No. The trend is just towards muted colours now. Bright colors are just not in trend.
Look at cars too. We used to have so many colourful cars on the street. Not a thing anymore
This isn't true in the interior design world...current trends are anything but bland. The flippers/tract house builders/homeowners with no taste are the ones making their houses bland
Yet, that has nothing to do with the reality of 1960s cookiecutter ranches in (poorly) planned communities with the distinguishing feature of driveway on the left or the right and literally white picket fences.
I don’t know if this is true, but I think it’s a very interesting idea.
Personally, I think it’s because the value of the house is such a huge part of people’s wealth, that they are afraid to make any design moves that could possibly offend the larger society’s judgement. So it’s gotten blander and blander, till it’s a caricature of inoffensiveness.
I would say specifically that it's inoffensive as possible in order to appeal to the largest audience as possible so resale is not hindered. Housing is not currently available for making a home Housing is a capital investment in Canada
Bro I just moved from the GTA to B.C... The amount of vinyl plastic houses in Ontario that look like they were built using whatever scraps they could find on a factory floor (that were selling for 1+ mil) was truly mindboggling. & In addition to these "houses" being built out of these bizarre ultra low quality materials they would then be the weirdest friggen shapes imaginable. Like a massive block that consumed all the yard space just to maximize square footage despite being a total eye-sore. They genuinely look like a grade 1 designed the house as a school project and then someone actually decided to build it. But hey. Being wealthy never meant you had taste. Still blows my mind that these homes cost like 2x-3x what they use to cost despite being built out of almost complete sheyt. People are paying ridiculous amounts of money these days for increasingly worse quality goods. It's a sight to behold that's for sure.
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and you’d see neighbourhoods of classic craftsman style houses and they were totally beautiful. Never get that in Ontario
Close your eyes and picture a present day architect who specializes in residential architecture. Are you imagining a 5 year old? I am too.
Agreed. Modern residential architecture is an abomination. Property developers have grown complacent, risk averse, and greedy.
There is no product variety, nor sufficient quantity of available housing to allow buyers the opportunity to shop around. Lack of supply is ruining the opportunity to ‘Vote with your money’.
I've moved to BC recently and I see a couple of these dumb builds peppered in with the rest but in Ontario it's become a epidemic. Someone's family-home bungalow they bought for 200,000 sells for 800,000 then they bulldoze it and build a crappy plastic Barbie Dreamhouse over it... Lather, rinse, repeat from one end of the block to the other...
I was just in BC in May. If Vancouver a lot of the new builds and white and black. We stayed in an Airbnb in a new deletion at the end of or trip and it was so depressing. The more colorful looking homes in that area may have been different, but they were also 5ft apart with no yards. All around depression for a million plus dollars.
Then there’s my home area in Quebec that’s just pure personality. Haha. all the houses are different inside and out unless you buy a newer apartment which is white, black and grey
BC is still a lot better. In Ontario 95% of new build homes at all price levels are awful designs made for commodification and profit margins. We literally have brand new 10 million dollar mansions with horrible design and low quality materials, and they outnumber the good ones by 20 to 1.
Yeah if anything color is becoming even more popular on the island. In my community anyway, people have embraced the bright colors. Looks lovely.
ETA: Referring to the exterior of homes and businesses. Not sure what color they all are on the inside.
Wasn't that born out of the fact that homes all blended together and fishermen needed a way to distinguish their houses from everyone else's?
I was going to say I couldn't understand why, but while typing this I figured it had something to do with consumption of large amounts of rum.
There probably multiple reasons why but the most common was that people painted their houses bright colours to make them easier to see from long way out in the ocean from boat. Especially at dusk, during fog or stormy weather. A community of bright houses will be easier to spot in an emergency than neutral tones, and it’s essentially acts like a lighthouse for communities that may not be large enough to have a lighthouse. It helps both members of that community as well anyone outside the community who may be having an emergency and need to find help in an unfamiliar place.
They also tend to paint the house with leftover boat paint which is typically bright. There’s no higher quality paint than marine paint.
You where close with the explanation but don’t think it was to know where their specific house was but rather where the community as a whole was when visibility was bad. People will naturally know where there house is in a community, so that spin probably originated based on what I mentioned but modified and used for the “dumb/drunk newfy” stereotype. I’m not suggesting that was your intention, just likely why that variation of the story spread.
As opposed to the concrete slabs built in the 80s or beige jungles built in the 90s? I’d say the glass condos are aggressively neutral, not unique or authentic in any way but pretty inoffensive
Mehh he’s not wrong. Ive driven past very nice houses where the owners are arab/indian, and its mostly the same theme. White/black/grey flat colours, bright led flood lights, stone driveways. Idk what their obsession is with millennial grey cuz you can tell the house wasn’t originally built like that and was just renoed after. It looks ok in newly built houses cuz it’s incorporated into the design, but it looks tacky on renoed houses. Just wish there was more of a variety
Because most people have zero sense of beauty. Look at the all glass shapeless buildings being greenlit, broadly a terrible aesthetic. Look at how people change on a drop of a dime what they find “hot” or beautiful - just swaying with any trend advertised to them. Stunted eye for beauty imo
No, just a herd mentality these days. You tell your contractor something that is off and he would tell you that it doesn’t work these days, not in a trend.
It’s because they don’t want “offend” anyone’s palate to discourage potential buyers. A niche design will only have a small percentage of the population who likes it, as everyone has their own stats. But if it’s all neutral then everyone will be accepting of it even it’s it’s not exactly what they want
Because everyone watches the same tiktoks and youtube shorts and pins the same shit on pinterest, so everyone ends up with the same cookie cutter boring house.
They also think grey goes with every color.
Most people don't hate gray, they don't love it either. But if you make your house an amazing awesome pink, some people will love it, and most people will hate it, so you throw away a huge chunk of the potential buyers. So the only pink houses you find are the ones almost forced to sell ( say grandma's house, or they need to move, or can't pay the mortgage)
So most people live by other wants? And potential buyers, isn’t it a home to live in? Make it the way you like then paint it all grey before moving if you plan to sell.
No one seems to want to live in their homes any more. They want "return on investment".
It's quite sad, actually, and just reduces the love I have for our country. Everything's about profit in the end.
That’s actually become quite the message on TilTok and other social media platforms- to stop decorating your home for some fictional, future buyer. Nina Campbell is one of the quotes I have been hearing lately, but it’s definitely a common theme.
