I Unfollowed Home Decor Influencers On Instagram & Here’s What Happened

In January, I made a New Year’s Resolution to unfollow home decor and DIY influencers on Instagram after feeling the constant push to keep up with the trends. Seven months later, I noticed a huge change. Here’s what happened.

First of all, I should mention that I’ve always been into interior design. As an eleven-year-old, my favorite channel was HGTV. As a teenager, I spent my Friday nights reading Better Homes and Gardens magazine while planning my next bedroom makeover. As a young adult, I lived on Pinterest. And now as a professional organizer, I see the direct correlation of home organization and interior decorating.

But as I started to find and follow more and home “home influencers” on Instagram, I felt the constant need to “keep up with the Joneses.” Everyone was buying Loloi collaboration rugs so I bought Loloi collaboration rugs. Everyone was using the color blue so I used the color blue. Traditional style decor became super popular so what did I do? I leaned into traditional design. But it just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t me.

When we bought our house in 2020 I had big plans to revive this 1970s cabin and “unflip the flip” the investors we bought it from had done. We wanted to bring it back to the ’70s and let it relive its late mid-century modern glory days. We spent the last four years renovating, and the big projects stayed in line with our goals. But the decor slowly started to miss the mark.

Not only was I decorating with things that weren’t my style (like the pricey kitchen island we got in 2022 that I’ve never really even liked) but I was repeatedly buying new pieces of decor to change things. This was an expensive and unhealthy habit, and I didn’t even realize it was happening until last year around the holidays.

After renovating for four years, I’m tired of renovating. I’m tired of redecorating. And I’m tired of wasting money on things that I turn around and sell for half the price on Facebook Marketplace not even one year later.

So I quit. I just quit doing it. I unfollowed all the home decorating and DIY accounts on Instagram. There are a few accounts that I’m close friends with that fall into that category, and for those, I just “muted” their posts so I wouldn’t be tempted. I took a seven month break from even looking at magazines and Pinterest.

Something interesting happened during that break. I started to look at my house differently. My true style and our original plans for the house returned to my mind. The colors I like, the style of furniture I prefer, the style of artwork I love to look at—it all came back to me.

It’s like I was blinded by what was popular (and most readily available) so much that I was tricked into thinking I liked it too. Funny how influencers not only influence you to buy things, but actually influence brands on what to sell!

As we work on closing out our renovations on this house and find the “forever furniture” we don’t need to keep replacing, I’m realizing how easily our tastes and preferences can be manipulated. I will not be re-following the decorating accounts, and I won’t be pressured to buy new decor all the time.

My goal for 2024 has always been to simplify my home and my life, and I really think I’m on the right track now. And our house is feeling more like home than ever.

Have you ever gone through the same thing? Have you tried unfollowing decorating accounts on social media to help decrease unhealthy shopping habits? Let me know in the comments what your own experiences have been.