Minimalism is out, clutter is in, says Edel Morgan

IS IT just me or are minimalist interiors really starting to look old hat?I say this because the number of clichés in my own house have started to leap out at me at an alarming rate. When the house was renovated over four years ago,

I was in seventh heaven with my clean lines and hard surfaces (not to mention hard lines and clean surfaces) but these days I'll be sitting at home minding my own business or watching TV when I'll spot another time-worn style statement out of the corner of my eye and wonder "what were we thinking?"

Recently it was the recess in the chimneybreast (the brainchild of the builder - well, I need someone to blame) . Suddenly, as if emerging from a four-year fog, it hit me that we paid €500 to have the old fireplace turned into what is effectively a gap in the wall (with a matching one in the diningroom for good measure).

We resisted the urge to decorate them with bowls of stones with candles (although I did think about it). I still like my polished floorboards but the abstract rug in the sittingroom is on the fast track to becoming a throwback, along with the leather tub chair .

I'm not sure exactly when pared back interiors started to look a bit soulless and dated but even the interior magazines are moving away from them.These days they are full of lush, chintzy, if slightly eccentric, country house-style interiors, with antique furniture, toile de jouy wallpaper, drinks cabinets and chandeliers.

Recently I saw an old house that captured the look perfectly, complete with antique dresser in the kitchen, William Morris wallpaper, dusty portraits of ancestors in every room and lobsided lampshades - the lumpy beds and cobweb in the kitchen only added to the atmosphere.

You can't open a magazine or property supplement without seeing Colefax and Fowler velvets and florals, Zoffany rococo wallpapers and re-upholstered Chippendale sofas and Louis chairs (fast becoming a cliché in their own right).

The new thinking seems to be that it's better that a room is eyecatching and interestingrather than one that look so scrupulously sparse and sterile that it looks like surgery is about to be performed on the kitchen island at any minute.

For some people minimalism will continue to be a way of life but for the rest of us, it's freeing to have options. For one thing it takes an almost military discipline to keep surfaces uncluttered.

Leaving a teapot, toaster or a sugar bowl carelessly on the countertop can fatally disturb the flow and moving a cushion from it's appointed spot on the sofa could throw an entire room into dissaray.

The new, more relaxed approach to interiors seems to be more forgiving. For one thing it allows you more than one object per surface so you don't have to stash half your belongings in the attic. Celebrating your stuff seems to be the key, although some people copped on to that year's ago.

I recently interviewed a lady who has filled her home with objets d'art, trinkets and what she jokingly described as "old junk" she bought at auction rooms and on her travels. She found it comforting to have her things around her, and bewildered by the concept of minimalism. "What's the point?" she said, "You can't sit staring at a blank wall."

The most interesting rooms are usually the ones allowed to mature and come into their own over time - which means staged or instant interiors rarely look authentic. For those who don't have the time to wait, however, I've heard teabag staining the wallpaper is one quick fix route to faded splendour.