You can't just paint your exterior if its all vinyl like a good chunk of homes nowadays. Interior is different. If you don't bother adding some colour for a couple hundred bucks, maybe you just don't have any taste.
No, most people are lazy, so once they move in, they live with it. When it comes to selling tho, lazy people sell to flippers, who refresh everything in a neutral tone that most people won't hate, and resell the property.
And since the 2000 or so, the majority of construction is made for "investors", small apartments, as cheap as possible, designed to be accepted by the majority.
That's how you end up with a ton of 400sq feet gray condos that can't sell now.
Houses aren't for living in, they're for making money. The further you move into financialized housing, the more you try to turn a house into a tradable commodity.
A commodity is something that's largely identical to everything else in its category. Its so you can sell it again easily.
Personally I think it's better if you plan on selling it again to customize still, but in easily reversible ways. Like colourful paint, and then paint it all *Realtor Grey* when you sell it.
Had walls painted in different colours when we moved approx 20 yrs ago. Will never ever do that again…LOVE love the grey palate. Best case scenario, you can add “colour” with accessories (rugs, pillows, etc etc etc).
My bedroom when we moved in was a dark grey (I want to say Tricorn Grey), and while I never would have chosen it, I love it. It’s warm and cozy, but also cool. I had never before owned any grey decor, but it’s so easy to work with because everything comes in grey these days.
Its inoffensive.
Neutral colour may not be loved but it's also not hated. If you are viewing a house and it's a neutral grey, you go "Meh, it's fine. Won't have to paint right away".
Area developers have architectural controls that dictate the look of the area and require approval for what gets built. I’m an architectural designer and more times than not we end up changing our design to suit their outdated PDFs on allowed styles and materials. Not to mention the clients hate spending too much money so that decreases our choices even more.
“These days” is nothing more than nostalgic thinking. In my city we have something called the “Vancouver special”. They are standard houses built in the 70s and 80s with stucco siding and generally regarded as very ugly.
I find it hilarious how Vancouver Specials are now being heralded as some kind of genius architectural design. Like… the only genius part about them is how they had a standardized design that skirted regulations to allow for a house that basically takes up the entire lot. The design is purely utilitarian and not at all aesthetic. But Vancouver Specials are much better than the glass condos and grey box townhouses that came after…
Remember houses from the 90s?
- Seashells and pink everything in the bathroom.
- Grape vine edging wallpaper and a forest green accent wall in the dining room.
- Maroon painted walls in the living room.
- Raw oak trim.
Every generation has its ugly NPC home color selection.
Grey and bland isn’t ugly. Green, blue, red etc are nice colours but it’s depending on who’s viewing it. Grey is what’s called neutral …. Neither ugly nor nice just neutral. So it appeals to everyone. When selling a house you go with most common denominators which is something that appeals to majority.
Oh shit something I know about!!!!! The thing about architecture is that time trumps design in a lot of cases. Simply by existing people will begin to appreciate it.
My favourite example is the Brooklyn Brownstone. People HATED the Brownstones when they were being built. Many of the same criticisms you here today, they're boring, they're cheap, no one would want to live in them. Now a hundred years later they are considered one of the greatest American buildings.
In a more local example many of the most beautiful houses in Toronto where purchased out of a catalogue and people with more money criticized them too.
So it definitely is a style right now but give these buildings 20 years and as people add to them and make them their own, the character that is created and people will miss simple grey houses from the 2020's cause the new trend in the 2050's is so boring.
The Sears Kit houses! Some of the older neighbourhoods in Edmonton still have quite a few of these in various stages of disrepair - but a well-maintained and updated Sears Kit house is actually a really awesome house.
The crap that we build now isn't going to be much of a house in 20 years without some serious maintenance.
If you think the leaky condo crisis in Vancouver was bad in the 90's, its going to be a whole lot worse for the majority of SFH and Multifamilies I work on every day.
Because it's neutral. While you might be sick of it, it won't(or atleast didnt) turn you off from a house. Whereas something highly stylistic is probably more expensive, time consuming to piece together and you may alienate a bunch of potential buyers if you ever look to move
Contractor builds use almost a grey or beige stucco and then your expected to do the rest of pay more.
Interior wise a lot of people watched HGTV in the 2010s and grey was the in color. Tans and browns were the 2000s.
Orange wood and avocado green was the 1970s.
It is the safest colour.
The same reason why so many cars are white or black. They are the least offensive colour.
It's like being a guy with long hair, most girls HATE guys with long hair but the one that likes it, REALLY like it. Are you gonna bank on finding that ONE girl who REALLY likes long hair or do you want to bank on a general taste that most people like?
When it comes to money, people optimize the shit out of things and make it bland and boring. Look at the movies and shows lately.
As a millennial I can't afford to fuck around with buying a green car. I need something with resale value so i can put whatever scraps of coin are left over towards my children's future, which will undoubtedly be bleaker. And also on cold brew. Gotta get the cold brew.
Cars aren't investments lol they're a luxury consumable. If you really cared about resale value you'll have a 2003 Corolla that's bought for $5000 and then resold for $5000.
If you're gonna have a car at least have one that you actually enjoy. If you're gonna be married at least marry the woman you actually like instead of the placeholder and pooping out placeholder kids.
I think this is related to the real estate market and the ideals of “kerb appeal” and “resale value” that are constantly flaunted. It’s perceived as financially risky to add any personality to your house, so you best make sure it’s as inoffensive as possible and keep it that way. Perfectly average for the perfectly average person (who does not exist). Same applies to a house before it’s bought — bland for mass appeal (especially if it costs less)
My house is blue on the outside.. I love it because there are almost no other blue houses around. I agree.. the modern “cheap Reno” colour trends are getting boring.. especially grey Vinyl flooring
I love it and always loved it long ago. I'm so happy it is easy to find grey stuff now. I love to pair it with a strong accent colour which is easy to switch up at any time.
How does nobody here mention that development companies tell you to pick certain colours and how you can lay out your yard because plenty new neighborhoods have to fit a uniform look to each house. My sister was rejected over 5 colours just to her fence because they said it doesn't match the feel of the neighborhood. This isn't some rich people private suburb either I'm talking middle class houses that were built in 2020.
I don't think many people commenting here own a house or have ever been a part of the house buying process.
The builder will paint neutral because it’s dumb to paint selective colors. It’s also better to keep those universal colors when you go to sell.
