I've been writing about perfect houses and interiors for fifteen years, reading blogs about perfect houses and interiors in my spare time and buying heavy books in non-household quantities that are either about perfect houses or perfect interiors. I can't help it. A photo series about a house in the Cotswolds or a loft in New York has the same effect on me as baby animals or tiramisu has on other people. But I've only really been able to enjoy reading them since I stopped comparing these photo series with my actual state at home. Because the perfidious message of all the homemagazine and interior blogs is: we show you what it could look like.

Sure, it could. If I were to take a year off, move my wife and child out, have a compliant interior designer and a carpenter move in instead and a rich heiress or two come forward at the same time. It's basically like bodies in advertising, except that instead of perfect abs, we are presented with muscular furniture by Le Corbusier and free-standing bathtubs instead of high cheekbones. It is not everyday life that is shown in these magazines. This should be a mandatory warning on the front page as a measure against homeshaming! Our rooms (and our bodies) look the way they do because we live in them. And living doesn't mean standing around minimalistically between an armchair and a floor lamp. No, living is non-stop wrinkles and dirt, apartments have cables, ugly heaters, sockets, awkward corners and a hundred things that are necessary because we want something to eat, wear, read or have children.

An original clothes chair, for example, has never been seen in any of the thousands of photo series, yet it probably exists in every bedroom. It's not aesthetic, but it helps us in everyday life and that's what it's all about. Living permanently in such a perfect apartment would be meditative, but also boring and exhausting - as a disruptive, carelessly designed little person. Authentic to cacophonous furnishings, on the other hand, reveal the occupants' phases of life as well as their preferences and weaknesses. This includes failed DIY attempts, souvenirs from travels, that one flea market find you're so proud of and those few Ikea items that persist. A burn mark in the wallpaper, a scuffed spot in the parquet floor where the desk used to be - that's the patina of a lifetime!