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It's all relaxed and informal, with cocooning colours galore.
Decorating in 2025 is all about personality, comfort and a healthy dose of fun.
For the organised (or just storage-obsessed), built-in wardrobes and cupboards are squeezing every inch of space, vintage furniture is still having its moment – and long may that last – and internal windows are sneaking natural light into places it’s never been before.
In the world of paint, buttery yellows and baked earth tones are the colours of comfort. And speaking of comfort, upholstery is making homes feel softer and more inviting, and extra large corner sofas are doing much the same.
Below we look at 2025’s most exciting trends and how to make them work for you without sacrificing an ounce of personality.
Out go coordinated units and built-in everything – the unfitted kitchen is personal and layered, and looks lovingly assembled over decades. The antithesis of the uniform kitchens that seem plucked from the showroom floor, these are full of freestanding butcher’s blocks, vintage sideboards and mismatched chairs. The whole look invites imperfection (hoorah), plus it’s endlessly adaptable—you can swap pieces in and out on a whim.
Vintage furniture continues its grip over the design world, which is nothing but good news. Choosing vintage means extending the life of well-crafted pieces while reducing the demand for mass-produced furniture, making it a win for our homes and the environment. Beyond this, using vintage is like a shortcut to adding individuality and personality. Try Vinterior, Narchie and Selency for some great vintage shopping.
Pictured: Vintage furniture via Vinterior
The popularity of oversized sofas speaks volumes about our changing relationship with the home. These sprawling L and U-shaped pieces dominate living rooms, satisfying a craving for total, unadulterated comfort. The sheer size of them has given rise to clever modular constructions – not only do individual units fit through doors upon delivery but they can be moved around at will, adapting to changing needs.
Pictured: House Beautiful Ada Sofa at DFS
The hallway has emerged as the design playground of choice. Rarely a space to linger, it offers the opportunity to test vibrant colours, patterned runners, epic feature lights and elaborately tiled floors that might feel overwhelming in those rooms we use more often.
Pictured: Skye Runner in Saffron & Berry by Bombay Sprout x Laura Stephens. Hallway design by Laura Stephens
Victorian-style bathrooms are having a moment. But there is little historical accuracy to be found – it’s all about borrowing the romance of the past and adapting it for today. Many original design hallmarks like roll-top baths, wallpaper, and elaborate fixtures may be impractical and cost-prohibitive, but the spirit of the era can be captured with colourful geometric tiles, wall panelling, lots of brass, and a flourish of antiques.
Pictured: Tiles at Bert & May
Baked earth tones are the last word in comforting colours. Soft and pigmented ochre, pink and sunbaked reds, alongside the more neutral caramels and biscuits, offer warmth and reassurance. These make a great base for bright accents; a shock of yellow looks great against a pinkish clay, and lush green works against the biscuity neutrals.
Pictured: Sofa and furniture at Swoon Editions
Social media’s growing disdain for the unflattering glare of ‘the big light’ has given wall lamps their moment. They offer the same soft and romantic glow as table lamps but save valuable surface space. Designs run the gamut from sleek, mid-century articulated lamps to fluted brass sconces and frilly lampshades. Their affordability means they’re often purchased in pairs, flanking beds and sofas, or lined up in hallways like tiny soldiers.
Pictured: Bea Lamp Tali Roth x Mitzi
If ‘grounding colours’ feels like designer jargon, it’s really just shorthand for colours that help a space feel calm, balanced and well-rooted. These colours often belong to the neutral or earthy spectrum like deep browns, greens and grey/blues – they have a bit of visual weight, unlike pastels or creams. The growing popularity of grounding colours is a response to our collective overuse of all-over neutrals that can feel a bit pallid and washed out.
Wooden kitchens are back, proving that natural oak and rich grains can do what painted cabinets and pale Scandi tones no longer can – add a bit of soul. Full of knots and imperfections, these kitchens feel refreshingly handcrafted and human, offering a welcome antidote to flat-fronted panels. The effect is further exaggerated with wooden ceiling beams, herringbone floors, and wooden worktops that feel moody and full of character.
Colour drenching is redefining how we use tone in interiors, transforming rooms into cohesive spaces where a single colour dominates floors, walls, ceilings, furniture and accessories. While drenching with bold colours like green or red might feel overpowering to most, buttery yellows have emerged as the go-to for this treatment, creating a warm and luminous effect akin to bathing a room in sunlight.
Pictured: Rug by Matthew Williamson for Ruggable
While we will always be drawn to the spindly simplicity of Scandi-style wooden furniture, it offers none of the tactility and squishiness of chubby velvet bed frames, upholstered benches and footstools. The DIY crowd is diving headfirst into this trend, reupholstering headboards, ottomans and seat pads in cheerful patterns, reclaiming and revamping pieces to make them truly individual.
Pictured: Bench upholstered in Checker Fabric at Colours of Arley
Gallery walls once felt fresh and eclectic and individual, but seeing the same sort of designs repeated ad infinitum across social media has made it all feel a bit rehearsed. Our take on the gallery wall was due a refresh, and the most stylish examples we've seen of late have swapped rigid frames and grid-like compositions for a chaotic mix of media and frames, interspersed with wall sconces, vintage hats, exotic masks, and wall-mounted candle holders.
The trend for low-slung furniture is quite literally taking interiors down a notch. Inspired by the laidback styles of the 1970s, beds, sofas, coffee tables and sideboards are sitting low to the floor, bringing a sense of ease and informality. It’s the kind of furniture that invites lounging – the antithesis of stiff, high-back chairs or rigid four-poster beds that feel overly formal and lofty.
Pictured: Lozenge Chaise Sofa at John Lewis
Internal windows are the perfect salve for light-starved rooms. Brightness is borrowed from adjacent spaces making a home feel larger and better connected, and sparing you the upheaval of knocking down walls. Instead of mimicking exterior windows they stand independently with brightly coloured frames.
As our homes get smaller and space becomes a premium, bespoke and built-in storage solutions make use of every inch. And whilst our kitchen cabinets are coming undone, these designs fit seamlessly into the architecture of our homes. For some, that means enlisting professionals to create tailor-made pieces, and the confident DIYers are hacking their basic Ikea wardrobes with clever additions like cornicing and baseboards to mimic a bespoke finish.
Pictured: Living room design by Topology
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