If you’re decorating a new house and don’t know where to start, you might spend hours browsing Pinterest mood boards. Looking for new ideas and trying to figure out your style and what’s considered in this year can be exhausting. But remember one thing—home design trends come and go. While some of them turn out quite nice, others might be expensive and inefficient.
Reddit user u/wazzel2u raised this question in r/AskReddit: “What is a terrible trend found in new home design?”, and more than 5K people replied. Whether it’s lack of storage space, hollow interior doors or open concept bathrooms, the comment section under their post is full of some of the worst design solutions that you should leave behind.
Bored Panda collected some of the most messed-up decor tendencies shared in this Reddit thread. If you have some insights on the topic, don’t be shy and share them below!
#1
The lack of secret bookshelf doors. I mean, who designs their custom home and does not include a bookshelf secret door? People design houses for a reason, and that reason should be secret doors
Image source: foxsable, Stefan Steinbauer
#2
Open concept bathrooms.
I don’t need to see you taking a dump from my bed.
Image source: 02K30C1
#3
Removing stair banisters for a crisp look. Like your drunk friend Brooks is going to fall of the side and die one day. There are building codes for reasons
Image source: ProofBelt5, Jonathan Borba
#4
Live laugh love.
Image source: patronsaintofshinies
#5
Total lack of solar panels/windmills. I think its criminal that new builds don’t have any form of energy generator built in.
Image source: SpudGun312, Vivint Solar
#6
Carpeted bathrooms. I’ve seen way too many of them
Image source: Weekly_Noodle, Phillip Stewart
#7
Might be an unpopular opinion but i don’t need my home to be smart…I just need things to happen when they are supposed to happen and not completely shut off when some douche thought it was a good idea to play who can touch the powerline
Image source: ptapobane, Mati Mango
#8
Hollow interior doors that don’t keep sound out from within the house and hallways – especially hollow bedroom doors when you’re trying to sleep.
Image source: Back2Bach, rcrabby
#9
The cold and sterile look. White, black (high polish please so you see every single fingerprint)… why?
Image source: Satures, Chang Duong
#10
No broom closets. Where the hell do people put their mops and vacuum cleaners? Or do the people who buy those McMansions just not do any of their own cleaning?
Image source: CristabelYYC, Neal E. Johnson
#11
I really don’t like the fireplace design where you are intended to put your TV over it. A TV is way too high when over the fireplace.
Image source: 0rangePolarBear, Alex Qian
#12
I don’t know if it’s new new, but it drives me crazy when people replace cabinetry with open shelves.
Don’t people understand dust? Bugs ring a bell? Pet hair? Speaking of pets, how do you keep your cats from messing around with that setup?
Image source: lyan-cat, Mark West
#13
Open concept everything. There is value in being able to separate some rooms of the house. I very much prefer to have a kitchen that is not completely exposed to the area where I am going to be entertaining company.
That way, I can cook dinner and not worry about having to clean up everything in the kitchen so its spotless because the kitchen is basically in the main living room of the house.
This and also the trend of having big a** f**king windows in the front so everyone in the street can see your whole ground floor. Makes your first floor into a f**king fishbowl that I would never be comfortable in. I like to be able to walk around my house without worrying the people across the street can track my every move.
Image source: blanketz____, Mike Gattorna
#14
The grotesque housing developments of the same like 4 models and 3 colors with no trees. Not to mention the houses are built like s**t. The terribly inefficient road layout with a million cul de sacs.
Image source: Individual-Text-1805, Paul JS
#15
Bedrooms that are only juuuuust big enough for a double or queen bed and a nightstand.
Image source: makovince, Christina Chauskin
#16
I may die on this hill alone, but I HATE open concept kitchens. Not the ones with a nice bar separating the space, not the ones with a window. I’m talking wide open, no barrier to determine where the kitchen ends. It’s hideous.
Image source: wfogle97, R ARCHITECTURE
#17
Those dumb fake balconies
Image source: HORNIUSBONKIUS, Oscar Nord
#18
Small laundry rooms, small pantries, no linen closets, but here’s a 20×20 media room to watch TV. My next house will either be laid out by me or made in the 70s/80s when they designed homes to be lived in.
Image source: oldbulldog22, Emmanuel Ikwuegbu
#19
No door between the master bedroom and master bathroom. It’s so annoying.
The last 3 houses I’ve lived in have had this issue. I like to be able to close the door when I take a bath or shower.
Image source: oleander4tea, Max Vakhtbovych
#20
Lack of storage space. Just bought a new home and didn’t realize how little space there was. We have one storage closet upstairs. That’s it.
Image source: A_Bit_Off_Kilter, Annie Spratt
#21
In some newer neighborhoods, the houses all look the exact same.
