My wife and have started looking for a house to buy and have probably seen about 20 places in the last few months. We've also been watching a lot of those home improvement/selling/buying shows that are on TV so often.
For a while I was easily seduced by a formula used in these shows that I've seen applied to many of the houses I've viewed. The formula basically entails minimizing clutter and making the house appear as large, light, neutral and contemporary as possible.
A problem with this is that it creates a superficial, even artificial sense of what it would be like to live in such a house, because it doesn't represent how people actually live. At least not how I live.
I have stuff. That I use every other day or week. Take my kitchen for example - on the counter tops I have electronic kitchen appliances including a blender, a toaster, a kettle, a coffee machine, a food processor and a mini chopper (the rice cooker, the coffee grinder and other items used less often are in or on top of cupboards). Then there is the fruit the bowl, the drying rack (usually with a few dishes that don't fit in the dishwasher), a kitchen knife holder, bottles of cooking oil and some jars with tea, sugar and coffee beans. I didn't mention the cables for all the aforesaid appliances - these add to the clutter too.
Most of the houses presented on these shows though, and quite a few we've seen, will often have nothing on the kitchen counter tops besides some pretentious cook book and a few ornately placed bottles of virgin olive oil and a retro colored bottle of water on a tray with 2 or 3 matching glasses.
Don't get me wrong, it's visually appealing. It looks clean. It looks fresh. It looks uncluttered and easy. Like a burden would be lifted off my shoulders if I were to live there. Until I stop and think about it....where is my stuff going to go? The realization is then that for all practical purposes the kitchen that's been so prettily dressed is completely inadequate and impractical in size. By the time I've put all my stuff out it's not going to look so pretty. In fact it going to look a lot like my kitchen now.
Bathrooms in such dressed up houses are another thing worth noting. It occurred to me at one place we saw on the weekend that the occupants didn't have any soap. They didn't have any toothbrushes or toothpaste either. And only one unused white towel perfectly draped on the shiny chrome towel rack. Evidently the occupants don't wash with soap, don't brush their teeth and share one white towel between them.
Or more likely they don't live like that or don't live there at present. Neither could I.
Probably the most extreme example I've seen of this formula being used is bedrooms without cupboards. This little trick can make a room look double its size. Which is because half a rooms size can in fact be taken up by cupboards, a chest or two of draws and say some bed-side tables. You need this stuff though. Clothes and personal belongings need to go somewhere.
Again, people don't live like these houses are presented. It's not exactly false advertising but its definitely misleading and if you're easily seduced by shiny things and make decision based on superficial decorations and arrangements without thinking it through, you could end up making a very poor decision.
