apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I have thankfully not inherited a single one. My mom believes that the more furniture you can fit into a room, the better. That includes the walls too. Complete sensory overload.

I prefer clean lines, contemporary furniture and no clutter.

Like my parents, I appreciate nice antique and vintage pieces, especially French ones. But, we don't have the same taste in eras, and I'm not opposed to mixing things up, i.e. 1870s coat rack in the same room as a 1970s Deco Revival cabinet. They would never do that.

I also do not care for their taste in neutral (beige, gray, etc.) carpets. I'd rather have wood or bamboo floors.

My sister once posted a picture of her living room on her blog, and I thought it was some kind of a mistake. It looked EXACTLY LIKE my living room. We have lived about 2000 miles apart for the last decade. How did we end up with the same futon, with the same cover, the same TV tray, and the same plants, all in the same position relative to a window of approximately the same size, and the TV? Even though they were all mass-produced items, it was spooky!

I share my mother's love for antiques and worn wood, but our color tastes are radically different. And we are both messy!

I grew up in a beige, beige, beige house. My walls are rose colored, and the draperies are celedon.

I think I was affected by the decoration of my Mother. I like the opposite. My home is filled with color, and clean lines. And I need to declutter, again.

I always thought my grandmother had good taste, but I didn't want to copy it. As things go, I inherited both grandmother's furnishings over time. I kept most pieces because I never thought I'd have the money to buy such great quality, whether their things were to my taste or not. So I tended to decorate around what I'd been given. Not really my style, and not exactly theirs either.

I finally arrived at a place in life where I could sell most of what was given, keep a few great peices, and reinvent my space just for me.

I discovered that I'd been exposed to everything from late Victorian, Edwardian, and Art Nouveau, to MCM, Boho, and what I call SuperPlush (that weird 80's/90's contemporary that you get at Levitz or LazyBoy and I think most people don't really like.)... And that a little bit of good from each style rubbed off on me.

Apartment Therapy dramatically influenced the work of purging and self-discovery, but my style is definitely my own and I love the mix of what I have. A victorian buffet and arm chair; an arts & crafts chest; a pair of MCM arm chairs; a french bombe chest; and some really fabulous timeless pieces from Room and Board and Crate and Barrel to bring it all together. I'm a happy camper!

I like to decorate with iconic vintage pieces in a fit of whimsy & idolatry. My parents had similar pieces, and gave them to me, but had no idea of their monetary value.

My father instilled me disdain for dust, any dust, especially on the top of door frames and window sills. My mother has given me several pieces of furniture (a chaise by Le Corbusier, some mid-century chairs, a delightful rocking chair) that are basic to my life, as well as a rejection of clutter and appreciation for things that are either beautiful or useful, or preferably both. So yes, I have their taste.

god god, no!

i meant, good god, no!

I think I inherited my mother's seeming inability to trust her own judgement and taste. She was always looking outside of herself to see how things were "supposed" to be done, and of course it never looks quite right with that approach. For a long time my tastes would constantly change with the whims of the market, and I had a kind of schitzophrenic(?) style. And I made alot of expensive mistakes. Now I have finally learned to trust my instincts, except unfortunately I can't afford to buy much right now.

My mom's decorating style, when I was growing up, could easily be a cover shot for Domino today: white lacquer furniture, a zebra rug, pops of chinoiserie...

My husbands' mom was (actually, still is) the queen of Danish modern. Her house is full of original MCM icons.

But my husband and I both like old things. We're always baffled when our younger friends decorate like our now-senior-citizen parents.

Thankfully no. I remember growing up with torquoise carpet and giant pink couches. The wallpaper was very 80's with giant pink orchids on them. I still have nightmares.

Also my mom is not really big on the idea of cleaning house, if you know what I mean. My time in the military and my rebellion of a messy house has made me quite picky about my surroundings. Everything needs to be tidy or I start to itch.

This is such an interesting question. It was only recently that I realized that everything I do decor-wise is pretty much the opposite of what my parents would have done. Their taste was conservative and risk-averse, and always influenced by how others would respond. I decorate only for myself, based on a vision or concept I develop in my head. I really couldn't care less what other people think, and routinely choose colors and styles that others wouldn't. But I always get compliments on my "fearless" decorating instincts, and a lot of people ask me for advice (which they don't always take:).

I think the problem is that people see what's done in magazines or other people's homes they admire, and they sort of want to emulate it, but they're afraid to be too edgy or bold. So they take it back 90%, and thus only achieve 10% of the impact of the original. And anyone who frequents this site knows that never works!

my mom is from thailand, although i was raised american. only a few elements in my home represents this. i prefer but have yet to afford the simple, unclutter look. of note, dad is from kansas and there is not one element in my home representing such. m

My mom has impeccable taste. Although our styles differ, she is a constant source of inspiration.

Hmmm... not quite, I've inherited some things... one being the plant set-up we have on our balcony, but a few things here and there have popped up.

I didn't inherit a whole lot of design sense from my mother, but I did inherit her sense of where things ought to go in the kitchen. In my first apartment, she helped me set up the kitchen when I moved in, and I found that I only had to move one or two things around in order to have them where I wanted. But when I just moved in with a roommate recently, I realized that our ideas of where things ought to go didn't quite mesh. And that made me realize that my sense of place wasn't really instinctive or logical, but a learned behavior.

