The Worst Home Décor Trends Visualized

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Jumping onto the latest fashion trend always seems like a good idea at the time, but hindsight can be brutal. This is especially the case when looking back at photos of the style crimes we’ve inflicted on our own homes. With the help of home décor and interiors content consultant Pat McNulty, we’ve assembled these images to show the very worst of home décor in recent years. How many do you recognize?

1990’s Open plan living room kitchen

Yes, people really did have living rooms like this in the 1990s. Don’t believe us? Look at Monica’s apartment in the first series of Friends. Ninety’s interior design was often a mesh of styles and colors. You could say the floral sofa was shabby chic, but it makes no sense in the context of the rest of the room. The combination of black and white floor tiles and yellow pine cabinets in the kitchen needs to stay in the ‘90s with plastic fruit and M.C. Hammer.

Worst Design Trends: Monica from Friends 1990's Living Room

1990’s Bedroom with en suite

Chintz, frills and canopies were a big hit in the ‘90s. But then so were plastic beads, colored blinds and wall stenciling. The ‘90s were an ‘eclectic’ time, to put it kindly. And whether it was your bedroom, bathroom or beyond, putting up border wallpaper — a thin strip of wallpaper that ran around a room — was considered fashionable. Overall, we can forgive the ‘90s for many things, but inflatable furniture really was the worst.

2000’s Open plan living room kitchen

‘Have a feature wall,’ they said. ‘It’ll look great’. Well, as this living room shows, the turn of the Millennium saw some questionable choices. How, for example, can one watch TV when it lives on such an attention-grabbing feature wall? At least it might distract them from the confusing and intimidating array of lights and furniture hanging from the ceiling.

Worst Design Trends: TV feature walls and the overstuffed couch 2000's open floor living-room-kitchen

2000’s Bedroom with en suite

There are hanging glass ball chairs in the bedroom as well; great news for anyone who can actually sit comfortably in them. Lime green and polka dots were huge in the early 2000’s. If you’re concerned that they might be too garish, every shade of brown imaginable is present to dampen their impact.

Meanwhile, the bath has been replaced with a big shower spraying water at you from all directions. Which is actually helpful as you’ll need to be thoroughly scrubbed clean after witnessing this design disaster.

Worst Design Trends: lime green, early 2000's bedroom with en suite

2010’s Open plan living room kitchen

Overcomplication is the name of the game in this living room and kitchen. Apparently, our lives are now too simple, so we need cupboards we can only reach with a ladder and doors that slide rather than swing open. We also secretly aspire to live in a factory, so industrial-style fridges are in, along with chalkboards to remind us how much we enjoyed being at school. And as for colors? Forget them, everything’s neutral now.

Worst Design Trends: impractical, industrial 2010's open floor living-room-kitchen

2010’s Bedroom with en suite

If you have trouble motivating yourself to get out of the bed in the morning, then the 2010’s bedroom may be just for you. The room comes adorned with a variety of ‘tasteful’ motivational slogans. We see a selection of neutral colors that mirror the color scheme in the kitchen. But this time there’s a splash of millennial pink as well, particularly on the pointless poufs. Over the bed is a gallery wall; a collection of dozens of photos all crammed into the smallest space possible. Nobody’s really sure why.

There you have it. The worst of home décor of the ‘90s, ‘00s and ‘10s. Of course, we can’t afford to be too smug when looking back at these style disasters. Soon, it will be our homes that are judged. Which of our current style trends do you think will be embarrassing in years to come?