Felt cute, might renovate later

Those design hacks playing on social media will ruin your home’s aesthetic. Experts show you what to avoid, and what to do instead

On a Reel somewhere, some intrepid craft enthusiast is gluing two Ikea bread boxes at the base to make a side table. YouTube has a so-easy step-by-step guide to making a table lamp with a balloon and starch-soaked yarn. Some impossibly-polished Midwestern homemaker is suggesting in her videos that you paint everything white. You’re probably saving paper straws in a drawer so you can give your cabinet doors that trending fluted look. In soft millennial pink, what else?

(Right) Faking it won’t make it. Either avoid plants or invest in (left) real ones. (@essajeesatelier & Shutterstock)

It’s good to reimagine the whites with some soft colour breaks, but white-on-white interiors, in reality, look drab. (@essajeesatelier & shutterstock)

A furry, shaggy rug is not for the tropics. It is just not practical. (@essajeesatelier & shutterstock)