My mom doesn't seem to know how to decorate. She is very good about copying ideas from magazines and I'm not sure there's any real problem with it. I stand to inherit a fortune in little blue medicine bottles (if they're actually worth anything then).

My first home was Danish Modern, and I really liked it, and have made off with some of the stuff from that era. I have a pair of lamps my mother kept because they are teak, but she violently tore the original spaghetti shades off them because they were acrylic, and the fitters are weird. As long as they went in the attic, I'm not sure why they couldn't stay intact.

She moved on, a little weirdly ornate right prior to her country period. That kind of went on a long time, and she's just coming out. I remember a wave of bold wallpapers and colors in my childhood just bland right out to being scared of paint on the walls that might hint of any color by my teens. She is always saying she would get bored of it if it was painted a color. She gets really bored anyway.

I don't ditch anything with cruelty. I might pass it along, but I don't have that much. I do like to save things that others hate so much - which is opposite. She does like to try to make me take things I don't want and gets exasperated when I want something she is positive is junk. The main difference between me and my mom here is that I have a much better sense of color than she does. She also loves fake things, like the fake brick we had, the Pergo wood floors, the laminate cabinets and fake granite counters. I really don't hate "fake" things, but if you're having a laminate, you can make it be a picture of something else, really embrace the melamine and the vinyl. I just don't settle for the fake version of something that could be had real.

I also have expensive taste. When I like something best out of options, it always turns out to be the higher quality and almost naturally more expensive thing I could have chosen. My mother thinks the cheaper one is good enough, and really can't see the difference between qualities with her eyes.

I see only a few similarities - my mother really likes what she likes and wants what she wants. I've never seen her buy something cheap just to fill a space. Everything she buys is "forever," which in terms of furniture, has been surprisingly true. She is currently suffering her old sofa from about 1983?, which is a great sofa, I just happen to not have room for it or like the upholstery. The blue doesn't match now that everything is green and gold (again! just like 1977!). I, in turn, am suffering her solid oak buffet (she pushed on me) in some traditional style that's ugly while I wait on her to replace her walnut (?) dresser in that Danish Modern style, only because I need the storage.

So I guess we have some similar issues to work out!

I don't have my parent's decorating style, but the style that I have is because of them. My dad likes antiques-he's always hoping to find that priceless lost whatever-and my mom tends to like heavier and darker-regardless, they end up with lots of clutter. So I think that my simple,clean, bright and comfortable-kind of minimalist style comes as a result of knowing what I DON'T want.

Ha, no danger of that, my mother has no taste. She'd decorate entirely from Sears if she could, and the few family heirlooms her mother let her have have long since been destroyed by her pets and neglect.

I wonder how many other poofter guys out there are the only ones in their entire families that don't decorate like the inside of a camp-trailer/dog-pound?

My mother grew up in a foster home, and she cherishes her gifted tchotchke that are like little memerablias of love from the people in her life. I, for the life of me, have not experienced the same way and see just clutter. Of course, I know the story behind each thing and have grown to find that surrounding herself in love is a very positive way to grow up in the negative situation that she had.

My grandparents style is the one I have inherited, their TV area is dedicated in a transition area between the dining room and living room,just two chairs and a tv on a tray... I always loved how their house was designed mostly like an active lifestyle.

My boyfriends inherited his mom." but hopefully I can show him the good results of designing an activity filled house.

My mom and i decorate both our apartments together even now. When we are shopping for new furniture we dn't bring the men just us and it has been this way since I can remember. Even at 9 or 10, my parents would call me to go shopping to decorate the house with something new. Not that our houses are amazing and need to be photographed, but i do remember that my sister was never invited

I'm at work sneaking a peak into this great conversation starter and have enough to say that I'll be back later commenting, but the one thing that sticks out the most is that my tea kettle MUST sit on the right hand back burner filled with 3/4 water at ALL points in time. Growing up I had no clue why my Mom insisted on it, but I've fallen into the same tea kettle trap! I still have NO clue why we do this, but If I see the kettle from another room and it isn't positioned/filled properly I have to stop everything I'm doing and fix it. My kitchen is always sanitized and spotless, but in general it seems as though the rest of the kitchen can be crazy as long as my tea kettle is in the proper spot with enough water.

Crazy, I know.

Growing up my mom tried to make her Norwegian teak furniture match our home which had a country theme from the previous owners. She was never was afraid of color (I had a barbie pink room) but the house never seemed to totally mesh. I went off to college and my parents remodeled the kitchen, re-painted the walls, and bought new modern sofas and entertainment center. Finally all of the beautiful teak furniture looks at home and the house represents my mother's true style. My love of clean lines and teak color furniture definitely comes from her and my Norwegian born grandparents.

My father has good taste, my mother's is horrid. I strongly lean towards my dad's aesthetic, but I'm more of a minimalist than he is. My idea of hell would be to have to live in a home entirely decorated by my mother; I'd be in a strait jacket in less than a week.

My mother has this strange affinity for throw pillows that my dad and I have never quite understood... you have to throw two or three of them on the floor before you sit down anywhere. I have not inherited that, luckily.

Interesting question. I trace my my love of vintage tile bathrooms and antique bathtubs to my parents, who never understood why someone would re-model anything that wasn't damaged beyond repair in a flood or fire.


Also, my strong attraction to damask and toile. Weird, I know.