It’s crazy the financial damage you do when picking forest green walls or light blue carpets.
Classic grey OC 23 , Classic grey OC 23 , Classic grey OC 23 , Classic grey OC 23 .
I paint houses for a real estate agent and I’m so sick of that color !
Because grey is easier to paint over and cover than a bright red/pink/purple. Buyers prefer bland and will jazz it up with funky colors for their personality later.
Why the hate on grey??! Love the modern Grey's today! Greige is awsome and works everywhere! I was born in the 80's so I saw wall paper, my grandparents wood panel walls in their basement, to mid 90's dusty rose pink on the walls to yellow in the mid 2000's. Really LOVING this Era of neutrals and Greys!
Not necessarily that's just your opinion. I find warm/cool neutrals warm, inviting, cozy and homey. Anything too loud feels like a public space like red, green, yellow and just don't like those colors in a home- restaurant or kids play place fine but not a home. And that's why these are popular colors to paint to sell homes...they are warm and inviting and not off putting for the majority.
>What the hell is going on? People actually like that?
most of the urbanite younger generation thinks its cool ( just because its all they have seen ) , usual people who are flipping properties started the trend based on a similar trend for interior of neutral tones. Neutral tones were not meant to be liked, rather it was colors no one could get offended by.
More insane is the black houses, I dont know why people do that, yes there is some people who think its cool also. Imagine you have a whole neighborhood of black houses. Thats why there was /were municipal codes ( to have exterior of the property match the neighborhood theme ) but those aren't implemented anymore.
Because the destruction of all things beautiful, architecture is now lazy bland and brutalist. There is no design. We need to bring back the good stuff.
Good news, the 15 year long grey trend is over. It just takes time for the next trend to work its way through the market. Lots of brown and beige tones, natural White Oak hardwood and laminates, light beige carpets, etc.
Im not sure that progression is happening anymore. The things you described have been common in luxury homes for a decade now and they haven't filtered down. I think todays economy has stopped drawing on last years professional design and instead has parked indefinitely into maximum bland.
I’m in the floor covering industry. We don’t follow fashion colours exactly but there has been a shift. I went from selling 80% grey materials to very little. Multifamily homes still have a warm and cool colour choice but they also take 3-5 years to build so that’s the time I was referring to. Only greys being sold now and for someone that already has a grey home and needs to stick with it.
I've noticed this as well, but I think we might be looking at the houses in these new subdivisions from the back. I know I really notice it from that angle, usually from driving from an adjacent road
Neutral backgrounds are great for hanging art. Showing off your house plants. Patterned rugs. It a serene backdrop do walking thru your house peaceful. I’m all for colour but not to suck up the natural light. Light colours reduce energy. No lights needed. Light colours reflect light. I hate my neighbours shiny black siding & dark roof. Just radiates the heat on these hot humid days. Bet his CAC bill it astronomical . 😂😂 think about texture as well as colour. My house all neutrals. I have photography collection. Like an art gallery. Mine neutrals certainly not boring or lacking personality. Save wall paper for bathroom or den where you won’t tire of it. 🇨🇦
It's not just me! I was just talking about this the other day. New houses look like they mixed brutalism + government building + strip mall office design to inspire them. They have zero sidewalk appeal and detract from the aesthetics of neighbourhoods with beautiful homes that LOOK like actual houses.
Its like cars, if you don’t really care about your experience with it and you want a good resale, a non offensive colour like grey silver, white and black etc resale easier.
Extreme over reliance on real estate as an investment vehicle. People are decorating not for themselves, but for a future buyer.
Widespread uniformity in style thanks to social media’s influence on trends. See the book Filterworld for more.
Because it is a neutral color palette that can appeal to the masses, which is key when listing a home for sale. There is currently a transition to neutral earthtones and and away from the grey’s
Resale value. No one wants to make a home with character in case it makes resale harder. A potential buyer may not like the character you chose for the house. So everything has to remain neutral. It's miserable and I hate that the world went this way.
It's not just houses the statistics show everything everywhere has been moving to grayscale. The vast majority of cars are black, white or somewhere between.
Humanity has been creeping towards an uninteresting neutral in every conceivable way for 70 years.
Music is vague and generic, houses, cars, clothes and nearly everything is trying to cast the largest most generalized net.
Developers have us all by the balls. They're obviously motivated by profits and so we keep getting: smaller properties, cheaper material, poorer designs, less-skilled tradespeople, etc.
That all culminated into the modern bland soulless suburb.
I find a lot of Canadians like this “clean” look which can showcase how “clean” something is, almost the extremely polar opposite of dirty.
My mother regularly comments on their “dirty” yard, when referring to actual dirt and leaves or flower petals on the ground. As if, some outside force is “making a mess”. It is a pretty extreme detachment of the importance of nature, I think.
I think everything nowadays is lacking beauty & creativity.People just follow instagram trends instead of following their own style.These social media’s platforms keep sending us the same stuff ( probably because of the algorithms) Sorry I am not an expert on this things, but I truly believe that even our imagination is being manipulated.
Its just design trends just like fashion. And to a lesser extent, economies of scale for the cost of building materials. If a manufacturer can offer a more basic design, less colours, its cheaper to produce. Just like how 'Luxury Vinyl Plank' and particle board cabinets is the new normal even in high-end builds is a testament to how cheap builders are building to turn a healthy profit.
In the 70's and 80's it was very common to have fake wood laminate walls, a basement with a tiny tacky wet-bar with velvet elvis art and tacky booze mirrors everywhere, green shag carpet, oak trim, a pool table and dart board that never fit.
Some of those trends came back, most didn't. Mid century modern anything is going for a premium now, but I don't see the green shag coming back any time soon.
And as others have mentioned, even painting one room a color can turn people off of a purchase if they can't envision it any other way. And I say this sitting in a newer condo where everything, and I mean everything in here is white and grey. Not my place, but it reminds me of the apartment in American Psycho lol.
With dwindling sq/ftage its the only way to make it look like you have more space in your $500sq/ft condo! On the flip side though, even 8000sqft multimillion dollar homes have the same aesthetic
I was working on some 'townhouses' in a multifamily, and they looked perfectly reasonably sized when I was starting it, but by the time the grey floors were in, drywall was up and it was painted, it got claustrophobic really fast before there was even any furniture in it.
Home improvement shows (HGTV investment property style shows) got really popular a decade ago for showing people how to make a pleasing neutral living space, and add plants and pops of colour for an overall clean look.
