, there are some people who can live a perfectly organized, minimalist life. But those people are few and far between. Let me let you in on the influencers’ little secret: the junk room! One great way to keep the rest of your home clean is to banish all the unsightly stuff to a collective location, where it can stay safely out of sight and out of mind, but remains in the home for easy access in case you need to use it. This solution to keeping the rest of your home clutter free seems much more realistic and sustainable to me than getting rid of all of your stuff. But that being said, this method of hiding your stiff isn’t accessible to all people either. Maybe you live in a tiny apartment, like me. Maybe you have a small house and a lot of kids. Maybe you just don’t want to give up the guest room. That is all ok.
Take a deep breath, and give yourself permission to let your home look like, well, a home.
