The 4 viral trends making guests cringe as soon as they walk into your ‘dated' home, according to interior designer

The Irish Sun

16-05-2025

YOUR interior design choices might be making your guests cringe when they walk through the door, an interior designer has warned.
Alessandra from The Virtual Edit is urging Brits to ditch several homeware trends if they want to avoid turning their homes into graveyards of cliches and forgotten fads.
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Certain trends in your home, such as 'millennial grey', might be dating it
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It's important to avoid having a dated home because outdated design choices can make your space feel uninspired, uncomfortable or less welcoming
As your tastes and lifestyle evolve, interior experts agree that so should your home; a dated space can hold you back from fully expressing yourself.
Interior designer Alessandra, who co-runs The Virtual Edit studio, shared her expert advice on what to ditch in a now-viral TikTok video…
Millennial Grey
First and foremost, she is calling for the end of the '
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Once adored by many in the 2010s, coating your walls and furniture in endless shades of grey has become a tired cliche, signalling a lack of creativity to many interior enthusiasts.
Alessandra explained: 'It was grey everything – grey sofas, grey curtains, grey walls. Stainless steel accents, grey artwork.
'Mirrors everywhere and layers upon layers of grey textures – faux fur, velvet, crushed velvet. It was a lot.'
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The idea is to create a cohesive and uniform look in a room - but Alessandra believes these sets have the opposite effect and instead date your home.
She said: 'We wanted everything to be so cohesive. Everything had the same hardware, exactly that same wood, in all exactly the same colours.
'Everything was built to be easy and work in harmony with one another.'
Slogan-heavy artwork
Slogan artwork combines impactful text with graphic elements to convey a message or idea, often with a bold or artistic flair.
It's typically used in posters, prints or advertisements to make a statement. But as far as Alessandra's concerned, most of it makes a very dated statement.
She cited barn signs, posters with the 'house rules' and labels in each room as the main offenders making your home unfashionable.
The recognisable 'Live Laugh Love' slogan was the one to kick this trend off in the Noughties, she added.
Using the 'Big Light'
In most British homes, we have a series of lamps and then a main overhead lighting system, dubbed the 'big light'.
Having that 'big light' on is a surefire way to date your interiors, Alessandra warned.
She said: 'This is a hill that I will die on and one of my worst interior trends.
'One of the worst is spot lights in places that should be ambient lighting, such as living rooms, bedrooms.
'The only places spot lights should be are bathrooms and kitchens.
'Let the fire do the talking, let the alcove lighting do the talking.'