Image source: decentralizedgear, Blake Wheeler
#22
I hate the design of homes that have a massive garage in the front; “welcome to my garage, the home is in the back.”
Image source: groundsgonesour, Dillon Kydd
#23
Homes built on the cheap with so many corners cut in their construction that they end up being horrible places to live in, plagued by mold, damp, noise and plumbing issues and more.
Image source: Creative_Recover, Siarhei Plashchynski
#24
Tiny back yards and HOAs
Image source: citizen-of-the-earth
#25
Why is everything so damn bland? Why is white and grey the popular colors? Whatever happened to color? Why can’t we have living rooms wallpapered with big bright flowers, long suede couches in deep fuchsia? And, mile-high blue carpets that you sink into when you walk? Whatever happened to walnut paneling and colored subway tile in the bathroom? Whatever happened to delicate stenciled flowers on the inside of the bowl of the bathroom sink?
When did we lose our personalities? I just want a house that looks like a manic-depressive toddler version of myself was set lose in a JoAnn’s with a limitless credit card.
Image source: carmelacorleone, Chang Duong
#26
There’s a builder in our area who tears down perfectly good, full-of-character pre-WWII homes and then packs in these grotesque Craftsman-style-hulk-mode houses that take up every available square foot of the lot. They look absolutely ridiculous. The proportions are wrong, they blight the neighborhood. Bleh.
Image source: EvidenceLate
#27
All white, white carpet, white furniture, white shiplap
Image source: Defcheze, Elena Saharova
#28
Floor-to-ceiling, clear glass showers. They look great when they are spotlessly clean, which means it looks terrible most of the time in most homes.
Image source: wazzel2u, 99.films
#29
Wasted space. This includes enormous bedrooms with sitting areas, homes with equal number of bed and bathrooms, extravagant foyers that eat half the front of a house, formal living and/dining rooms that never get used. Etc
Image source: Sarah-the-Great, Francesca Tosolini
#30
S**tty bathtubs. I grew up in a 100 year old house. It had a nice bathtub with a sloping back so you could comfortably lounge in the bath. Modern tubs are pretty nearly straight up on the back so there’s no comfortable way to soak, smoke a joint, and read a book.
Image source: dizzyelk
#31
Every inch of acreage is used. Houses are really close together, streets are narrow. It’s crowded
Image source: SithLordDave
#32
Go to a high end gated community development ($800k – 2M price points in my area) front of the homes is beautiful stone, brick, etc but on the back every house has cheap ugly vinyl siding all the same color as far as the eye can see. I never understood this since you actually spend time in the back yard not the front.
Image source: MisterSolid, Katie Wasserman
#33
Rich people putting marble absolutely everywhere. It looks tacky
Image source: coolandschmidt, Max Vakhtbovych
#34
The cookie cutter houses with no personality and no room, where the windows look directly into your neighbor’s bedroom. Ugh!
Image source: audania
#35
No attention to lighting temperature (kelvins) or even worse, mismatched light temperatures.
Most cheap LED bulbs are way too “cold” looking and lack the natural warmth of old incandescent lighting.
Aim for 2700kelvin or lower for that warm cozy atmosphere.
Image source: SubSlutDomDad, Ýlona María Rybka
#36
The obsession with space. So many people won’t even consider anything under 2,000sqft. People don’t even think about what it would cost to heat and cool. They just gotta have a McMansion.
Image source: User_492006, Zac Gudakov
#37
As an electrician; putting 600 potlights in every room of the house. Sure it makes me money but it looks ridiculous having so many lights every 4 feet of every room.
Image source: RichObject5403
#38
Kitchens that they cram into a narrow rectangle. A lot of apartments and town houses come with these. They are so narrow that if you open the fridge door, nobody can walk past you.
A kitchen should be open, not walled in all sides and shaped like a narrow rectangle. It drives me crazy when I see these.
Image source: Effective_James, cottonbro
#39
I’ve seen several homes with appliances integrated into the construction of the kitchen itself. Not just in an alcove but actually built into the wall. Sure, it’s convenient that there’s a f**king cappuccino machine built into the wall next to the cabinet over the center island countertop. But what happens when (not if, when) it needs maintenance? Do I have to call a goddamn carpenter as well as a cappuccino machine repairman? Do I have to consider if this is a f**king load bearing wall that contains my broken appliance? And something that’s just a convenience like that is one thing, but they do it with stuff like fridges too.
Image source: downvoteallyoulike
#40
Fake shutters. They dont even look like they would cover the windows on most houses and they just look like garbage. If you love shutters so much, install real ones.
Image source: celestian1998, Phillip Goldsberry
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