Home interiors and designs, and the way people view them, has changed immeasurably over the last decade. From family homes to large offices, we are altering our perceptions on what it means to decorate your environment, and in this article we will look at why this is the case, what has fuelled this change and what your home interior style says about you.
Home interiors – where we came from
Home interior style of the past was a pretty formal affair – you would tend to expect the same things in the same places, across most of the homes you’d walk in to in the UK. With growing families after the Second World War, many of which had limited budgets, the ‘make do’ attitude, in many cases, shaped the way our homes were built, decorated and furnished.
Late 20th Century and the era of personalisation
As families expanded, wealth in this country began to grow and different tastes and styles emerged. Home personalisation and what it said about you begun to change. The 1960s was prime time for this, with modern furniture designs such as the Egg Chair or Cyclone Table becoming a common item in many UK homes. How you decorated your home became very important, and people such as the Terance Conran were at the forefront of this. Suddenly a cutting edge and modern approach to design was favoured – and ‘getting ahead’ in life meant looking to the future.
This aspect of design and the way homes are furnished hasn’t really changed too much – our way of looking to the future and what’s around the next corner has largely dictated how people perceive home styles.
What your home style says about you
The way people decorate their homes says a lot more about them than just the environment in which they want to live. You can learn a lot about people, their history, their aspirations and their lives by looking at how they furnish and decorate their home.
In many cases, the old clichés stand true – it’s just about what people prioritise. If you have a close family and live within a small community, it’s likely you’ll find a lot of space in the home for photos of friends and loved ones. If you live in the city and you’re out the majority of the day, it’s likely a slicker, more minimal design would be favoured, as people only need the essentials. What goes where and how they choose to live their lives in terms of home style is of course entirely variable, but it says a lot about the fabric and makeup of our country and the culture of the people we surround ourselves with.
The Future
For many people today home interiors and the style of houses are based around the idea of technology and interconnectivity. Modern life favours a minimal approach, with subtle style and design hiding a myriad of technological advancements in the home we could have only dreamt about a few years ago.
As we move forward into the digital era and our devices get smaller, are we to see a change in the way people live? We are already seeing people stripping back, downsizing and placing a bigger focus on the people and the connections around them rather than the space they spend the majority of their time. Could this be the start of the end of the conventional family home as we know it?
