Home Renovation: Top Dos and Don'ts

Those design hacks playing on social media will ruin your home's aesthetic. Experts show you what to avoid, and what to do instead

- Nasrin Modak Siddiqi

On a Reel somewhere, some intrepid craft enthusiast is gluing two Ikea bread boxes at the base to make a side table. YouTube has a so-easy step-by-step guide to making a table lamp with a balloon and starch soaked yarn. Some impossibly-polished Midwestern homemaker is suggesting in her videos that you paint everything white. You're probably saving paper straws in a drawer so you can give your cabinet doors that trending fluted look. In soft millennial pink.

Do hit pause. It's likely that this idea of cool is an interior designer's nightmare. Three of India's smartest designers talk us through which viral trends to leave online and which home interior mistakes are directly inspired by social media.

● Ditch the white. Sarah Sham, principal designer, Essajees Atelier, loves white backgrounds. They let her play with other decor elements. But all white? No. A space needs depth, she says.

Production and interior designer Rupin Suchak finds clients who want white decor hilarious. They aren't thinking of the potentially exorbitant cleaning bills, he says. It's good to have some soft colour breaks, but white-on-white interiors look drab.

● Glaze is for cake. Suchak believes overglazed furniture is a no: This style is a pick up from Art Deco; many don't know what the period was about.

● Slab in the face. White marble counters would never survive in an Indian kitchen, says Shweta Kaushik, founder and creative head, SKID.