Another Year, Another DIY Trend
Every year some new DIY trend comes out that explodes over YouTube and makes everyone want to try it. But then very often it turns out the trend is more trouble than it’s worth. Some of them actually hurt the home rather than improve it! Here are once popular DIY trends that haven’t aged well and are thankfully going out of fashion.
Pallet Furniture
Remember when pallet furniture was everywhere? People used to call it “Rustic chic”… until they found out how bad pallets were for the house. They’re not really meant to be inside, and they bring bugs in with them. That should be reason enough to ditch the pallets.
Shiplap
Joanna Gaines made shiplap famous with her show Fixer Upper. But it’s been off the air for ages now, and people are deciding that not every house needs horizontal boards. It’s true that some people still like it, but not nearly as many who liked it in the ‘10s.
Mason Jars
There was a time not so long along when the hottest DIY trend was basically just “getting mason jars and putting stuff in them.” They were used for lighting, for storage, for screwing to the underside of shelves… it all got a little too much. Now mason jar DIY hacks are far between, and some people are glad.
Painted Floors
At some point, some people got the bright idea to paint their floors, and thousands of other people followed suit. But why? It chips, it fades, it looks horrible if anything goes the slightest bit wrong… don;’t do it!
Barn Doors Indoors
Many a person has spent weeks doing a DIY barn door project only to turn around and decide, “This doesn’t look good after all.” People jumped on the bandwagon just because it was trendy and now they have a modern home with a random farmhouse element.
Chalkboard Walls
Chalkboard walls seem fun until you actually install one. Then, you’ve suddenly got a neverending pile of chalk dust to deal with. Plus, they make small spaces seem even smaller and often require frequent touch-ups. Kids love them… adults hate them.
Distressed Furniture
Distressed furniture used to be a big trend and older people couldn’t understand it. Why would you want to take perfectly good furniture and ruin it? Now, the trend has all but disappeared. People want clean, sleek furniture, not distressed old chairs.
Rope Décor
Rope décor used to be a huge DIY trend. People would go to the DIY store, buy a ton of rope, and use it to make shelves and mirror frames. Unfortunately, then they fast realized this made their home look like a beach house or a boat, and they soon gave up on it.
Ombre Walls
Ombre walls were a big project for keen DIYers. Unfortunately, it was hard to make them look nice. Those who managed it got to enjoy their wall for oh, a few months before tastes changed. Now they’re stuck with a wall that’s almost impossible to touch up.
Faux Brick Wall Panels
An easy DIY project once upon a time was adding faux brick wall panels to the house, but people find it so tacky now. They can peel and warp over time, are hard to clean, and just plain don’t look authentic.
Washi Tape Décor
This is a completely ridiculous DIY idea that somehow took off, probably because it never required much effort to begin with. This was the trend of simply putting washi tape on things to decorate them. But the washi tape soon peels off, leaving you with a total mess.
Cinder Block Furniture
Believe it or not, there really was once a time when people DIYed furniture out of old cinder blocks. It looked awful then and it looks awful now. People sold it as “urban chic” and then the cinder blocks scratched up their floors and ruined them.
Mirror Tile Walls
This was an easy DIY project that a lot of people enjoyed doing. Simply stick mirror tiles to the wall and make a mirror wall! But just because it was easy to do didn’t mean it was easy to do well. Often people didn’t stick the tiles to the walls properly and they’d just fall off.
Bottle Cap Projects
A beloved DIY project of yesterday was the bottle cap table or backsplash. All you needed to make one was a lot of bottlecaps, some glue, and some patience. But now times have changed, and people aren’t impressed with bottlecap-based décor anymore.
Decoupage Furniture
Decoupage is very fun to do and to be fair, some people get great results out of it. But only some people. A lot of decoupage is just badly done, and looks awful – cracking, peeling, and all-round tacky. Leave decoupage for small art pieces, not furniture.
Concrete Countertops
Concrete countertops were part of the “industrial” trend, and that trend has long gone now. DIY versions just don’t do well – they crack, stain, and require sealing. Plus, they just make a space feel so cold and unwelcoming.
