Things I'm not buying again
I saw a couple of fashion Substacks posting about this and it prompted me to compile my own list of pieces you'll never see in my house. It's as important to know what you don't like as what you do.
I have often drawn parallels between our clothes and our cushions: observing that dressing your house is like dressing yourself except that your house doesn’t have fat days or hungover days or lie-on-the-sofa-in-trackie-bottoms-with-a-packet-of-biscuit days. Our homes are, for the most part, consistent in appearance from one day to the next, so once you find your style it should be easy, right?
Well, just as the fashion writers discovered when compiling their lists, it doesn’t matter how experienced or expert you are in your field, there are still things you’ll get wrong as well as pieces you get home only to discover you don’t like or they don’t work for you after all – despite what everyone else is doing/wearing/buying. We can all be influenced.
This is, by its very nature, a personal list. It’s based on the house I live in and the things I happen to like. It will be different from your list. But it’s a good idea to think about your own personal icks as it will make shopping for home so much easier. Knowing what isn’t for you will enable you to zoom in with laser-like focus on the things you do like and exit the store/website in double quick time, so you can be back on the sofa with a book and a glass of something chilled.
I also think it’s very important that you understand why you do and don’t like specific things. I mentioned recently that I’m working on a hotel design project in Mallorca and we are often operating by remote, largely over WhatsApp and Zoom. I spend quite a lot of time asking my client “why?”. Why does she want that? How does she see that fitting in? What is she thinking? (jk I never say that.)
The point being that while of course it is completely fine to have something just because you love it (how else do I explain my 6ft-tall brass palm tree light?) you do need to consider how it is going to work alongside everything else. Will it make friends? Do you need to make a few tweaks to make sure it feels welcome? It is joining the conversation and playing nicely or is it sitting in the corner like a diva refusing to interact? Which might be entertaining for a few weeks but will quickly become exhausting when one thing is sucking up all the attention in the room.
So herewith my own list, because I have asked myself these very questions so often. Sometimes it’s because I just don’t like something instinctively, and sometimes it’s because it doesn’t fit. You might read this list and go haring straight to the shops – and as long as you know why you are doing so, that’s perfect. At that point, my mission to help everyone understand their own style so their home can support them in everything they do by looking the way they want and therefore making them happy, is complete.
As a bonus for paid subscribers I have added the five things I can’t get enough of at the end.
OK. Ready?
1. Modern oak furniture.
This pale wood is just not for me. It’s not a budget thing, as it’s often far more expensive than the beat-up old dark wood chair or the vintage pitch pine table I found at the market. It’s partly the colour and partly, often, the style of the thing. India Knight brilliantly said in my interview with her the other day, that she wasn’t a fan of modern furniture full-stop, preferring instead “things that look like they’d tell you a really interesting story if they could talk. Too many badly-designed modern things look like they'd start talking about accounting, or motorways.”
Couldn’t put it better myself. Which is why I haven’t tried.
2. Fabric with an animal motif
I love a trailing floral and a leaf print. I’m a fan of intricate patterns and big blowsy flowers but I do not want to wake up to see a herd of squirrels or parrots rampaging across my curtains. I don’t know why. Are squirrels and parrots inappropriate to the urban street I live on? Would it be better if it were a set of mange-ridden foxes and a couple of sparrows? Is it wrong to have parrots in the English countryside? I don’t actually think it’s any of those things. I’d just rather have a quiet floral quietly growing in the background. You, as the saying goes, do you. This is me.
3. Square low-slung sofas
You know – the ones that are basically beds in disguise. I don’t want that in my sitting room. Also they do DOMINATE so. A curvier model with legs that allow you to see the floor underneath is so much more elegant and there’s no reason at all why it should be less comfortable. A giant boxy sofa says: “You can’t sit with us because we are watching TV all night so if you want to talk go somewhere else.”
I’m a talker. I am that person that needs to pause the plot every 20 minutes a) to check I’m understanding it, and b) to google the actor and his/her partner/age/house, or c) to have a wee.
