Nowadays, our world seems to be dominated by simplistic and minimalistic trends, making everything neat, serious, and rather colorless. But as one looks at all these modern designs, it’s hard not to wonder at what point we decided that we should leave all joy behind the moment we hit adulthood.
However, just because everyone does something one way doesn’t mean that you can’t go in the opposite direction. For example, this woman went viral after sharing her home’s unusually colorful and joyous interior design, making the internet fall in love with it in the process. Scroll down to learn all about it!
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With the world siding more and more with neutral color palettes, some people do the most to bring the joy of bold color back into it
Image credits: kaarinjoy
A woman decided to go against the norm and decorate her home with bright colors and unique shapes, ones you hardly find in any of the modern interior design trends
The woman behind this project that took the internet by storm is Kaarin Staalsen, better known as Kaarin Joy, which seems very fitting considering what she’s doing. Kaarin presents herself as an artist, interior decorator, and nurse, making for quite an interesting combination in life that, as we can undoubtedly see, worked out wonderfully for her.
In the past few years, mostly due to sharing her home’s unique redecoration process, she has built up a massive audience, with nearly 500,000 followers on Instagram and over 2.4 million on TikTok. Her videos regularly reach millions of views, with the most popular one having been watched more than 8.6 million times.
With her decoration process being public, it didn’t take long for the internet to fall in love with her idea. Infected by Kaarin’s joy, the commenters shared how much they loved what she had done, adding that this magic school bus vibe is much better than the white, grey, and sad beige designs that are all around us nowadays.
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Image credits: kaarinjoy
The house looked straight out of some magical children's tale, with colorful dinosaur heads sticking out the walls and fruit-shaped stools
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Sharing her process online, the woman quickly went viral, with more than 2.4 million people following every step of her journey
Kaarin’s home sure seems joyous. But if so many people like this, why is the majority of our world still choosing to go with a neutral color palette and leaving all the joy that the other colors bring behind? Perhaps we’re just imagining it, and it has always been this way?
Well, if you ever thought that the world was losing color, according to a study published by the Science Museum Group Digital Lab, you’re not wrong. Looking at over 7,000 pictures of things spanning 21 categories, the researchers found that neutral shades make up a growing share of all objects around us, with 1 in 3 things appearing grayish.
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Image credits: kaarinjoy
The joy wasn't limited to the ground and the floor either, as you could also find cake lamps and spoon chandeliers hanging from the ceiling
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Looking for an explanation for this occurrence, Lennart Dobravsky of OneChart talked to Cath Sleeman, the author of the aforementioned study, who gave a few reasons why this may be happening.
Some explanations might be rather simple. The trends have turned toward neutral colors, possibly because of a significant decline in wood, leather, and plenty of other previously widely used natural materials.
However, at the same time, it might also be due to the stress and anxiety that modern life brings. People may be more inclined to look for ways to stand out less in a crowd and fit in with their societies or even try to compensate for these negative feelings by ridding their lives of noise as much as possible.
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Image credits: kaarinjoy
But even with all these unique decorations, nothing in the house radiated as much joy as the designer herself
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Image credits: kaarinjoy
Image credits: kaarinjoy
But perhaps the best way to deal with the problems that lead us to hide behind neutral colors is to face them head-on instead? Of course, every person is different, and everyone should be able to choose things for themselves, but humans are inherently tempted to follow the flock, as, instinctively, doing so means survival. And sometimes, we forget to stop and think about why exactly we are doing what we’re doing.
So, with all this in mind, maybe the answer to beating some of that stress and anxiety is letting in some more joy into your life. Whether you want your house to have dinos coming out of the walls and spoon chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, as Kaarin does, is up to you. However, adding at least a little more color to this rather colorless world might just make everything better, so why not try it?
What did you think of Kaarin Joy’s house? How much color do you have in your life? Share all about it below!
The commenters were absolutely in love with The Magic School Bus aesthetics, saying that they would take this over most modern trends any day
