At this time of year, you'll see plenty of lists talking about the trends for decorating homes that are set to define the year ahead, and many of them will overlap the same ideas. It's easy to get caught up in the hype with some of these trends, but you probably shouldn't, really, hold space for them all. Sometimes, they don't live up to that hype.
That's not to say that we don't think these 'over-hyped' trends are valid for the homes of 2025 — in fact, most of them are. What it means is that they're often taking up real estate on those yearly interior design trends lists when really they're maybe not anything new, or super applicable to most homes; maybe they're in the realm of over-exposure, or newer ideas have come along to replace them that we think you should know about.
After all, for as many trends in danger of not meeting the hype, more are flying under the radar.
Over-hyped: Home Wellness Spaces
You'll find the idea of 'home wellness spaces' on the majority of round-ups for the trends of 2025, however, as much as we might all dream of home saunas, steam rooms, spas, and dedicated yoga studios, I've got questions. Do you think this should be your home's priority? Do you have room? Will you use it? Have you got the basics right first?
I'm not convinced on the concept, nor am I in the other recent trend for 'hyper-specific use' rooms. The wine-tasting suite, and the vinyl record listening room, for example, have all been talking points in recent years. However, take as an example, Kendall Jenner, who recently gave an updated tour of her Calabasas home. Gone, from the first time we saw her property, was the 'art studio' filled with easels and paint supplies — in its place a relaxing hang-out room with deep sofas.
Under-hyped: Casual Hang Out Spaces
Better, I think, is to focus on the spaces of the home that bring the idea of wellness into the everyday. Places that you can disconnect from the omnipresence of technology; that foster human connection instead. We're seeing this idea come through in the sofa trends for 2025 — they're deeper, more communal, more relaxing than the formality of the curved cocktail couch that's been so dominant in recent years.
Bespoke built-ins are another place to invest to bring this idea to life, as pictured in this moveable cinema room designed by interior designer Mimi Shin.
Price: $414.99
Even if you opt for just an armchair, think wide and deep designs that make cozying up and hanging out easier. This one from Wayfair is perfect on both accounts.
Over-hyped: 'Primary Play'
Heralded by Pinterest as one of its big trends for next year, 'Primary Play' is all about the 'kidult' vibe — doing fun things with paint, color, and material. "It’s all about letting your inner child shine — from hand painting funky murals onto furniture, to jazzing up trims with contrasting colors — Gen Z and Gen X will be turning grown-up spaces into playful little havens," the Pinterest Predicts Trend Report reads.
However, while it might be showing my age, I get the sense that, even in the most joyful, colorful spaces, people are looking for more authenticity in their design in 2025 than these paint ideas for walls. Yes, we might see this more exciting use of color, but in simpler, more easy-going ways that don't feel as though they're trying too hard.
Under-hyped: Ranch-Style
Okay, you might pause when it comes to us calling this trend under-hyped: after all, Spotify named 2024 the year of the cowgirl, and the ranch-meets-prairie aesthetic has been all over the pages of fashion magazines this year. However, I haven't, until recently, been convinced of its legs in the world of interiors, beyond a few quirky trinkets in Gen Z retailers. When trends like "coastal cowgirl" raise their head in the course of a year, I tend to take it with a pinch of salt.
However, on reflection, it's an aesthetic that's bubbling under the surface for stylish interiors — earthy, humble, and textured in the best ways possible, I can see this decorating trend escaping the realm of kitsch decor, and becoming a more popular style across the country in 2025, especially if you take a laidback approach to the 'horse girl' look.
Price: $86.40
Trimmed wit a decorative border, these curtains from Anthropologie give the perfect, grown-up take on the 'Ranch Core' aesthetic.
Over-hyped: Color Drenching
Listen, we've been big proponents of color drenching here at Livingetc, and we still are. However, it's an idea that's been around for a few years now, and is on every trends list you'll find — the definition of over-hyped.
While the tenets of this idea still ring true — we're still not here for a contrast white ceiling, or white trim, for example — there is an evolution of this decorating trend that's surfaced in the design zeitgeist of late. Ideas such as 'double drenching', or just decorating with a more tonal palette, bring a little more nuance to using color in your rooms.
Under-hyped: 'Double Drenching'
I think, inherently, the best examples of color drenching were unconsciously leaning on some of the elements that make 'double drenching' an obvious evolution of the trend. The idea, in case you missed it, is to build a palette where there's still very little contrast, but there's a subtle difference in shades, bringing more depth to the palette.
Where using a mono-shade color palette can feel a little shallow, artificial, and unsophisticated, using these tonal shades, or those nearby on the color wheel, is perhaps the 2025 way to use color, instead.
Over-hyped: "Mocha Mousse"
Before Pantone's Color of the Year is announced in December each year, the Livingetc team all put their guesses in our team chat. This year, it's fair to say, a few of us were on the money in predicting Mocha Mousse. Yes, this cozy brown shade — an evolution of the beiges that have been dominant in design for so long — is an important color, but it was also a little predictable, too.
Pantone's Color of the Year always receives the most hype out of all of the Color of the Year announcements, so whatever the shade it was like to appear on the list as over-hyped — but, even speaking as a lover of neutral colors like Mocha Mousse, this prediction didn't necessarily feel super new.
