Dear Lena, I live abroad and I live in a small apartment. This apartment is very old and without aesthetics. To understand it has shabby old wallpaper on the walls, different in each room and tiles with colours and patterns that do not match the wallpaper and also different in each room. Clearly the reason I’m staying is the very low price, and at the moment I’m unemployed so no reason for anything better. The thing is, it makes me embarrassed to invite people to my house and I keep trying to avoid it but I feel bad about it. At one point I hosted a good friend of mine from Greece and when she saw it she told me that she would have taken off the wallpapers in my place. I felt bad and didn’t say anything but obviously if the owner would have allowed me to, I would have. Also if I did it would mean that I would have to paint it myself and therefore waste a lot of money. After that I have never suggested anyone to come from Greece again and if they throw it away I find a way to avoid it. I don’t know and do you have any ideas to make it look a little more beautiful? But in general would you also avoid hosting?

I might have avoided it because it is small and mainly to avoid being insulted by the so-called friends who came for hospitality. If she didn’t like her friend’s, she could go to a hotel with wallpaper to her taste.

Also how clueless is she, does she have any idea what “wallpapered” means? We’re talking about THE package, too difficult and costly, and if it’s an old house it won’t be one, it might be ten, one on top of the other. The chemicals needed and the dust created is something else. This is a huge project for a landlord, impossible for a tenant.

We should never, ever be ashamed and make excuses for the money we don’t have. Just like the money we have, after all. Those who don’t understand what one and the other means and make us uncomfortable, shoot and score – they are not our friends and it’s not the money we don’t have or have, it’s that they can’t stand one or the other, and why they can’t stand it I don’t know, let them discuss it with their psychologist.

Your home can be stylish and cute with the ultimate mix and match that others try to achieve on purpose. Maybe we need a group for decoration topics, to send photos.