Prepare for a fresh take on interior design this year as nostalgia mixes with nature, modern simplicity and traditional craftsmanship to create homes that are comfortable and healing for your mind and spirit. Whether you are redecorating a room or a whole house, your space deserves a sleek makeover, and these seven styles can help.
From cozy cottagecore to sleek art decor, here’s what to watch out for when upscaling your living spaces.
1. Cottagecore
If you’ve ever dreamed of escaping to a ranch and living off-grid but love your modern comforts, you’re looking for cottagecore. It merges pastoral themes with technology and comfort to create relaxing and inspiring spaces.
Cottage interiors offer homey spaces that are quaint but also stylish. Combine soft, neutral colours with textured pillows, decorate walls with nature-themed artwork and create gallery walls with framed flowers. Furnish your space with natural wood and fibers that speak of home comforts and craft traditions.
Embrace an idealised rural life with a distinctly country vibe where you could make sourdough bread on a primitive-styled wood counter, drink tea on the porch and doze under the awnings framing the windows. Neat exterior trim and dense flower gardens complete the look.
Features include:
- Muted colour palettes
- Handmade decor
- Layered textiles
2. Modern Farmhouse
Farmhouse style has been around for a while, but it’s been refreshed. Modern farmhouse style typically features wood elements and soft, cozy materials, as opposed to steel or metal in other modern aesthetics.
The staple look has refined its game, and cleaner lines replaced the dark and rustic aesthetic for which the farmhouse look is known. Furthermore, contemporary and cozy touches combine into an appealing finish.
Features include:
- Neutral colour palettes with warm tones
- Minimal decor with statement pieces
- Industrial and natural materials that mesh organically
3. Biophilic Design
If you feel connected to nature, the organic approach of the biophilia style is perfect. With a focus on sustainability, wellness and greenery, the style transforms homes into sanctuaries shared with the natural world. While adding plants is a start, true biophilia embraces all organic elements, including rustic metal with dense patinas, rock surfaces, wood grain and natural light.
Sharpen your design sense to build a space that promotes well-being and peace as the dividing line between the manufactured and natural worlds blur. Incorporate raw materials like leaves, stones, sand and water to achieve a peaceful result. If two hours weekly in nature reduces emotional distress, imagine what living with natural elements does for you.
Features include:
- Large windows, including floor-to-ceiling and skylights
- Natural materials like bamboo, rattan, reclaimed wood and steel
- Indoor gardens, living walls and earthy tones
4. Japandi
Fuse Japanese minimalism and Scandinavian warmth into this rising-star style, which began organically 150 years ago due to the cultural similarities between the two nations. By blending sleek lines with natural elements and flooding your home with light, you create a calm, uncluttered home that invites you inside, offering a respite from the world. The key component to a successful merger is subtlety. Adding bamboo accessories to your Japandi interior style will help bring everything together.
Invest in quality craftsmanship and use a neutral colour palette to enlarge spaces. However, if you do add a brighter colour, it should be a bold, thoughtfully considered feature statement.
Features include:
- Nature-inspired colour schemes
- Functional furniture
- Mixed textures combining raw and chunky with clean and fabricated
5. Coastal
Skim away the traditionally nautical coastal style for a modernised and more sophisticated vibe. This year, focus on light, breezy aesthetics that hint at understated comfort. Ditch the collection of seashells and jars of sand and create a serene retreat that reminds you of a windless day at sea instead.
Create an airy space with large-scale wall art and rooms flooded with natural light, which will bring out the pale tones of beechwood, bamboo and ash furniture.
Features include:
- White and sandy tones with pale greens and blues as accent points
- Linen and cotton fabric for a relaxed feel
- Natural found materials and objects like driftwood, glass and wicker
6. Modern Minimalism
Wave goodbye to the chilly minimalism of the previous decade and embrace a warm version that turns cold and stark spaces into havens of neutral tones and organic shapes. Favouring the mantra of “less is more,” modern minimalism offers a new way to repurpose and elevate functional spaces to streamline life and living.
Walls become large neutral spaces that stray from white cleanliness to neutral tones, offering pristine surfaces that let you breathe. Dark, textured floors feature reclaimed wood panelling, oversized ceramic tiles and high-performance concrete, creating a balanced aesthetic.
Features include:
- High-quality, streamlined furniture
- Subtle, neutral colours
- Multi-functional space-saving designs
7. Art Deco
Rediscover the architectural style of Art Deco, which combines symmetry and over-the-top elegance into an iconic look. This style is not for the faint of heart — it’s a bold comeback using rich colours, geometric patterns and shapes with whimsical, glamorous whispers. When you hear “Art Deco,” you likely think of opera style and jewel colours, and the style has retained these, with more on offer.
Blend vintage charm with modern elegance and contemporary touches that set it apart from the initial characteristics of the 1920s and 1930s style. Achieve a look of quiet luxury that’s uniquely Art Deco by layering textures onto walls, adding glass panelling and using clean lines to create geometric shapes. Furthermore, curvature echoes in archways and organic sofas, covered with boucle and velvet that reflect light from the gold leaf trimmings of light switches and cabinet hardware.
Features include:
- Emerald green, deep navy and gold accent tones
- Plush materials like velvet combined with opulent surfaces in marble and brass
- Statement lighting and bold geometrics to catch the eye
Future Design Now
Design is about balance — between the old and new, combining minimalism with opulence and clean spaces with personality. Whether you love cozy nostalgia and cottagecore or the elegance of Art Deco, style your home — inside and out — to fit your vision and create an oasis from daily life. Reflect on the latest design trends while creating a space that’s uniquely yours.
