NEW YORK (AP) — Robbie Randolph is a real estate agent and interior designer for the rich, yet even he’s not immune from the anxiety of “house shame.”
That’s the judged, bullied, defeated feeling you can get when Pinterest-perfect syndrome takes over, either in our own minds thanks to social media or fed by the side eye of a friend with impeccable digs.
House shame can make you reluctant to invite people over, and in some cases lead to isolation and despair.
“House shaming is actually how designers kind of get business,” Randolph said. “A client will go over to another home that’s professionally designed and they’ll be like, ‘Oh my gosh, my house isn’t that nice.’ They then seek out an interior designer.”
Randolph, in Greenville, South Carolina, said interior designers themselves are just as vulnerable. So are exhausted parents with young children, people who just don’t love to clean, those who can’t afford home updates, or folks who really have a lot of books and/or love collectibles.
“I’ll do an Instagram post of an amazing, immaculately decorated house and I go, ‘Wow, my house stinks,’” said Randolph. “And everyone walks into my home and tells me how amazing it is. At the end of the day, I’m still human and I still get trapped by the devil of comparison.”
Remembering one’s humanity in a world where true perfection is elusive goes a long way, he and other experts noted.
The scary side of house shame
Not wanting to entertain at home can simply mean spending time together elsewhere, in restaurants, at the theater or in the homes of others, for instance. But it can also bring on hoarding or other traumatizing behaviors like losing the will to clean.
“I have a friend who refuses to have people over because she’s so ashamed of her house,” Randolph said.
His friend didn’t have the money or the will to fix up the house after her abusive husband moved out.
“I think house shaming is about comparison, but it can also be about a person’s own struggles,” he said.
Speaking of Martha Stewart …
Barbara Fight was a TV producer for Martha Stewart for 12 years before going into home organizing in New York. She said house shame got way worse with the rise of social media and its idealized depictions of homes most people can’t afford or otherwise will never have.
But there are lots of easy, inexpensive ways people can help themselves feel better about their living spaces if they so choose.
The issue is often just too much stuff. She sees a lot of homes with row upon overlapping row of framed photos in ancient (not in a good way) frames. She suggests paring them down to the bare minimum and stashing the rest in a decorative box that can be pulled out for perusal.
Like Randolph, Fight has seen it all: People overloaded with things they’ve inherited from dead relatives. A young woman who wouldn’t bring her fiancé to her parents’ house, “because it’s such a mess.”
Fight suggests: “Take away a third of what’s out.” One client, she said, “had this long, narrow, beautiful table in her living room just filled with stuff. It was the first thing you saw when you walked in. I said to her, ‘It’s going to take me 15 minutes to make this look Instagram-worthy.’ About five pieces stayed on there. About 10 things were thrown out, and we found a different place for the rest.”
Does changing your home feel overwhelming?
Jamila Musayeva is the author of “The Art of Entertaining at Home” and hosts a lifestyle YouTube channel with over 1 million subscribers. She’s also an etiquette coach.
“A home doesn’t have to be perfect to be welcoming,” she said. “It simply has to feel cared for. If you’re worried about how your space might be perceived, start by focusing on what you can control.”
That could mean freshening up an entrance with a lit candle and a small flower arrangement to shift the mood for guests.
“Think ahead about the rooms your guests will actually see. Give those areas some attention rather than overwhelming yourself with the whole house. A clean bathroom with a fresh hand towel, good lighting in the living room and somewhere cozy to sit go much further than expensive décor,” Musayeva said.
Where the memories are made
Wendy Trunz, co-owner of the Long Island home organizing company Jane’s Addiction Organization, said she grew up in the smallest house in her family’s circle of friends and family. Now, with a husband and two kids, she lives in the smallest house among her neighbors and loved ones.
“My mom’s door was always open. Their table always had an extra seat. You just knocked and came in, and my mom just believed the more the merrier, this is where the memories are made and don’t mind the mess. And there’s something great about that,” she said.
Trunz notes that along with social media, the COVID pandemic contributed to house shame by sending millions of people home.
“Even now, five years later, we’re going in and people are still not eating at their dining room tables and not having people over,” she said. “Their husband is still sitting there working and it’s covered with stuff. We come in and clear that table and they call us in tears because for the first time they ate as a family around their dining room table again and not at the counter. It’s amazing. It’s amazing.”
Trunz had a easy solution for a client who had a stuffed front hall closet and felt she couldn’t accommodate the coats of guests.
“We just bought them a rolling rack, as if it’s a fancy thing. Nobody’s going to open the closet,” she said.
And if someone does house-shame you, there’s another easy solution, she said. One of her best friends is a teacher who invited teacher friends over for a meal and made her favorite tuna fish, choosing to focus on the magic of gathering rather than the toil of preparation.
“And one person in the group kept pointing out the fact that she only had one bathroom, and how did she live like that. I asked my friend, ‘What are you going to do about that?’ And she said, ‘You just decide not to have that person over.’ It can be that simple.”
Grant Magdanz, who uses Instagram to chronicle Los Angeles life living with his grandmother, has racked up about half a million likes for a video he posted last September showing off their decades-old furniture, mismatched cups and cluttered dining table.
“Not everyone’s life is themed, curated and made for social media,” a scroll on the video said. “In fact, most people’s aren’t. And we’re happy all the same.”