5 Home Decor Trends to Ditch in 2025, According to the Companies Who Want You to Keep Buying Things
Want to know the 5 home decor trends that we’re supposed to scrap this year for no good reason? 😏
I recently came across an article called “5 Home Decor Trends to Ditch in 2025, According to Interior Designers”, and it was… something.
So in this post, I thought it would be fun to go over these supposedly forbidden decor trends and talk about what the actual reality is. Because spoiler alert: everything the article claims is pure fantasy. And I love reading fantasy stories! Maybe we’ll encounter a unicorn, or a goblin or two. Maybe we’ll discover the Triforce. Anything is possible when it comes to fiction!
But really, I think it's good to remind ourselves every once in a while that articles like these are not meant to be taken seriously. They are purely corporate, from top to bottom. The magazine needs content and clicks, while decor and furniture companies benefit from ever changing trends, because the more trends change, the more people feel pressured to buy. You know how it is.
An article like this is just a cog in the wheel of late-stage capitalism. 🙃 And in this dystopian hellscape we seem to find ourselves in, the best we can do is just have a laugh at something like this, and also hold true to our personal styles.
So before you sell all your cottagecore decor and tear down your home office – which yes, this article seems to want you to do – let's give this a good hearty critical analysis, and I'll also share my styling thoughts along the way!
Would you rather watch than read? Here’s the video! ↓
1. “Mindless” Maximalism
The first home decor trend the article arbitrarily deems out of style is “mindless” maximalism.
And immediately, I feel personally attacked. 🙃
It states:
“Pattern on pattern for days? It’s time to ease up a bit. We’re all about playful experimentation, which includes soaking spaces in color… But next year will be the year of cutting back on maximalism mindfully.”
So tell me, are all of us maximalists supposed to just… throw a bunch of our shit away now? Make the landfills a little bit prettier with our exquisite taste in decor?
In reality, well-executed mishmash of patterns can be timelessly beautiful. It’s hard to pull off, sure, but if you’re a maximalist who’s drawn to a lot of visual activity in your space, then for God’s sake, have at it! The stylishness of pattern mixing doesn’t have an expiration date.
Not to mention, the term “mindless maximalism” is a flat-out oxymoron. Because maximalism is inherently mindful.
Ask any maximalist about a piece of decor they own, and they’ll probably have a whole story behind it, or at least a reason why it’s there. Maximalists aren’t mindless zombies decorating with zero thought.
Mindless maximalism doesn’t exist. Maximalism without thought is just clutter.
So I think what the article is really saying is: clutter is out. What a groundbreaking assertion. 😏
2. The Vanilla Girl Aesthetic
The next forbidden home decor trend the article names is the “vanilla girl aesthetic”, which is a style that blends soft femininity, cozy accents, and a monochrome palette of whites, beiges, and creams.
“This just in: 2025’s design ethos is going to shun the vanilla girl aesthetic in favor of color and authentic curation.”
Just the word “shun” here is so… needlessly aggressive? It makes me think of a cult shunning its defectors, which is a pretty weird vibe to feel when reading an article about interior decor…
And the implication that the vanilla girl aesthetic and authentic curation are mutually exclusive is simply wrong.
The vanilla girl aesthetic, like any style, can be executed in a way that is authentic and personal. It really just depends on the person.
On one hand, some people just want a pretty space. Having a bunch of meaning tied to their decor simply isn’t that important to them. That’s okay! Sometimes a pretty space can just be that; pretty. It doesn’t have to be that deep for everyone.
On the other hand, vanilla can be deep! It’s really just up to the individual and how deep they want to get with their decor. You can do the vanilla girl aesthetic and also incorporate personal, authentic touches that add depth and meaning to the space. Like I said, the suggestion that “authentic curation” can’t exist in a vanilla girl space is flat-out incorrect. It can, if you want it to.
3. Home Offices
Now, this is where the article veers from being a typical unserious trend piece to feeling like straight up corporate propaganda.
The utter ridiculousness of suggesting that people shouldn’t have home offices anymore is hilarious—and there are also some pretty dark societal implications here.
So let’s see what they have to say for themselves:
“The year 2025 will mark five whole years since COVID usurped our normal ways of being, and people are all too eager to part with its relics. Companies everywhere are rolling back lenient work-from-home schedules and demanding in-person presence. So, the era of home offices, it seems, is over.”
I don’t know about you, but to me, this feels very dark. It’s giving corporate overlord, and I’m not into it.
We’ve spent the post-Covid years proving as a society that, generally, people are more productive working from home. And even more importantly, their quality of life and mental health are vastly improved.
But no, the billionaires of the world want their employees to be micromanaged and controlled like children once again, so back to the office it is, I guess.
“According to Zillow’s home trends expert Amanda Pendleton, “Zoom rooms” are falling out of favor with homebuyers based on data pulled from millions of listings on the site. As more workers return to their offices, the “Zoom room” is now appearing in 34% fewer Zillow listings.”
Even just calling a home office a “Zoom room” gives me the ick. Let’s not reduce our home offices down to something as trivial and impersonal as a “Zoom room,” like we’re all just a bunch of robots plugging ourselves in to serve our corporate masters.
