"The most dangerous thing about a trend is how right it feels in the moment."
Okay, I am going to tell you something most design accounts will never say. I made a real mistake. A whole home's worth of one. And I think you need to hear it — not because it is a great story, but because I see people making the same mistake every single day and nobody is being honest with them about it.
Houston. Both of my children were born in that home. It should have been the fullest expression of who we were as a family. Warm. Grounded. Ours.
Then HGTV happened. Or rather — I let it happen to me.
The farmhouse moment. You know the one.
If you were paying any attention to design between 2015 and 2020, you know exactly what I am talking about. Shiplap on every wall. Barn doors. Neutral everything — cream, white, greige, beige. Open shelving in kitchens lined with mason jars. Galvanised metal. Sliding wood signs with words like "gather" and "home."
It was everywhere. And I felt it — that pull. That quiet persistent whisper that said this is what a beautiful home looks like right now.
So I followed it.
Not recklessly. I made considered choices within that aesthetic. But the aesthetic itself was not mine. And that distinction — which felt small at the time — turned out to matter enormously.
"I stood in that home and felt nothing. Not discomfort. Just absence. The feeling that should have been there — was not."
The home that never quite became ours.
Towards the end of our time there I started switching things. Pulling the trend back piece by piece. Trying to find us underneath it all. And the changes helped. The room started to breathe a little differently.
But some homes carry too much of what they started as. No amount of switching and rearranging could undo the bones of a direction that was never ours to begin with. We left that home having learned more from it than from any home I had loved.
It was my least favourite home I ever lived in. And honestly — one of my most important teachers.
Why trends are so hard to resist. And nobody talks about this.
A trend exists because a lot of people find something beautiful at the same time. That is not wrong. Some trends genuinely solve design problems or reflect how people actually want to live. I am not here to tell you trends are bad.
But here is what I want you to understand. A trend is never personal. By definition it belongs to everyone following it. A home built on a trend is a home that looks like other homes — not like the people living in it.
The seduction of a trend is the certainty it offers. When you do not fully trust your own eye yet, a trend feels like a safe harbour. Millions of people find this beautiful — so it must be right. It might be beautiful. But beautiful and right for your space are two very different things.
How to tell the difference. Trend versus you.
These are the questions I ask myself now before I let anything into my home. They are simple. But they are honest.
Where did you first see it?
If the answer involves a TV show, a social media feed, or a magazine — pause. That does not make it wrong. But it means it came to you through mass media, which means it came to millions of other people at the same time. Ask yourself the next question.
Did you love it before it was everywhere?
Genuine taste predates the trend. If the appeal only arrived once it became popular — that is worth knowing. You might still choose it. But choose it consciously, not because it is everywhere.
Does it belong to your home's language?
Every home speaks a language. A tone. A palette. A feeling it lives in. Does this thing speak that language naturally — or does it require your home to become something it is not?
How will you feel about it in five years?
Trends have a lifespan. The ones that dated fastest were the ones most obviously of their moment. If it is going to feel time-stamped in five years — it was never the right choice, no matter how good it looks today.
That Houston home taught me that our home has to reflect us. Not a moment. Not a movement. Not what is popular this season. Us. Authentically, unapologetically, completely us.
Some of the choices I make will not be popular. Some will confuse people. Some will raise eyebrows. And occasionally someone will walk into a room I have created and stand very still for a moment — because they can feel that something in it is different.
That stillness is what I am designing for.
"Your home does not need to be on trend. It needs to be unmistakably yours."
— Ameena, Kerr