The Cringiest Home Decor Trends, According to YouTubers and TikTokers
Cringe, a hotly debated term of disparagement, its flames fanned on all corners of the Internet, is present—and the design world is not exempt from its tight clutches. While many influencers, tastemakers, and content creators who occupy this space share all the things they love without abandon, many have no qualms about sharing what home decor trends they can’t stand. Unsurprisingly, these personalities have thousands of followers who adore them specifically for their hot takes.
In fact, a few of the interior design aficionados that we consulted for this report have already publicly shared their opinions about some of the design trends that they hate to the core—“8 Interior Design Trends that are Dying in 2023,” “The Worst Interior Design Mistakes,” and “So-Called Hot Interior Design Trends That No One Is Actually Doing” are a few examples.
Nevertheless, we still look to those with an eye for style for guidance on what is a borderline red flag. Though we like to think of ourselves as experts on the subject, we couldn’t think of anyone more qualified to tell us what home decor trends should be left to rot in the gutter this year and beyond. So, here are the unfiltered opinions of eight of our favorite interior design gurus from YouTube and TikTok on the worst of the worst and cringiest of the cringe home decor trends right now.
“Logo whore” decor
While designer logos aren’t inherently cringe, they’re perhaps best left in your wardrobe rather than nonsensical places in your home. Bilal Rehman, a Houston-based interior designer and content creator, dubbed this excess of logos in living spaces “logo whore decor.” As he further explains, “the logo mania trend came in so hard in fashion, and I think, when it came hard in fashion, people started doing it in their houses.”
Phoenix Gray a.k.a. Design Daddy, a Toronto-based interior designer with a background in commercial and residential design, also couldn’t help but notice this tendency. It often comes in the form of decal stickers that simply don’t give people the luxurious look they’re seeking., “I’ve seen Chanel decal stickers on soap pump bottles,” he recalls. “It really doesn’t give you the high-end look that you think it does when you’re just sticking a designer logo sticker on something that clearly is not a designer item.” Pointedly summarizing the trend, he says that “it ends up looking a lot cheaper than it does expensive.”
Low-impact lighting
Lighting is a sometimes overlooked but crucial part of designing a space. Both Bilal and Phoenix agree that it’s really easy to mess up, especially when it comes to LED light strips that have become very popular as of late on TikTok. The main issue they’ve noticed is that it’s often entirely overdone instead of used sparingly. “The idea of LED integrated lighting like that is supposed to be ambient lighting, it’s supposed to give you that little bit of an accent and not be the entire focus,” Phoenix explains. For example, if you’re using accent lighting in a millwork piece, he suggests using it to highlight the shelves. “You don’t need a full perimeter around both sides of shelves and underneath the entire cabinet itself,” Phoenix adds.
LED light strips give Bilal the ick because they tend to look cheap, when that is not the desired effect. “They do not look expensive, they don’t look high-end, they don’t feel like elevated decor,” he says. “They literally just feel like you ordered an LED strip off Amazon and stuck it to your wall. And that’s exactly what it is.”
Vivien of Posh Pennies is particularly averse to battery-operated sconces, detesting the fact that they require remotes and batteries, and that they eventually stop getting used because they require recharging. “If you’re serious about where you want your light, then get it wired, pop in a smart bulb, put it on a schedule, and call it a day! So worth it,” the interior design blogger and YouTuber explains. Bilal agrees that smart light bulbs are a much better alternative, especially if you’re looking for the ability to easily change the mood of a room with lighting.
Focusing on the screen, rather than the big picture of your space
As sharing interior design on social media gains more and more traction, and we become accustomed to seeing beautiful rooms on the reg, it can be tempting to focus only on what looks good onscreen. Imani Keal, a design blogger who specializes in renter-friendly decor and DIY, often wonders what’s going on beyond the frame of a quirky DIY space she sees on TikTok. “They sometimes don’t show the project in the context of the rest of the room or apartment, and it’s often because that project only looks good from one angle or as a vignette,” she explains.
It’s important to make sure a fun project actually works with the rest of your living space, rather than just conforming to the latest trend. “The purpose of creating a beautiful space is so that it looks and feels warm and welcoming in real life and on the internet, not just in five-second clips,” she adds. Garrett Le Chic fully agrees. As an interior designer, he’s all about making updates to your home that are consistent with its architecture.
“Renovating to change the style of your house in the long term doesn’t always make the most sense because it just requires a lot more effort, a lot more money, a lot more work than is really necessary,” he says. “When, if you took the core elements, the backbone of what the architectural style of your house is, and you apply that, it works better in the long term.”