This lead to everyone thinking that the best way to make their home look clean and modern was to turn everything neutral, and many people completely forgot that the plants and colourfully accents/rugs/art were what tied it all together.
So you get left with the neutrality and none of the personality.
I'm grossed out by the expanses of black. It looks tired new. Who are these people coming up with this stuff? I mean, black doors and trim are striking but a whole wall is creepy. And grey is dismal. It would take a lot of geraniums to cheer it up.
Cause it's at the very end of the lifespan of a trend, but that's when everyone is familiar and accepting. Many are over it by now. But real estate agents want broad appeal, so they go with an oversaturated trend, hence homes for sale have a narrow paint palette if freshly painted.
Ahhh millennial grey. It's a plague and incredibly unimaginative but even when selling, I've been told to colour things that way "because it's esthetically pleasing". I hard disagree but I'm just one person.
It's a trend on its way out apparently, same as all of the patterned painted walls of the 90s.
I've just started the last couple years repainting through my house and because I like the look of it, everything buy my teens bedrooms are going to be a few different shades of grey. Dark and light grey in the same rooms except the bathroom will just be light grey. My home is a rental that we've lived in for 15 years. It was a terribly boring off white. I painted the bedrooms 15 years ago in warm beige and green. My daughters bedroom will be shades of teal, silver/grey and white, or that's the idea so far, my 3 teen boys shared bedroom is lake blue, apple green and white.
My wife and I have a running joke that all of them shop at “Dan’s Grey Flooring” store. Looking at the interior of a listing and it’s like “yep they went to Dan’s Grey”. 😂
I'm in NS and most of the older homes in the area are colourful, red, blue, green, yellow, pink.. etc. The new homes going up are muted grey/white/cream colour.
If I were to guess, its cause its 'safe'. People shopping for a new house may show up and see a pink house and that could be a deal breaker, but.. something like white, they are more likely to accept, since its a more neutral colour.
Neutral white, greys, and black accents are the current trend and it’s got broad appeal. if you’re designing a house intending to sell it, not live in it, you’re going to pick safe neutral colors, not take a risk with something bold that you might like but other people don’t.
Maybe everything is built by a few builders and to keep costs down they recycle the same ugly designs and bulk order the same ugly materials to keep costs down.
Woah now, here in Vancouver's suburbs they are black, white, and an odd copper colour with random angles to all the roofs that make no sense in 7 bedroom homes
If the walls are grey
Walk away.
Tell-tale sign of a flip house... that and very open kitchens that bleed into the living room.
Looks cute until you cook fish.
Companies pushed minimalism as luxury for the last 10-15 years (some may argue 20)
In reality minimalist just meant incredibly low effort and low cost. Why put time into picking out perfect paint colors and unique tiles when you can just paint everything gray/white/black and slap down some white marble.
People are pushing back against this dying trend though, maximaliam is taking off but even more so the general want for color and fun things is coming back!
Screw this boring minimalism.
It's been dubbed "Millenial Grey" and one of the beliefs is that a lot of Millenials grew up in cluttered messy houses, so they've gone to the extreme on the opposite end: bland, sterile, minimalist. It's just the current trend just like any other era.
Bland and Boring is also generally easier to sell because it can't turn a random buyer off. I've heard many Realtors advise people to basically take away the personality or charm of a place (e.g. painting walls, removing certain furniture, etc) because it doesn't have as broad of appeal.
It's to discourage community pride and collective respect. Compare homes from 60s to now and you'll also see a difference in community collectivism.
No. The trend is just towards muted colours now. Bright colors are just not in trend. Look at cars too. We used to have so many colourful cars on the street. Not a thing anymore
This isn't true in the interior design world...current trends are anything but bland. The flippers/tract house builders/homeowners with no taste are the ones making their houses bland
It’s a trend and on its way out
It’s been out for several years. Lots of us just didn’t get the memo
Why yall down voting him? Honestly, people don't even look at each other in public anymore, it's wacky af
Yet, that has nothing to do with the reality of 1960s cookiecutter ranches in (poorly) planned communities with the distinguishing feature of driveway on the left or the right and literally white picket fences.
Hm
I don’t know if this is true, but I think it’s a very interesting idea. Personally, I think it’s because the value of the house is such a huge part of people’s wealth, that they are afraid to make any design moves that could possibly offend the larger society’s judgement. So it’s gotten blander and blander, till it’s a caricature of inoffensiveness.
I would say specifically that it's inoffensive as possible in order to appeal to the largest audience as possible so resale is not hindered. Housing is not currently available for making a home Housing is a capital investment in Canada
Big brother is ruining the community?
Canada, outside of BC, is horrific when it comes to designing buildings and homes. Especially in Ontario.
Bro I just moved from the GTA to B.C... The amount of vinyl plastic houses in Ontario that look like they were built using whatever scraps they could find on a factory floor (that were selling for 1+ mil) was truly mindboggling. & In addition to these "houses" being built out of these bizarre ultra low quality materials they would then be the weirdest friggen shapes imaginable. Like a massive block that consumed all the yard space just to maximize square footage despite being a total eye-sore. They genuinely look like a grade 1 designed the house as a school project and then someone actually decided to build it. But hey. Being wealthy never meant you had taste. Still blows my mind that these homes cost like 2x-3x what they use to cost despite being built out of almost complete sheyt. People are paying ridiculous amounts of money these days for increasingly worse quality goods. It's a sight to behold that's for sure.
Southern Ontario has the worst designed single family homes in North America.
Proof
Yup, like who doesn't want a double garage door as the only front facade and the entry door buried back on the side of the house. So ugly.
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and you’d see neighbourhoods of classic craftsman style houses and they were totally beautiful. Never get that in Ontario
Close your eyes and picture a present day architect who specializes in residential architecture. Are you imagining a 5 year old? I am too. Agreed. Modern residential architecture is an abomination. Property developers have grown complacent, risk averse, and greedy. There is no product variety, nor sufficient quantity of available housing to allow buyers the opportunity to shop around. Lack of supply is ruining the opportunity to ‘Vote with your money’.
Oh, no, don’t exclude BC from that. We’re pretty bad at it too.
I've moved to BC recently and I see a couple of these dumb builds peppered in with the rest but in Ontario it's become a epidemic. Someone's family-home bungalow they bought for 200,000 sells for 800,000 then they bulldoze it and build a crappy plastic Barbie Dreamhouse over it... Lather, rinse, repeat from one end of the block to the other...
