Interior design trends

This page takes the other view: which decisions are safe to make on a trend and which are not.

What it costs to reverse

Before following any trend, ask what it costs to reverse.

Cushions, art, a rug, a paint colour, a light fitting on a standard fixing. All cheap. Follow whatever you like, change it in three years, no harm done.

Joinery profiles, tile selections, stone, tapware finishes, cabinetry colour, anything cut or plumbed. All expensive. These are the decisions to make conservatively, because getting bored of them costs a renovation rather than an afternoon.

Almost every regret we hear about follows the same shape: a trend applied to something permanent.

What is genuinely happening

Warmth, still. The move away from cool greys towards warm neutrals, timber and stone has run for years and shows no sign of reversing. It is less a trend than a correction from the grey period. That is why it has lasted.

Curves, cooling. Arched openings and rounded joinery were everywhere from about 2021. They are now common enough to date a project quite precisely. A curve that comes from how people move through a room still works. A curve applied as decoration now reads as a specific year.

Colour returning, carefully. After a long neutral period, deeper and more saturated rooms are appearing again, mostly in spaces people occupy briefly. Powder rooms, bars, studies.

Texture over pattern. Plaster finishes, ribbed and fluted surfaces, bouclé, natural stone with visible movement. This is where most schemes are getting their interest now.

What will date fastest

Anything named after a year, anything that arrived through a single retailer's catalogue, and any one material used everywhere at once. Saturation is what dates a look.

Fluted timber is a useful example. Used on one considered element it is a detail. Used on the kitchen, the island, the bathroom vanity and the entry joinery it is a timestamp.

What has never dated

Proportion, natural material, layered light at more than one height, and storage that is actually adequate.

None of those appear in a trend list because nobody can sell them to you as a product, which is precisely why they hold up. A room that gets these four right will still work in twenty years whatever is on the walls.

How to use a trend properly

Take the idea, not the execution. If you like a scheme you saw, work out what is actually doing the work: is it the colour, the proportion, the light, the material, or just the photography? Usually it is the light.

Then apply that principle to your own house. Your ceiling height, orientation and outlook are different. A copied room in the wrong conditions rarely survives the translation.

Related reading

Interior design colour schemes covers palette decisions in detail. Contemporary interior design explains why contemporary is a moving target. Our study of Australia's most searched interior design styles measures which styles Australians actually look up, which differs sharply from what gets covered.

Frequently asked questions