Bland dust-collecting decor
There’s nothing like a good knickknack or piece of art to really liven up a room. With so many affordable online and brick-and-mortar home-goods stores, it’s easier than ever to find what you need to add in a space. This is both a blessing as a curse, as it means that now more than ever, there’s a plethora of mass-produced items with no personality taking up space and collecting dust over time.
On the subject of word art, Phoenix has one question: “Who is buying this?” He continues, “I know the ‘Live, Love, Laugh’ signs of the early 2000s have faded out, but now it’s like very weird quotes on boards that people are spending between 10 and 20 dollars on. The amount of staged homes that I’ve seen from real estate agents that have those too.”
According to Briellyn Turton, an Australian content creator and founder of Studio Brie, so many people feel panicked when it comes to outfitting their space; oftentimes, this pressure causes them to fill up a room as quickly as possible. To avoid falling into this trap, she recommends waiting to find the right items, rather than panic-buying. “Even if that shelf stays bare for a whole year, I’d prefer it stays bare and then you get the perfect item that you love rather than just going and buying something mass-produced for the sake of it,” Briellyn says.
Garrett sees this as an overall issue of people favoring speed over quality when it comes to decorating. “Take your time, savor the experience in decorating and find things you really love. And, that way, they’ll have longevity in your life,” he advises.
Faux plants and dried flowers
Many interior design experts are fed up with fakes, especially when it comes to flora. For Briellyn, the dust accumulated in dried and fake flowers is a signal that the sun has set on the trend. “You cannot tell me that the bottom of that vase is not so dusty and dirty. I had dried flowers at one point—don’t get me wrong—I just feel like it’s one of those trends where I’m, like, ‘Okay, we’ve had our fun, let’s get rid of them now.’”
When it comes to plant trends, Garrett can’t deal with fake plants no matter how convincing they might seem on the surface. “It’s a trend I can’t stand where I see people, like, ‘the best fake potted plant,’” he admits. “It doesn’t look real to me. Fake plants always look a little bit fake unless they’re really, really good, and then they’re going to be way expensive anyway.” If possible, Garrett suggests opting for freshly cut flowers, which are a little more low-maintenance than a houseplant. “If you can’t take care of a plant, just don’t get one,” he concludes.
Fast furniture that makes your home look like an uncurated catalog
Kiva Brent and Kellie Brown both agree that fast furniture and mass market retailers can be cringey, but for slightly different reasons. For the biochemist-turned-interior-stylist Kiva, it’s about keeping things sustainable and responsible by investing in something that you won’t want to give away anytime soon; for example, “Finding old furniture pieces that are still great and actually taking the time to search for them,” she adds.
Kellie, a content creator more commonly known as @DeeplyMadlyModern on TikTok and Instagram, is particularly perturbed by consumers being a little too inspired by the merchandising at mass market retailers and “trying to have their house look like a catalogue.” Kellie adds, “It’s so impersonal, it’s so not curated.” Similar to Kiva, she also stresses how a sustainable approach can also be the most stylish and suggests “getting things secondhand, being scrappy, going out to the places to get one of a kind, or unique, or used things.”
Cluttercore is the new “hoarder without the mold” maximalist
Nick Lewis attributes this microtrend to the pendulum swing from Scandinavian or midcentury-modern-inspired minimalism, both of which were lovingly adopted by millennials. But more can be far too much when it’s “maximalist for the sake of maximalism,” or the overwhelming amount of objects in a room read as “hoarder without the mold,” as Lewis likes to say.
Kiva cites the difficult maintenance of these spaces as one reason to not go for the maximalist trend. “You have to be so tactful with where you place things so that it looks beautiful and there’s room for everything else,” she says.
To avoid going too deep into a cluttercore hole, Vintage HQ founder Heather Hurst, widely known on TikTok and Instagram as @Pigmami, suggests the following: “Microdose elements of current trends that excite you, while leaving elements of your past taste and projects that you still hold dear.”
Monochrome-on-monochrome aesthetics starving for personality
Similar to maximalism, too much of one color can be overdoing it. For Caroline Winkler, a Washington, DC–based interior decorator, YouTuber, and host of the podcast Not For Everyone, monochrome-on-monochrome does little to satiate the design hunger that people have for a little variety in the form of saturation and pattern. “White-on-white is a thing of the past, and everything is going to be okay,” she reassures.