Clothespin Art
Clothespin art involved making small household objects, like candle holders or pen pots, out of clothespins. For many it was a fun DIY project, but the results just weren’t up to scratch. The finished items just looked childish, and they rarely fit in with the rest of the home décor.
Wine Cork Art
And in a similar vein, wine cork art such as boards rarely looked good either, and they gathered dust like no-one’s business. People loved doing it because it was fun, and they believed they were helping save the environment by upcycling – but they ended up with a home looking like a cheap bar.
Wood Slice Décor
This was an easy DIY project for so many people, but if it feels too good to be true than it probably is. They made clocks and wall art out of slices of untreated wood, attracting bugs into their household. It’s no wonder this is a dead trend now.
Bead Curtains
Bead curtains were absolutely beloved a few decades ago, but now people see the downsides in them. First of all they’re not even cheap to make, as beads are expensive. Second of all, they offer little in the way of privacy. And third of all… they’re just painfully out of date.
Wallpaper Borders
Wallpaper borders used to be all the range. You’d paste them at the top or in the middle of your already applied wallpaper. Unfortunately, though, this didn’t always look good, and now most people have done away altogether with wallpaper borders.
Epoxy River Tables
Epoxy river tables were a huge trend for a while, but you needed to be actually skilled in woodworking and epoxy resin to make one. If you weren’t, you spent a lot of money and got a horrible mess. And then the tables went out of fashion anyway!
Macramé Everything
While macramé is a lot of fun to do, the DIY explosion of it - on plant hangers, wall hangings, and even chairs - quickly led to people getting sick of it. The unfortunate truth was that a lot of people seemed to have just tangled bits of string lying about the house.
Paper Flower Walls
Flower walls are good for parties, but in a house? And yet countless people made one and hung it up on their living room wall. Then they collected dust or tore and had to be taken down. What a complete waste of money.
Plastic Crate Furniture
A strapped-for-cash person once hit on a great idea: what if you set up plastic crates around your house to serve as furniture? You could stack three on top of each other and paint them to make a bookcase! But even though the rich and famous tried this for a time, it soon went out of fashion.
Wall Quotes
Here was a quick and fun DIY project you could do in a weekend: use paint to stencil an inspirational quote on the wall, or use woodworking tools to create the words in wood. But now, people raise their eyebrows at quotes on the wall of a home. They think it’s tacky.
Tire Tables
Someone came up with the idea of making a coffee table from tires – just pile the tires up, paint them and stick a tabletop on them – and houses have been suffering ever since. You don’t want tires in your living room, they harbor bugs.
Twine-Wrapped Bottles
Twine-covered bottles were everywhere as rustic décor a few years ago. But it turns out that twine collects dust, frays, and rarely looks good. Now, you’d be lucky to sell a twine-wrapped bottle at a craft fair.
T-Shirt Rugs
If you had a lot of old t-shirts, you might be tempted to try and make a t-shirt rug by braiding them together. Unfortunately, the reality wasn’t as good as the fantasy. The rugs often stretched oddly over the floor and they trapped dirt like no-one’s business.
Stencils
People were so excited for stencils when they first became a thing. They’d stencil patterns onto walls, doors, and even appliances. Unfortunately, now it’s considered that stencil work in a house just makes it look cheap.
Painted Appliances
Speaking of appliances… some people have been known to paint their ones bright colors as part of a misguided DIY quest. Don’t ever do this! The paint can and probably will yellow over time, and you can void the product’s warranty by painting it.
CD Mosaics
When CDs went out of fashion, people tried breaking up their old CDs to make mirror mosaics out of them. Unfortunately, these mosaics were hard to seal safely, and people could cut themselves on them.
Plastic Spoon Crafts
When upcycling was all the rage, people used to collect plastic spoons from restaurants and use them in DIY projects. Some even tried to make chandeliers from them! But as with many of the other things on this list, this was almost impossible to pull off well.
Glow-In-The-Dark Paint
People went wild for glow-in-the-dark paint when it was first invented. They painted everything with it – even furniture. But the trend has very much died out now. Glow-in-the-dark paint doesn’t look so good when it’s not, well, dark.
Button Art
Another popular upcycling DIY trend was button art. People glued buttons to things, or made wall hangings – and it looked terrible almost every time. Leave buttons on clothes where they belong.
