Professional designers don’t like all-white walls. House Beautiful calls it “a paint color mistake you should never make,” and they’re in good company. Designers say it’s rare that a single color—no matter what it is—truly suits every room in the house. People are drawn to all white because it’s simple and easy, but that doesn’t mean it looks good.

What about all those gorgeous white rooms on Instagram and design blogs? Well. It turns out that designers also say that white photographs really well—so much so that it often looks much better in photos than in real life. The Wall Street Journal even calls white walls “Instagram gold,” because they look terrific in photographs and easily combine to make a unified grid. (Psst—it’s also easy to artificially amp up the lighting for photos, and most of those design mag white wall photos I love get serious lighting help.)

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