Dutch Style

So I have surmised that there are two kinds of Dutch interiors. For the sake of argument, I'll call them Dutch Traditional, and Dutch Modern, though I have no idea what their real names are.

Dutch Modern is totally clutter free, and uses paradoxically large pieces of furniture in small Dutch spaces. Houses look like they have been staged, and no one really lives there. Very high style, slightly sterile, nothing on the countertops, plants encased in glass vases, big modern art on the walls, etc.

The Traditional design goes like this: Take every piece of kitschy crap anyone in your family has given you and fill in the gaps with tacky store-bought statuettes and fake tulips until there is no space on any counter, windowsill or bookshelf. Keep it dusted. Don't let anyone touch it. Get frilly curtains, fussy overwrought tables, and every kind of fucking garden gnome on earth for that paved back yard with the fake grass. FAKE grass. Because we don't want to have to take care of it.

Here's the thing, no one has a sense of decorative irony. I'd like to think I do. We have a fairly modern house, but we have a bunch of those little "kissing girl and boy" Delft Blue figurines. (We give them to each other every time we make up from a fight. Don't ask how many we have.) I bought some old-fashioned milk jugs and display them all together. I like REAL flowers, and all frilly shit is absent.

I told D I thought it would be funny to get a garden gnome for the yard and do something funny with it, like spray paint it purple and cover it with rhinestones and let the kids play "find the gnome" with it. He looked at me like I was mental.

I really like our house, but since no one here does in-between, I can't help wondering if our guests think "Nice house, if only they'd get rid of/add more crap."