All of which means I like sitting rooms that work for chatting and drinking and watching TV and, when my husband is out, for eating my supper in as well. Which means no lying down or you get into all sorts of digestive bother.
4. Shabby chic bedside tables
Look, bedside tables are hard. I get it. I don’t know why there are so many boxy, painted, cutesy, or just FUGLY ones around. Or ones with legs that splay out or have no legs at all. Or clearly modern MDF ones that are masquerading as something Louis XIV would have had. And do you really need two drawers? How much stuff needs to be stashed away? I had a pair of super-chic Componibili once and they were so capacious I inevitably shoved more and more crap into them until they were just solid columns with with space on top for a lamp and a clock.
Even the books had to go on the floor. So I cleared out (hello, Blockbuster membership card, 15-year-old aspirin and some nasty old tissue I had clearly shoved in there before a photoshoot) and gave them to my younger son. Who, at the last check, had stuffed them so full of rubbish they won’t open and now he has no idea what’s in them. Now I have a glass-topped, open-fronted bedside table, which forces me to be tidier and to clear out regularly.
But good ones are hard to find. Mine are from La Redoute (pictured above and sadly no longer available) and otherwise I tend to default to vintage but leave the cupboard bits empty. Also, buying a vintage or powder-coated steel one will bring a little attitude into the bedroom with all its soft pillows and duvets and upholstered headboards.
If vintage is not your thing, then Zara (above) is great. Honestly. Yes, I know it says it’s oak but it’s stained and therefore better.
5. Cushions with typography on
I’m not banning typography. I have some myself. Mostly a bit sweary but also largely limited edition and saved for or bought in instalments. Also, always, deeply, deeply appropriate to my house and the people in it.
What I can’t be doing with is that cushion that says “please leave by 9”. It is actually quite funny. I mean it was the first time I saw it. And if I’d been to the house of the person that actually embroidered it the first time I’d have wanted it. But then someone mass-produced it (this image is from Anthropologie) and now everyone has it. As I say, I’m not banning it, but I am saying get your own saying and embroider it yourself. That’s funny.
6. Geometric rugs unless Berber
Geometric? I’m just not that into it. Unless it’s vintage and/or Berber. Preferably both.
7. Coloured glass unless it’s for display
I don’t drink tea, but Instagram is full of people losing their minds at being offered a cuppa in a mug with a coloured inside. Me? Not that bovvered tbh. Not even if it’s coffee. Coloured wine glasses on the other hand? Don’t even try. I’m not buying them. Fornasetti got it right. Glass shelves of coloured glass across a glass window? Into it.
8. Leopard print (give me Zebra)
Years ago (BC – Before Covid) I went to a work event and was about the 20th person to arrive and I swear every other woman in the room was in some form of leopard print. Now I get that it’s “a neutral”, that it’s a classic, that it never dates. But it’s not me. I have, on the other hand, a very chic (to my mind) pair of zebra mules and a zebra-pattern rug. Black and white as opposed to brown and yellow, which is, I tend to think, easier to work with.
9. Coordinating accessories
All the evidence is that matchy-matchy is coming back. I can be here for that but – and it’s a big BUT – it depends what you’re matching. I quite like that House of Hackney full-on wallpaper, ceiling, bed canopy carpet thing. It’s a lewk and I’m here for it, although I’m not necessarily doing it. But I think there are ways to pull it off; keep it to the decor. Do not, having spent weeks slaving over a colour palette for the kitchen cupboards and walls, add a matching toaster and potato peeler. You do not need a co-ordinating tray.
I think the rule (because writing this has compelled me to work it out) is that you can co-ordinate the decor and contrast (or neutralise) the accessories, or you can live in blissful, peaceful neutral but throw in an unexpected dash of colour (doesn’t have to be red) with a vibrant toaster or cushion. For me more is not more. More is often too much. Or, to put it another way, know when to stop.
There’s matchy-matchy and there’s getting lost and being unable to find the door even if you brandish your co-ordinating compass. And yes I did see the leopard carpet above and no I’m not here for it. A stripe would have worked (for me) or a plain.