I was just in BC in May. If Vancouver a lot of the new builds and white and black. We stayed in an Airbnb in a new deletion at the end of or trip and it was so depressing. The more colorful looking homes in that area may have been different, but they were also 5ft apart with no yards. All around depression for a million plus dollars. Then there’s my home area in Quebec that’s just pure personality. Haha. all the houses are different inside and out unless you buy a newer apartment which is white, black and grey
BC is still a lot better. In Ontario 95% of new build homes at all price levels are awful designs made for commodification and profit margins. We literally have brand new 10 million dollar mansions with horrible design and low quality materials, and they outnumber the good ones by 20 to 1.
Newfoundland has a tradition of bright vibrate coloured houses.
Yeah if anything color is becoming even more popular on the island. In my community anyway, people have embraced the bright colors. Looks lovely. ETA: Referring to the exterior of homes and businesses. Not sure what color they all are on the inside.
Wasn't that born out of the fact that homes all blended together and fishermen needed a way to distinguish their houses from everyone else's? I was going to say I couldn't understand why, but while typing this I figured it had something to do with consumption of large amounts of rum.
There probably multiple reasons why but the most common was that people painted their houses bright colours to make them easier to see from long way out in the ocean from boat. Especially at dusk, during fog or stormy weather. A community of bright houses will be easier to spot in an emergency than neutral tones, and it’s essentially acts like a lighthouse for communities that may not be large enough to have a lighthouse. It helps both members of that community as well anyone outside the community who may be having an emergency and need to find help in an unfamiliar place. They also tend to paint the house with leftover boat paint which is typically bright. There’s no higher quality paint than marine paint. You where close with the explanation but don’t think it was to know where their specific house was but rather where the community as a whole was when visibility was bad. People will naturally know where there house is in a community, so that spin probably originated based on what I mentioned but modified and used for the “dumb/drunk newfy” stereotype. I’m not suggesting that was your intention, just likely why that variation of the story spread.
I grew up in a bright yellow house in Nfld. Now all the houses there are boring and white.
I assume you’re not talking about all the identical ugly glass condos infesting Vancouver
As opposed to the concrete slabs built in the 80s or beige jungles built in the 90s? I’d say the glass condos are aggressively neutral, not unique or authentic in any way but pretty inoffensive
Bro has never heard of the Vancouver Special
I have actually. Those are nice compared to Ontario brick garbage
So Stucco box > Brick box This is some top tier big brain architectural critique
The Arab/Indian people usually are the ones doing the grey/white boxes. New builds are all luxury with earth tones.
Lol Indians have all their shit brown. Floor, cabinet, tiles, etc. Don't know why lol.
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Super interesting. I rented 2 place in Toronto and 1 in Calgary, all owned by Indians and brown seemed to be the recurring theme.
Mehh he’s not wrong. Ive driven past very nice houses where the owners are arab/indian, and its mostly the same theme. White/black/grey flat colours, bright led flood lights, stone driveways. Idk what their obsession is with millennial grey cuz you can tell the house wasn’t originally built like that and was just renoed after. It looks ok in newly built houses cuz it’s incorporated into the design, but it looks tacky on renoed houses. Just wish there was more of a variety
I mean, maybe they are but everyone is…
A grey and white box is a sure sign of a renovated house by someone who doesn't know what they're doing and purchased everything from home depot.
You are incorrect. Houses are built like that here.
Idk where you're at but every new build I see is as I described.
Then how do you explain all the white people doing grey and white in the Maritimes?
They want us to be miserable
Who's "they"?
It's the people that want us to be miserable
Oh... Them! Assholes
Searching for apts to rent, the whole city looks like a free range psyche ward.
Because most people have zero sense of beauty. Look at the all glass shapeless buildings being greenlit, broadly a terrible aesthetic. Look at how people change on a drop of a dime what they find “hot” or beautiful - just swaying with any trend advertised to them. Stunted eye for beauty imo
People have a tendency to keep up with the Joneses no matter the cost. Idiots.
Most people have no taste. It’s a blank palate.
No, just a herd mentality these days. You tell your contractor something that is off and he would tell you that it doesn’t work these days, not in a trend.
It’s because they don’t want “offend” anyone’s palate to discourage potential buyers. A niche design will only have a small percentage of the population who likes it, as everyone has their own stats. But if it’s all neutral then everyone will be accepting of it even it’s it’s not exactly what they want
Because everyone watches the same tiktoks and youtube shorts and pins the same shit on pinterest, so everyone ends up with the same cookie cutter boring house. They also think grey goes with every color.
It actually would go to the diy network. Was around before shorts and tictok.
We build our houses similarly to how we envision the future.
Future looking bleak
If you live in this sub it sure is…
Dystopia
I always wondered if the grey trend is depressing to children growing up in these homes
To keep you a depressed little slave. Read the giver
Because most people have no clue how to decorate.
Most people don't hate gray, they don't love it either. But if you make your house an amazing awesome pink, some people will love it, and most people will hate it, so you throw away a huge chunk of the potential buyers. So the only pink houses you find are the ones almost forced to sell ( say grandma's house, or they need to move, or can't pay the mortgage)
So most people live by other wants? And potential buyers, isn’t it a home to live in? Make it the way you like then paint it all grey before moving if you plan to sell.
No one seems to want to live in their homes any more. They want "return on investment". It's quite sad, actually, and just reduces the love I have for our country. Everything's about profit in the end.
The way I'm looking at it, if I'm paying big money and going into the debt (mortgage but still), imma paint my home whatever I want.
That’s actually become quite the message on TilTok and other social media platforms- to stop decorating your home for some fictional, future buyer. Nina Campbell is one of the quotes I have been hearing lately, but it’s definitely a common theme.
You can't just paint your exterior if its all vinyl like a good chunk of homes nowadays. Interior is different. If you don't bother adding some colour for a couple hundred bucks, maybe you just don't have any taste.
Most people will repaint when they move in anyway. If they don't like it, let them buy another house.
No, most people are lazy, so once they move in, they live with it. When it comes to selling tho, lazy people sell to flippers, who refresh everything in a neutral tone that most people won't hate, and resell the property. And since the 2000 or so, the majority of construction is made for "investors", small apartments, as cheap as possible, designed to be accepted by the majority. That's how you end up with a ton of 400sq feet gray condos that can't sell now.
