There is a particular kind of domestic ambition that seems to have taken hold of the zillennial generation. We don’t necessarily dream of enormous houses, marble foyers or twelve-car garages. Increasingly, the fantasy is much more specific: we want our homes to feel like a very good hotel. Not just clean. Not just comfortable. Hotel comfortable.

We want sheets that make us briefly question whether we have been sleeping our entire lives incorrectly. Towels so thick they require their own postcode. Hand soap that comes in a bottle designed by someone who has never heard of a supermarket. A candle that smells less like vanilla and more like “a discreetly expensive lobby in Copenhagen.”

And then there is the lighting. The lighting has become a matter of principle. The overhead light, once a perfectly respectable household utility, has been quietly demoted to emergency equipment. We no longer turn it on casually. We reach for it only when something has gone seriously wrong.

A lost earring. A suspicious stain. A medical emergency. The arrival of a landlord. Otherwise, the big light stays off. We prefer lamps. Small lamps. Floor lamps. Bedside lamps. Lamps in corners where there is no obvious reason for a lamp to be. Lamps behind plants. Lamps beside books. Lamps illuminating walls rather than anything that could technically be described as a useful object.

The goal is not visibility. The goal is atmosphere. We have become a generation that would rather live in semi-darkness than look directly at ourselves under 4,000 Kelvin lighting. And perhaps that says something larger about how we think about home.

For previous generations, domestic comfort was often associated with practicality. A good home was functional, durable and well maintained. You bought furniture because you needed somewhere to sit. You bought towels because you needed to dry yourself. A lamp existed because darkness made it difficult to read. We have added another requirement. The home must also have a point of view. It must tell a story about the person living there. Not necessarily an impressive story. Just a coherent one.

The coffee table says you appreciate design. The wine glasses suggest you entertain. The linen duvet cover indicates you are the sort of person who has somehow figured out how to sleep properly. The bowl of lemons says you are either effortlessly Mediterranean or have recently been influenced by an interior-design account. None of this is particularly practical. That is precisely the point.

After years of being encouraged to optimise everything, our careers, our bodies, our productivity, our finances, our dating profiles, something about an object whose only job is to make a room feel nicer is deeply appealing. We are increasingly interested in the emotional architecture of everyday life. What does the morning coffee look like? Does the bedroom make you want to sleep or simply remind you that you still haven’t answered that email?

These questions might sound frivolous. They are also increasingly central to the way we construct a life. Because the zillennial relationship with materialism is slightly complicated. We grew up surrounded by consumer culture, but we also watched the promise attached to it become less convincing. Work hard. Get promoted. Buy the house. Upgrade the car. Accumulate.

Except the house became increasingly difficult to buy. Work became increasingly invasive. And the idea that owning more automatically meant living better started to look somewhat dated. So we seem to have developed a smaller, more aesthetic version of aspiration. If we can’t necessarily have the penthouse, we’ll make the rental beautiful. If we can’t take three months off, we’ll make Sunday morning feel luxurious. If we can’t stay at the hotel, we’ll buy the hotel towels. It is micro-luxury.

The good coffee beans. The beautiful olive oil. The ridiculously soft duvet. The expensive hand cream. These purchases aren’t necessarily about impressing anyone. Often, they’re about making the ordinary feel less anonymous. There is something distinctly modern about wanting to turn Tuesday into an occasion. A candle gets lit before dinner. Music goes on while you cook. The lights are lowered. Nothing particularly significant has happened. And yet the evening feels different.

Perhaps that is what the hotel fantasy is really about. Hotels are good at making ordinary things feel ceremonial. Someone has made the bed. Someone has arranged the towels. Someone has chosen the lighting so that you look approximately 14% more attractive than you did at breakfast. There is a sense that your comfort has been considered. At home, we have to do that work ourselves. So we buy the fluffy robe. We arrange the cushions. We put the flowers in the vase. We install another lamp. Then another. 

Eventually, our homes begin to resemble boutique hotels run by people with mild anxiety and a strong opinion about ambient lighting. But underneath all the aesthetic fuss, there is something quite human happening. We want home to feel like somewhere we can recover. Somewhere that doesn’t demand productivity. Somewhere nobody needs anything from us for a few hours.

The hotel room represents a temporary suspension of responsibility. Everything has been prepared. You can shower without cleaning the bathroom afterwards. You can get into bed without making it. Recreating that feeling at home is perhaps less about luxury than permission. Permission to enjoy things before you’ve earned them. That feels particularly relevant to a generation that has spent an enormous amount of time waiting for life to properly begin. After the promotion. After the savings. After the house. After the next milestone.

At some point, you start wondering whether waiting for the perfect life is preventing you from noticing the perfectly good one already happening. So perhaps the zillennial dream isn’t actually a boutique hotel. It’s something more modest. A life that feels considered. A home that feels like somewhere you belong. A Tuesday night that doesn’t need to be productive to be worthwhile.

And yes, a bedroom with lighting so flattering that you briefly believe you have made excellent decisions. We may not all have the penthouse. We may not even own the walls we’re decorating. But we can control the lamp. And apparently, that is enough to give us hope. The zillennial dream isn’t necessarily to own the hotel. It’s to make home feel like the place you’d never want to check out of.

With love, chaos, and jazz. Always.