This room is lovely. So do not feel tempted to add matching picture frames and lamp bases. I would might have gone for pale pink bedding.
10. Animal accessories – candlesticks, vases, lamp stands.
It’s not them it is me and I’m fine with that. It’s like the wallpaper. I just don’t want rabbits ears poking up from the top of a lampshade but not themselves being able to see out. I find that quite stressful. This lamp below is from Tesco - who did not come up with the original idea, so make of that what you will.
I don’t want brass leopards holding up my candlesticks or monkeys waving lightbulbs at me. Generally speaking if there are to be animals, they must be alive and mostly in cat form.
Show me a tree candle-holder though and I’m all over it. Go figure.
11. Heart shapes
I like a heart shape as a graphic motif, but it has become a little ubiq in homes – and given that it’s the logo for Habitat (entwined with a house) I think we need say no more. Let’s find a new shape.
12. Anything reproduction
This goes from furniture to accessories to worktops.
My aunt kept her television in a reproduction cabinet that was created to look like an antique, but given that televisions hadn’t been invented at the time said cabinet was purporting to come from, it didn’t work. If you want to hide the telly then use something modern and fit for purpose that is what it is.
In our last house we had a quartz kitchen worktop because we couldn’t afford marble (and I was panicking about the wear and tear) and actually I never liked the quartz because it was pretending to be something it wasn’t, so that’s a thing I will never buy again. Give me real or give me something else. I can’t afford a Prada bag but there are hundreds of great high-street ones available. Find something real in your price bracket. Or stalk the sales. I’m good at this - I have just found a pair of shoes I wanted for £150 instead of £450. Easier in fashion than interiors I grant you.
13. Zany doormats
I’ll add my zaniness to something more exciting than a doormat thank you very much. For wiping my feet I want practical, durable and actually not something that’s going to shout for attention when I’d much rather you looked at my amazing chandelier or great stair runner. My eye cannot see everything (despite what I tell my children) and therefore I want you to look at the thing that matters, that is genuinely lovely (to my eyes).
14. Things that are trying too hard
This is just marketing gone mad. Why do I want a glass bubble table with a metal top? That has a LIGHT BULB in it.
What is it saying? Why is it saying it? And if it’s saying it to you should you be listening? Or what about this, with its coloured metal legs, shiny brass tray top and gold woven string basket underneath? PICK A STYLE, PEOPLE. Remember that saying: you cannot be all things to all people.
This table might actually wake me up in a sweat in the middle of the night. What was the design meeting? Were six people sitting in a circle with their backs to each other? Was it like that game of consequences where one person draws the head, folds over the paper and passes it to the next person to draw the body and the third adds the legs? Was it that? And instead of unfolding the paper and having a giggle at the result, did one of the six actually say: “That’s ACE, call the manufacturing department AT ONCE.”
15. Hairpin legs
A classic of mid-century design, there was a period in the 2010s when they were slapped on everything. It just all got too much. Now only to be bought if genuinely vintage – like this 1960s Swedish table from Pamono.
But if you can’t afford the vintage, or prefer something new, look for a modern interpretation. TipToe do great powder-coated steel metal legs in myriad colours. You just add a top. It’s clever and original and no two tables will look the same.
16. Any chair that has narrow legs with brass tips
This isn’t just a thing I won’t be buying, it’s a thing that gives me the actual ick. Sold by companies who are trying to make their cheap furniture look less shit and more chic. What is this brass tip bringing? Why is it there? So much better without. It’s neater.
17. Teal anything
Not a colour I can work with. I love navy and forest green. I can stretch to a dash of emerald. I’m a fan of navy and pale blue. Somehow teal is a mishmash of all the worst bits of green and blue and I don’t know how to do it. I don’t understand what other colours it likes and who it wants to play with.
19 Sage
Some people get really upset about beige (see this recent piece). Personally I don’t mind a bit of it – as long as you rebrand it to ecru, cappuccino etc which makes it sound more exciting. – But it turns out that sage is my beige. I want a green with a bit of attitude.
And a few things I can’t resist…