The Problem With Home Decor Blogs

I have come to the realization that home decorating blogs are making us nuts. For the longest time I've loved them so much—getting DIY ideas for organizing, tutorials on how to hang a gallery wall, and tons of inspiration for ways to decorate—but I have come to believe that they've set the bar way too high for most of us. We must revolt and demand more from these bloggers. These bloggers need to get even more REAL.

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Think about the artfully-styled, perfectly-lit pictures you see. There's the playroom with wire baskets and wicker bins carefully labeled—each one matching perfectly and with laminated, color-coded labels dangling just so. There's an errant, hand-sewn doll strewn haphazardly on the floor. Maybe there's a pillow tossed casually where a pillow might not ordinarily be. Light is ALWAYS streaming in from a window or skylight.

But that's about it in terms of the real-life "mess" you see. Nowhere do you see the contents of a gargantuan Lego bin dumped on the floor; you don't ever see teeny-tiny puzzle pieces poking out from under the rug; you don't see shards of a discarded tissue getting ground into the aforementioned rug.

From blog to blog, this same scenario holds true—from kitchen to bedroom to living room. Each one is beautifully-propped and with only these frustratingly artificial hints of disarray. But whose kitchen counters REALLY look like that?? Where are the coffee ring stains? Where are the shards of cereal next to the sink? Whose bedside table consists of a bud vase and one vintage alarm clock? Where's the cough syrup and the lip balm? Where's the dogeared book or half-read magazine? I don't know about you, but I already have celebrity magazines and their images of airbrushed skin and starvation-diet abs to make me feel less-than-perfect. Home decorating blogs should be a shelter from all this! Aspirational but still actually attainable!

Of course I don't expect the blogs to put up images of squalor or show off total domestic chaos, because then all the reader might notice is the pile of dishes or the off-kilter painting, and I know that's not the point. BUT I would still love to see what these same neatnik bloggers' homes look like for real. Before everything is tidied up for the camera and stowed away carefully. When the homes are in ACTUAL use.

Now there's always the chance that some people TRULY do live like that—always photo-shoot ready!?—but chances are (and especially for those with kids) that's not possible.

I, for one, would still love and admire the decor of these blogs if they also showed just a bit more of a lived-in look.

That way, when I looked around my own home—where one doll shoe is perched precariously on the stairs, the other shoe is being dragged to the fireplace by the cat (who seems to have stepped his left paw into a watercolor palette, and an entire box of Crayola crayons has been strewn from one side of the couch to the other—I'd feel a whole lot more stylish!