A home office should feel inspiring—romantic, even. It should be another little sanctuary within the larger overall sanctuary of your space.
And I’m using the term “home office” loosely because, for me and my fellow apartment dwellers, our “home offices” are likely the couch, the bed, or a little desk shoved in the corner of the bedroom. But my point remains the same:
The fact that home offices are being called a decor trend that’s “on its way out” because people are being forced back into the office by little men in suits feels positively dystopian.
Not to worry, though! Because…
“That’s not to say specialty rooms are disappearing for good. In fact, British designer Nicola Harding has direct proof of the contrary. ‘I’m seeing more craft spaces where people really feel like they can exercise their creativity, like an art studio in a house. Also music rooms...where they can listen to interesting music…’”
Oh, what a lovely luxury that would be!
A huge portion of the population is living in apartments with no hope of ever buying a house, while being forced back to spending each weekday rotting under fluorescent office lighting, and are losing an extra hour or two of free time each day driving back and forth to that corporate tomb, even though they have a perfectly good work-from-home setup that allows them to do better work and live happier lives…!
But that’s okay. We’d all prefer a craft room anyway. Let them eat crafts. 🙃🍰👍
4. Cottagecore Kitchens
The next home decor “trend” we’re supposed to ditch in 2025 is cottagecore kitchens.
“If you’re like us, your immediate associations with this aesthetic feature one (or all) of the following ingredients: a spacious farmhouse sink, brass hardware, a sprinkling of wood elements, and a collection of exposed pots and pans. All this, as it turns out, is old news.”
I mean, it’s old news because it’s literally an old aesthetic. One commenter on the article said, “Cottagecore has been going strong since, like, 1250 AD, but okay.” Exactly. Oldness is kind of the point of cottagecore. It never really goes out of style—at least not completely.
And it turns out that I honestly don’t have much to react to when it comes to this section of the article because it managed to say barely anything about cottagecore and why it’s supposedly “out” for 2025. I mean, they dedicate an entire paragraph to cloth curtains being used as cabinet doors, as if that’s one of the key visual aspects of cottagecore. And… they somehow don’t say much beyond that.
If your main thrust behind why cottagecore kitchens are “out” comes down to cloth cabinet doors (something that barely has anything to do with the essence of cottagecore), then there really just isn’t much substance to react to here.
But here’s the thing about kitchens: if you do live in a house and you designed a cottagecore kitchen for yourself, with cottagecore cabinets and countertops and backsplashes and so on—that’s what you’re stuck with.
That’s the thing about these trend articles: they are clearly not meant to be taken seriously. No one is going to tear down and remodel their kitchen in reaction to the yearly whims of decor magazines. It’s all fantasy.
5. ’70s Color Palettes
The final decor trend that has been arbitrarily selected as “out” is the 70’s color palette. Why not, I guess!
“We won’t judge those that are wearing ’70s-inspired bell bottoms and corduroy jackets, but as far as home decor is concerned, we’re moving on from the #70s hashtag on TikTok and into the future. ‘Retro will favor a mixing and matching of epochs—looking at 1990s and early Y2K aesthetics,’ WGSN’s Riberti tells ELLE DECOR, adding that a similar shift can be witnessed in today’s fashion sensibilities.”
Yeah that’s what’s happening… in fashion. Clothing is easy to change in and out of. It’s relatively easy to move with fashion trends. Home decor is a whole different thing. It’s supposed to be more permanent than an outfit change.
Then this section of the article moves into some rather egregious green slander:
“After several years of various shades of green topping the [1stDibs] survey, green’s appeal is not evergreen—this year it was supplanted by chocolate brown as the top color choice of surveyed designers.”
But just because a survey said less people are using green paint doesn’t mean green is not desirable anymore.
And also… chocolate brown was the top color choice…? And they’re saying that 70’s colors are out…?
If I were to sum up the 70s in one word it would be “brown”. So… is the 70s color palette out? Because it sounds like it’s actually quite in. According to the survey. 😉
The article ends with this:
“Focus on creating spaces that reflect personal history, local craftsmanship, and lasting quality. Use fewer but better materials, and choose design pieces with enduring character—not just what’s popular right now.”
Can’t say I disagree with that! …It pretty much undermines the entire point of the article, which is that there are five home decor trends we’re supposed to ditch in 2025, yet its closing statement is to create a space with lasting quality and enduring character…
Lasting quality and enduring character… Temporary design trends we should ditch… do we see the paradox here?
But this article really was just a fun piece of fantasy—not to be taken seriously.
At the end of the day, trends are fun. Participate in the ones you like. Don’t participate in the ones you don’t. And when a magazine arbitrarily decides certain things are “out” for the year, remember: it’s all fantasy.
Because the reality is that decor is supposed to be (somewhat) permanent. You can switch things out, of course, and change your style as you evolve over time. But changing decor and furniture is not like changing your outfit for the day.
I think we can all agree that you should decorate with what makes you happy and what resonates with you as a person, and enjoy reading the fantasy out there along the way!