Kiva sees a slight improvement in moving from all-grey, all-white, or all-greige interiors to all-brown with a slight caveat. “There’s a very fine line between having warm, brown interiors and then it looking like a man cave, which is not always a good thing,” she notes.
Designer dupes that feel even worse than they look good
With the proliferation and democratization of design, thanks in part to social media, it can be tempting to see an It furniture item and immediately covet it. Better yet, there are dupes of designer pieces available at reasonable prices. However, most of the content creators that we consulted are over it. (And so were we when we included “duped to death” designs in our “out” trends for 2023.)
While Kellie is all for accessibility in design, she’s not a fan of “really terrible reproductions of iconic pieces that feel sort of bastardized,” like the beloved Ultrafragola mirror. Not to mention how many of the furniture dupes are not-so-surprisingly uncomfortable. Arvin Olano, a Las Vegas– and California-based interior stylist, was once duped by a dupe that made him feel like he was sitting on plywood. “Instead of buying a dupe of a designer piece, maybe find something that’s equally as amazing from the same era that’s made well, made with real wood, or just get a piece that’s a nod to that bulbous Camaleonda sofa that you like, but maybe not the exact same,” he advises.
Heather is also very on board with this pro tip. “If you’re head-over-heels for a large investment piece, use it as inspiration to seek lesser known designer pieces, go vintage, or wait until it’s passé and score a deal on it!” Emphasizing the importance of personal style over trends, Kellie believes that “the cringiest thing you can do is to be a follower versus identifying what actually makes you happy and speaks to you.” As she so eloquently puts it, “What I don’t like doesn’t necessarily matter to you if you love it. I always say, If you love it, put it in your house. You have to look at it, you have to enjoy it.” We couldn’t agree more!
Leave the uncomfortable, blobby furniture in the funhouse
While sculptural and curvaceous pieces have been en vogue for a while now, both Kiva and Nick stressed the degree of discomfort from these otherwise stylish pieces. In a recent YouTube video, Kiva jokes about needing an elevator to reach the low seat of the aforementioned Mario Bellini sofa: “It’s very low! You can’t lay on it! I want to be able to take a 10-hour nap on my sofa if I want to.”
Too many curvy statement pieces in a room, such as the Verner Panton’s Heart Cone Chair or Faye Toogood’s Roly Poly, can render it a little too shapeless, giving off “funhouse energy,” as Nick describes it. Citing the importance of balance, Nick advises, “I would love to see the blobs embraced with some clean lines so that it creates something that’s interesting and dynamic but ultimately defined.” Besides, this furniture is typically not so ergonomic, citing the recent resurgence of inflatable furniture. “It might make sense for a teenager’s bedroom. It does not make sense for high-end, beautiful spaces,” he says. It’s a whole new curse of curves.
Over-the-top walls that are too busy for the room
While it can be tempting to go bold and shake your home style up with a strong statement wall color or wallpaper mural, a few of our experts warned that this could quickly enter into cringe territory. Caroline finds trendy wallpaper murals already starting to look dated. Not only can they be cringe, they’re not always so budget-friendly. “For materials and installation, these wallpapers could buy you a decent family vacation. Save your money, go to Cabo instead,” she insists.
For Heather, not enough attention is paid to harmonious design when it comes to painting an accent wall in a room. “In lieu of defaulting to a gallery wall or a busy wallpaper, play with elements like molding, ceiling design, art, sculpture, or rug layering to introduce a sense of play while keeping the room grounded.”
Kristen McGowan, an interior designer and YouTuber, thinks highly saturated paint colors in general will be out in no time, and encourages incorporating these hues in a more understated way, with “small decor, pillow covers, and wall art.”
Paint-flipping furniture for no good reason
Bilal, Arvin, and Drew Michael Scott are all adamant about this insufferable trend that stemmed from furniture flipping. “Painted wood furniture—I just can’t do it anymore,” says Drew. On TikTok, Instagram, and beyond, there are countless DIY videos of people taking wood furniture and painting it. “People strip it, they paint it the most weird, grotesque colors like lavender or green with brass, and it’s just not cute,” says Arvin. “I feel like in context they can do something and do some more research to make that piece more timeless, more modern, instead of just this trendy thing that they’re doing for Instagram, for a quick buck.”
There’s also something about trying to hide the fact that something is crafted out of wood that’s extra cringeworthy to Arvin. “We’re losing all the wood grain! We’re losing the warmth of the wood,” he laments. Bilal insists that “it never looks good, it never looks better than the original piece unless the original piece was literally a piece of trash.” In his own words, “stay away from it, hot and heavy.”
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