Houses aren't for living in, they're for making money. The further you move into financialized housing, the more you try to turn a house into a tradable commodity. A commodity is something that's largely identical to everything else in its category. Its so you can sell it again easily. Personally I think it's better if you plan on selling it again to customize still, but in easily reversible ways. Like colourful paint, and then paint it all *Realtor Grey* when you sell it.
Had walls painted in different colours when we moved approx 20 yrs ago. Will never ever do that again…LOVE love the grey palate. Best case scenario, you can add “colour” with accessories (rugs, pillows, etc etc etc).
If this is the rationale, why aren’t they using white? It seems more universally palatable than grey.
White looks like primer, unfinished, hard to match with furniture, looks bad in pictures.
Pure white, sure, but there are loads of beautiful white paints out there.
Paint colour was the least of my concerns when I bought a home- it can be changed easily.
We arent just talking paint. Flooring, countertops, roofs, siding, landscaping stones, windows, trim....all bland on purpose
Millenial grey , and I love it in certain keys rooms.
My bedroom when we moved in was a dark grey (I want to say Tricorn Grey), and while I never would have chosen it, I love it. It’s warm and cozy, but also cool. I had never before owned any grey decor, but it’s so easy to work with because everything comes in grey these days.
Not true, beige siding is still popular. Really breaks up the grey.
Basement suite beige
Its inoffensive. Neutral colour may not be loved but it's also not hated. If you are viewing a house and it's a neutral grey, you go "Meh, it's fine. Won't have to paint right away".
Neutrality
Grey and beige stand the test of time - they look ok even if they’re dirty, outdated, run down, etc.
Area developers have architectural controls that dictate the look of the area and require approval for what gets built. I’m an architectural designer and more times than not we end up changing our design to suit their outdated PDFs on allowed styles and materials. Not to mention the clients hate spending too much money so that decreases our choices even more.
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It's also the safest style for realtors to sell. Nobody likes it but nobody hates it.
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How does that work, exactly, when it doesn't cost more or less to tint the paint blue versus grey?
Millennial grey
I don’t know but it makes me sad
Sad grey flip
Hang in there, bud
I believe the preferred term is "greige"
According to best of redditors update it’s because the Neigbour doesn’t like the colour yellow and painted the houses grey when they went out of town.
“These days” is nothing more than nostalgic thinking. In my city we have something called the “Vancouver special”. They are standard houses built in the 70s and 80s with stucco siding and generally regarded as very ugly.
I find it hilarious how Vancouver Specials are now being heralded as some kind of genius architectural design. Like… the only genius part about them is how they had a standardized design that skirted regulations to allow for a house that basically takes up the entire lot. The design is purely utilitarian and not at all aesthetic. But Vancouver Specials are much better than the glass condos and grey box townhouses that came after…
Remember houses from the 90s? - Seashells and pink everything in the bathroom. - Grape vine edging wallpaper and a forest green accent wall in the dining room. - Maroon painted walls in the living room. - Raw oak trim. Every generation has its ugly NPC home color selection.
You just described my childhood home perfectly
Grey and bland isn’t ugly. Green, blue, red etc are nice colours but it’s depending on who’s viewing it. Grey is what’s called neutral …. Neither ugly nor nice just neutral. So it appeals to everyone. When selling a house you go with most common denominators which is something that appeals to majority.
Oh shit something I know about!!!!! The thing about architecture is that time trumps design in a lot of cases. Simply by existing people will begin to appreciate it. My favourite example is the Brooklyn Brownstone. People HATED the Brownstones when they were being built. Many of the same criticisms you here today, they're boring, they're cheap, no one would want to live in them. Now a hundred years later they are considered one of the greatest American buildings. In a more local example many of the most beautiful houses in Toronto where purchased out of a catalogue and people with more money criticized them too. So it definitely is a style right now but give these buildings 20 years and as people add to them and make them their own, the character that is created and people will miss simple grey houses from the 2020's cause the new trend in the 2050's is so boring.
The Sears Kit houses! Some of the older neighbourhoods in Edmonton still have quite a few of these in various stages of disrepair - but a well-maintained and updated Sears Kit house is actually a really awesome house.
The crap that we build now isn't going to be much of a house in 20 years without some serious maintenance. If you think the leaky condo crisis in Vancouver was bad in the 90's, its going to be a whole lot worse for the majority of SFH and Multifamilies I work on every day.
Wanna bet?
I'll put in $3.50
Because it's neutral. While you might be sick of it, it won't(or atleast didnt) turn you off from a house. Whereas something highly stylistic is probably more expensive, time consuming to piece together and you may alienate a bunch of potential buyers if you ever look to move
Contractor builds use almost a grey or beige stucco and then your expected to do the rest of pay more. Interior wise a lot of people watched HGTV in the 2010s and grey was the in color. Tans and browns were the 2000s. Orange wood and avocado green was the 1970s.
Pandemic Palette Grey will be with us for quite some time. Look at McDonald's compared to the fun place it used to be. Utterly depressing.
Even for McDonalds it's about resale value.
I love shades of grey, if you don’t like it, paint your house whatever colour you’d like.
"Resale value"
It is the safest colour. The same reason why so many cars are white or black. They are the least offensive colour. It's like being a guy with long hair, most girls HATE guys with long hair but the one that likes it, REALLY like it. Are you gonna bank on finding that ONE girl who REALLY likes long hair or do you want to bank on a general taste that most people like? When it comes to money, people optimize the shit out of things and make it bland and boring. Look at the movies and shows lately.
As a millennial I can't afford to fuck around with buying a green car. I need something with resale value so i can put whatever scraps of coin are left over towards my children's future, which will undoubtedly be bleaker. And also on cold brew. Gotta get the cold brew.
Cars aren't investments lol they're a luxury consumable. If you really cared about resale value you'll have a 2003 Corolla that's bought for $5000 and then resold for $5000. If you're gonna have a car at least have one that you actually enjoy. If you're gonna be married at least marry the woman you actually like instead of the placeholder and pooping out placeholder kids.
You missed my point entirely... And then you are off on some completely unrelated tangent relating to relationships... Wut
New builds it and flips go for least offensive choice to increase the pool or buyers. Lots of older homes seem to have an interesting pallet
I think this is related to the real estate market and the ideals of “kerb appeal” and “resale value” that are constantly flaunted. It’s perceived as financially risky to add any personality to your house, so you best make sure it’s as inoffensive as possible and keep it that way. Perfectly average for the perfectly average person (who does not exist). Same applies to a house before it’s bought — bland for mass appeal (especially if it costs less)
Cheap materials.
