The Popular Home Feature That HGTV's Leanne Ford And Nate Berkus Can't Stand
There are some home design trends that interior designers universally despise. Accent walls and matching furniture sets come to mind as two popular design habits that often get a thumbs down from famous designers. The general consensus is that trends are bad because they become outdated before long. As "Nate & Jeremiah By Design" star Nate Berkus once told Atlanta Magazine, "Trends are designed to make people feel bad about what color they didn't buy last year." The HGTV star added, "I like an old water stain because it makes me feel like somebody's lived their life there."
While Berkus is okay with an old water stain on a ceiling, there's another ceiling feature he can do without. That's right, we're talking about the dreaded ceiling fan. While not actually a "trend" — let's face it, ceiling fans have been a thing for decades — this often-used home feature is something that Berkus and other designers have publicly panned. Why? Let's find out.
Ceiling fans change the aesthetic of a room
There's no doubt that a ceiling fan serves an important purpose in a hot room, but HGTV star Leanne Ford ("Restored by the Fords," "Home Again With the Fords") still thinks fans are a terrible idea. On a 2019 all-star panel hosted by Chairish, Ford named the ceiling fan one of her most hated design items, noting that the look of the fan coming from the ceiling is not worth it to her. "I've never not taken down the ceiling fan in a home. Even in rentals," she said. The designer then offered a solution for a hot room that can be hidden in a closet: "You can buy a fan on a stand that you bring that out for a couple of days," she said.
Nate Berkus agrees with Ford. In a video posted to Facebook, he gave an "ooh, no" when asked about TVs in the bedroom, and he cut his ceiling fan answer even shorter. When asked to give a yay or nay to ceiling fans, he simply replied, "Nope." Berkus previously proved his point when redesigning his Manhattan townhouse years ago. At the time, he replaced a ceiling fan in his bedroom with a vintage chandelier, as revealed to The Oprah Show in 2005.
Some TV designers think there is a place for ceiling fans
Who can forget the old "Trading Spaces" series, where fans were regularly ripped out of ceilings as neighbors renovated each other's homes with the help of a professional designer? Designer Laurie Hickson-Smith was a frequent offender. Known as the "enemy of all the ceiling fans on Planet Earth," she left no fan untouched. But believe it or not, Hickson-Smith actually once had a ceiling fan in the kitchen of her Jackson, Mississippi home, per Mississippi Magazine.
Hickson-Smith's colleague, Doug Wilson, also has no problem with ceiling fans if done correctly. "There's a right place for a ceiling fan," Wilson said in a 2018 interview with Reality Blurred. The designer revealed that he had three ceiling fans installed in his home in East Hampton, New York. "But they're all white but they disappear into the ceiling," he explained. "They're not hanging down five feet. It needs to blend in."