There is so much to love about this room. The combination of crisp white and chartreuse, for example. The beautiful chair with its cheerful polka dots upholstered by design consultant Alison Booth, owner of Booth Supply. The lampshade that pulls said chair into the room and keeps things interesting.

But there’s one thing I’d change, and it’s a glaring, huge thing. I would not, I repeat, would not have chosen that wallpaper. Why? In the not-too-distant future, that wallpaper is going to date the room big time. I’ve seen this phenomenon in action with my grandparents’ awesome metallic wallpapers from the 70s. They were boss when they were hung, and they’d be boss now because of the way trends ultimately shift. But between the 70s and the present… all I can say is that they’d be considered really old fashioned and kind of representative of a single design age.

Which isn’t to say that you can’t enjoy what’s trendy if you like it. (Hint: Don’t rock trends just because they are trends) Just do it less pervasively. Wallpaper sucks to remove, something I’m dealing with right now. When it comes to trendy colors or patterns, stick to small stuff like throw pills or linens or slipcovers. Things you can replace easily and fairly inexpensively. For all the big stuff like couches and large lighting fixtures, stick to the classics to build your foundation, and the classics will serve you well for a long, long time. I promise.

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Wenge is on its way out, which is news to me because this dark wood never made it onto my radar. And yet, it’s everywhere, in hairpins, in bass guitars, and in chairs. One seems to see it more in very modern furniture than in anything that could be considered classic or country. Target carries more of it than you might imagine, though I’m pretty sure we’re talking about a wenge finish rather than wenge wood.

I suppose I never explained what it actually is. First off, wenge is pronounced “wengay,” not “wenj,” as my brain initially parsed it. This wood comes from the tropical wenge tree in Africa, and it’s the heartwood that’s prized. It is very dark and dense, and it has a coarse grain with a pattern of nearly black grains separated by dark brown grains.

Now it’s probably just me, but I feel like the obvious grain pattern and the intense darkness of the grain make wenge and wenge finishes look too much like the cheap faux wood finishes one finds in places… well, like the horrible cheap kitchen cabinets that some idiot installed (badly) in our house many, many years ago.

Is it just me?