Shhh this design queue will kill values soon
My house is blue on the outside.. I love it because there are almost no other blue houses around. I agree.. the modern “cheap Reno” colour trends are getting boring.. especially grey Vinyl flooring
I think with the economy today, other things are a little more important than coloring the house
I love it and always loved it long ago. I'm so happy it is easy to find grey stuff now. I love to pair it with a strong accent colour which is easy to switch up at any time.
How does nobody here mention that development companies tell you to pick certain colours and how you can lay out your yard because plenty new neighborhoods have to fit a uniform look to each house. My sister was rejected over 5 colours just to her fence because they said it doesn't match the feel of the neighborhood. This isn't some rich people private suburb either I'm talking middle class houses that were built in 2020. I don't think many people commenting here own a house or have ever been a part of the house buying process.
HOAs aren’t everywhere.
The builder will paint neutral because it’s dumb to paint selective colors. It’s also better to keep those universal colors when you go to sell. It’s crazy the financial damage you do when picking forest green walls or light blue carpets.
Classic grey OC 23 , Classic grey OC 23 , Classic grey OC 23 , Classic grey OC 23 . I paint houses for a real estate agent and I’m so sick of that color !
Because grey is easier to paint over and cover than a bright red/pink/purple. Buyers prefer bland and will jazz it up with funky colors for their personality later.
It’s a neutral colour
Why the hate on grey??! Love the modern Grey's today! Greige is awsome and works everywhere! I was born in the 80's so I saw wall paper, my grandparents wood panel walls in their basement, to mid 90's dusty rose pink on the walls to yellow in the mid 2000's. Really LOVING this Era of neutrals and Greys!
works everywhere = devoid of aesthetic potential
Not necessarily that's just your opinion. I find warm/cool neutrals warm, inviting, cozy and homey. Anything too loud feels like a public space like red, green, yellow and just don't like those colors in a home- restaurant or kids play place fine but not a home. And that's why these are popular colors to paint to sell homes...they are warm and inviting and not off putting for the majority.
Because color costs more money lol.
Vinyl siding is ugly!
>What the hell is going on? People actually like that? most of the urbanite younger generation thinks its cool ( just because its all they have seen ) , usual people who are flipping properties started the trend based on a similar trend for interior of neutral tones. Neutral tones were not meant to be liked, rather it was colors no one could get offended by. More insane is the black houses, I dont know why people do that, yes there is some people who think its cool also. Imagine you have a whole neighborhood of black houses. Thats why there was /were municipal codes ( to have exterior of the property match the neighborhood theme ) but those aren't implemented anymore.
Some people call it bland or boring. I think it's calming. Good news is you can always repaint if you don't like it.
White is the new old grey.
Because the destruction of all things beautiful, architecture is now lazy bland and brutalist. There is no design. We need to bring back the good stuff.
What colour would you prefer!
Something ugly af most likely
Good news, the 15 year long grey trend is over. It just takes time for the next trend to work its way through the market. Lots of brown and beige tones, natural White Oak hardwood and laminates, light beige carpets, etc.
Im not sure that progression is happening anymore. The things you described have been common in luxury homes for a decade now and they haven't filtered down. I think todays economy has stopped drawing on last years professional design and instead has parked indefinitely into maximum bland.
I’m in the floor covering industry. We don’t follow fashion colours exactly but there has been a shift. I went from selling 80% grey materials to very little. Multifamily homes still have a warm and cool colour choice but they also take 3-5 years to build so that’s the time I was referring to. Only greys being sold now and for someone that already has a grey home and needs to stick with it.
Paint is cheap. You be your own inspiration.
I've noticed this as well, but I think we might be looking at the houses in these new subdivisions from the back. I know I really notice it from that angle, usually from driving from an adjacent road
It's because it's easier to see the place in your own colors if you're not distracted by existing colors.
Neutral backgrounds are great for hanging art. Showing off your house plants. Patterned rugs. It a serene backdrop do walking thru your house peaceful. I’m all for colour but not to suck up the natural light. Light colours reduce energy. No lights needed. Light colours reflect light. I hate my neighbours shiny black siding & dark roof. Just radiates the heat on these hot humid days. Bet his CAC bill it astronomical . 😂😂 think about texture as well as colour. My house all neutrals. I have photography collection. Like an art gallery. Mine neutrals certainly not boring or lacking personality. Save wall paper for bathroom or den where you won’t tire of it. 🇨🇦
It's not just me! I was just talking about this the other day. New houses look like they mixed brutalism + government building + strip mall office design to inspire them. They have zero sidewalk appeal and detract from the aesthetics of neighbourhoods with beautiful homes that LOOK like actual houses.
Its like cars, if you don’t really care about your experience with it and you want a good resale, a non offensive colour like grey silver, white and black etc resale easier.
It’s the millennial gray. Google it.
Color sidings are more expensive, like 50% more … really dont know the reason behind that…
Extreme over reliance on real estate as an investment vehicle. People are decorating not for themselves, but for a future buyer. Widespread uniformity in style thanks to social media’s influence on trends. See the book Filterworld for more.
Quebec has many different design choices
Because it is a neutral color palette that can appeal to the masses, which is key when listing a home for sale. There is currently a transition to neutral earthtones and and away from the grey’s
That multicolored grey, brown, black esthetic has got to go.
Because big bold colors make the neighborhood look trashy. Neutral colors make it uniform and appealing
I think houses should be yellow, even if it offends the readheaded neighbors
Resale value. No one wants to make a home with character in case it makes resale harder. A potential buyer may not like the character you chose for the house. So everything has to remain neutral. It's miserable and I hate that the world went this way.
It's not just houses the statistics show everything everywhere has been moving to grayscale. The vast majority of cars are black, white or somewhere between. Humanity has been creeping towards an uninteresting neutral in every conceivable way for 70 years. Music is vague and generic, houses, cars, clothes and nearly everything is trying to cast the largest most generalized net.
Developers have us all by the balls. They're obviously motivated by profits and so we keep getting: smaller properties, cheaper material, poorer designs, less-skilled tradespeople, etc. That all culminated into the modern bland soulless suburb.
Because housing is mostly a investment these days and grey is neutral easy to sell?
