Outstanding or embarrassing? Your home reveals a lot about your personality, your interests and your life – way more than you think! We know there's "no accounting for taste" – but there are still some ways to avoid dropping a clanger when it comes to decoration. Here we list our top 10.

Clowns and porcelain dolls

This might come as a surprise to the doll-lovers out there, but (hopefully) most of us are already on the same page – porcelain (or fabric) dolls are out. These tiny people not only collect dust, they also give you the feeling of being watched. They’ve definitively had their day and they have no place in modern furnishing.

Plastic flowers

Absolutely tacky and never as pretty as real flowers! If you don't have green fingers or if your home lacks natural light, get some fuss-free house plants such as cacti or parlour palms. Splashes of green bring a totally different feel to a room.

Window painting

Painting your windows at home was "in" years ago, but they often ended up looking like they’d been done by five-year-olds. They still look cute in children bedrooms, but please spare the living room!

Country-style furnishing in modern high-rises

Be mindful of architectural styles when decorating your home. Having a lovely country-style kitchen in a glass-and-steel building makes for a drastic contrast in style. If you live in a high-rise but miss a bit of country flair, use a few cottage-style pieces as accessories.

Mix-and-matching wood

An oak wardrobe, a coffee table made from pine and a bed from beech – different kinds of wood can look good together, but require a very delicate touch so as not to look oddly mixed.

All in one!

Some prefer a minimalist black-and-white colour scheme, while others like their homes brightly-coloured. Both can turn your home into a beautiful and chic place to live. For those with a taste for bold colours, it’s important to remember not to throw in too many different colours, but rather to stick to the same colour family.

Time-travelling through eras

If you’d like to mix styles from different time periods in your apartment, it's best to make it look "intended". For example, when mixing Victorian chairs with modern ones, choose and arrange your furniture pieces in pairs. An accentuated contrast between two different themes can be quite beautiful – but an arbitrary combination of themes such as country, Victorian, modern and maritime will look tacky.

Animal skins

Fur rugs – whether genuine or imitation – are not chic. The same applies to stuffed animals or deer antlers hanging from the wall. No-one feels comfortable in a place surrounded by dead things.

Plastering every wall with photo wallpaper

Decorating a whole home with photo wallpaper can quite easily be a complete flop. Because of the enclosed space in a home, the sheer size of photo wallpaper brings an image right up close to an observer. This crowds out the space in a home and gets overwhelming. Instead of plastering every wall with photo wallpaper, we recommend only using it for home accents – try canvas prints or posters instead.

Decorative toilet seat covers

Welcome to the ‘90s! Decorative toilet seat covers are out. Worst of all are those with fluffy pink covers. No thanks – this idea deserves to be flushed down the bog!