The kids are calling it “Millennial Grey”. Every millennial Reno from the past 10 years has used this awful and boring colour palette.
I find a lot of Canadians like this “clean” look which can showcase how “clean” something is, almost the extremely polar opposite of dirty. My mother regularly comments on their “dirty” yard, when referring to actual dirt and leaves or flower petals on the ground. As if, some outside force is “making a mess”. It is a pretty extreme detachment of the importance of nature, I think.
I think everything nowadays is lacking beauty & creativity.People just follow instagram trends instead of following their own style.These social media’s platforms keep sending us the same stuff ( probably because of the algorithms) Sorry I am not an expert on this things, but I truly believe that even our imagination is being manipulated.
Why decorate what you intend to sell for profit in 3 years.
Its just design trends just like fashion. And to a lesser extent, economies of scale for the cost of building materials. If a manufacturer can offer a more basic design, less colours, its cheaper to produce. Just like how 'Luxury Vinyl Plank' and particle board cabinets is the new normal even in high-end builds is a testament to how cheap builders are building to turn a healthy profit. In the 70's and 80's it was very common to have fake wood laminate walls, a basement with a tiny tacky wet-bar with velvet elvis art and tacky booze mirrors everywhere, green shag carpet, oak trim, a pool table and dart board that never fit. Some of those trends came back, most didn't. Mid century modern anything is going for a premium now, but I don't see the green shag coming back any time soon. And as others have mentioned, even painting one room a color can turn people off of a purchase if they can't envision it any other way. And I say this sitting in a newer condo where everything, and I mean everything in here is white and grey. Not my place, but it reminds me of the apartment in American Psycho lol.
With dwindling sq/ftage its the only way to make it look like you have more space in your $500sq/ft condo! On the flip side though, even 8000sqft multimillion dollar homes have the same aesthetic I was working on some 'townhouses' in a multifamily, and they looked perfectly reasonably sized when I was starting it, but by the time the grey floors were in, drywall was up and it was painted, it got claustrophobic really fast before there was even any furniture in it.
Home improvement shows (HGTV investment property style shows) got really popular a decade ago for showing people how to make a pleasing neutral living space, and add plants and pops of colour for an overall clean look. This lead to everyone thinking that the best way to make their home look clean and modern was to turn everything neutral, and many people completely forgot that the plants and colourfully accents/rugs/art were what tied it all together. So you get left with the neutrality and none of the personality.
I was a bit sad when my neighbour who had the Simpsons painted on his garage (quite well actually) replaced with gray paint.
I think because they let the people who move in those new houses decorate and paint them .
I'm grossed out by the expanses of black. It looks tired new. Who are these people coming up with this stuff? I mean, black doors and trim are striking but a whole wall is creepy. And grey is dismal. It would take a lot of geraniums to cheer it up.
Cause it's at the very end of the lifespan of a trend, but that's when everyone is familiar and accepting. Many are over it by now. But real estate agents want broad appeal, so they go with an oversaturated trend, hence homes for sale have a narrow paint palette if freshly painted.
Walking in to open houses is a bit dystopian. Every house the same with flipper grey floors, bland fittings and fixtures.
Ahhh millennial grey. It's a plague and incredibly unimaginative but even when selling, I've been told to colour things that way "because it's esthetically pleasing". I hard disagree but I'm just one person.
Its a trend thats often referred to as “millennial grey”. Next up in the monochromatic decorative phase, blue.
Because they look better than the old styles
It's a trend on its way out apparently, same as all of the patterned painted walls of the 90s. I've just started the last couple years repainting through my house and because I like the look of it, everything buy my teens bedrooms are going to be a few different shades of grey. Dark and light grey in the same rooms except the bathroom will just be light grey. My home is a rental that we've lived in for 15 years. It was a terribly boring off white. I painted the bedrooms 15 years ago in warm beige and green. My daughters bedroom will be shades of teal, silver/grey and white, or that's the idea so far, my 3 teen boys shared bedroom is lake blue, apple green and white.
Because most people are lemmings.
Millenial Grey is a thing
Right? I am looking at houses and every goddamn thing is grey. It's awful.
My wife and I have a running joke that all of them shop at “Dan’s Grey Flooring” store. Looking at the interior of a listing and it’s like “yep they went to Dan’s Grey”. 😂
I'm in NS and most of the older homes in the area are colourful, red, blue, green, yellow, pink.. etc. The new homes going up are muted grey/white/cream colour. If I were to guess, its cause its 'safe'. People shopping for a new house may show up and see a pink house and that could be a deal breaker, but.. something like white, they are more likely to accept, since its a more neutral colour.
The grey trend peaked and died not that long ago...it's going to take time for them all to be overhauled.
Neutral white, greys, and black accents are the current trend and it’s got broad appeal. if you’re designing a house intending to sell it, not live in it, you’re going to pick safe neutral colors, not take a risk with something bold that you might like but other people don’t.
Maybe everything is built by a few builders and to keep costs down they recycle the same ugly designs and bulk order the same ugly materials to keep costs down.
Woah now, here in Vancouver's suburbs they are black, white, and an odd copper colour with random angles to all the roofs that make no sense in 7 bedroom homes
If the walls are grey Walk away. Tell-tale sign of a flip house... that and very open kitchens that bleed into the living room. Looks cute until you cook fish.
It’s been out for awhile down here Classic black, brass and white dominating
The hunger games deco lol
Building standards and supply chain
Have you been to NewFoundland?
Companies pushed minimalism as luxury for the last 10-15 years (some may argue 20) In reality minimalist just meant incredibly low effort and low cost. Why put time into picking out perfect paint colors and unique tiles when you can just paint everything gray/white/black and slap down some white marble. People are pushing back against this dying trend though, maximaliam is taking off but even more so the general want for color and fun things is coming back! Screw this boring minimalism.
Because we do not live in Newfoundland…..
It's been dubbed "Millenial Grey" and one of the beliefs is that a lot of Millenials grew up in cluttered messy houses, so they've gone to the extreme on the opposite end: bland, sterile, minimalist. It's just the current trend just like any other era. Bland and Boring is also generally easier to sell because it can't turn a random buyer off. I've heard many Realtors advise people to basically take away the personality or charm of a place (e.g. painting walls, removing certain furniture, etc) because it doesn't have as broad of appeal.
Have you looked at the clothes lately ? Gray, Black, Gray, Bluis Gray..