The six big interior design trends going into 2025

‘Jolie Laide’ is an approach to design that’s picking up steam going into 2025, breaking norms by deliberately placing something ugly as your room’s centrepiece.

The term translates to ‘pretty-ugly’: the idea of placing something visually odd in key areas of your interior to draw someone’s attention and spark a conversation.

Anything can be used to make your home pop, whether it’s a weird painting … Picture: Garrett Rowland/Instagram

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Or strange/garish furniture. So long as it starts a conversation! Picture: Garrett Rowland/Instagram

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Jolie Laide items might include a garish lamp you’ve placed right in the centre of the living room, or a weird thrift store statue that looks equal parts unsettling and eye-catching.

Sometimes a little personality can go a long way in a home – even if that personality isn’t what people expect.

Terracotta and Coloured Veins are the big hits for 2025’s new interior design trends, according to Beaumont Tiles.

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Design Trend 2 – Terracotta and Veins

For Australia’s biggest tile retailer Beaumont Tiles, the earthy and natural look of 2025 is being led by terracotta – along with striking coloured veins, peaking out through shining marble.

Beaumont’s product design specialist Darren Brittain said the next year would see regal and ornate marbles a huge trend throughout homes, but many would find themselves punctuated with bold veins and rare colour tones.

Those tones include greens, blues and burgundy throughout marble emulations, bringing a bold look to homes that choose to include them.

Linear deco tiles are also in vogue, with a longer and more textured feel that gives rooms a more distinctive look.

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Mr Brittain said the luxury of marble tiles could be enhanced with these new colours, “with its bursting vibrant hues and intricate veining making spaces feel special.”

He added that green and gold hues throughout marbled tiles can fit today’s contemporary style, by blending depth and personality with a natural appearance.

For those looking for something a little different that captures the same feeling, look to linear deco tiles: similar to typical tiling styles in 2024, but with a longer and more textured variation.

This home at 38 Horizon Ave, Ashmore, used a Japandi design for its interior.

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Japandi design is a mix of Japanese looks with the minimalist feel of Scandinavia.

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Design Trend 3 – Japandi Design

One home on the Gold Coast is following trends seen in London, Tokyo, Copenhagen and Stockholm: it’s called Japandi design, and it’s only been getting bigger.

Combining a Japanese aesthetic with Scandinavian minimalism, a Japandi home is built to make the most of a space, giving it a low open-plan feeling no matter the size.

One home in Ashmore used the style to give off a minimalist appearance, with soft curves and a neutral colour palette from one end of the house to the other.

But while Japandi spaces are designed for relaxation, it doesn’t mean they can’t have some contrast. Interior design studio Black & Milk worked to give a one-bedroom apartment in Soho, London, that same visual style.

This kind of look can be captured no matter how big your home, so long as you know how to use the space.

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One way to do this is to raise the ceilings and lower the furniture of your rooms.

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The open-plan feeling of a home was recreated with a raised ceiling, lowered furniture and sliding bi-fold screens, with soft whites and sleek black walls and accents distinguishing different living spaces apart from each other.

Black & Milk Creative Director Olga Alexeeva said she could see further homes in 2025 adopting a similar style.

Dulux’s new Colour Forecast encourages a touch of vibrancy in homes going into the new year. Picture: Dulux

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It lends well to the new ‘Dopamine Decor’ trend, where quick fixes to your place can really improve your mood. Picture: Dulux

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Design Trend 4 – Dopamine Decor

For those working on a budget, you don’t need to completely redo your home to keep up with new styles. Sometimes, a bit of paint is all you need.

Paint company Dulux’s 2025 Colour Forecast leans into ‘dopamine decor’ – little things you can do around your house to give a dopamine hit that keeps you feeling positive.

This year, the Colour Forecast had three different styles: Still, for quieter, muted colours, Recollect, for deeper shades, and Emerge, for soft and brighter hues.

A quick and easy way to ‘dopamine decor’ your home is grabbing old items and giving them a fresh coat of paint. Picture: Emily Lawrence/Ruggable

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These can be items you thrifted or were planning to throw out. Picture: Emily Lawrence/Ruggable

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But Dulux’s Colour and Communications Manager Andrea Lucena-Orr said a home doesn’t need a complete repaint to fit these design trends.

“You can always paint furniture – especially if you’ve got an heirloom piece that you just wanted to get rid of,” she said. “It’s amazing how just putting colour and paint [into] it just brings it back to life.”

Repainting used and thrifted items is a cheap and easy way to make a home pop without breaking the bank, and works wonders for that ‘dopamine decor’ aesthetic.

TikTok user prettyinthepines made a video captioned, “disguising ugly things in the house”.

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She concealed things like her thermostat, projector and wiring with items that add to her home’s cottage aesthetic.

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Design Trend 5 – TikTok’s Ugly Makeovers

Sometimes, a home can feel like it’s just not working for you. If that’s the case, try looking to social media for advice on how to fix it up.

TikTok posts have been blowing up with both influencers and regular people posting about their journey to pretty up their home’s interior design.

User ‘prettyinthepines’ posted a video with nearly 3 million views, disguising some of her bedroom’s eyesores and turning them into part of the room’s design.

In the video, she decorated her house by concealing her thermostat with a basket, blending her projector with the window frame and applying wallpaper to the wiring along her walls.

December’s TikTok feed for “I Have An Ugly House”.

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Going into Christmas, topics such as ‘I Have An Ugly House’ and ‘Decorating an Ugly Apartment’ had videos with millions of views; including one where user justbeckii gave her council house bedroom a DIY renovation.

Plus Architecture’s ‘Drift Residences’ is a development built to encourage relaxing ‘wellness’ spaces at home.

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Design Trend 6 – Creating Wellness Spaces

Styles like Japandi Design are intended to make relaxing living spaces, but there are plenty of other ways to make your home a more soothing environment.

2025 trends include several different tips and tricks to make sure home life is curated to be a gentle break from the busy workday, from thrift store decorations to cozy chairs in corners.

Plus Architecture designed a series of boutique homes called ‘Drift Residences’, leaning into this approach for a calmer lifestyle. Associate and interior design lead Kate Ockwell said transitional zones – thresholds where people can breathe as they move from one living space to another – are “critical to creating areas of decompression”.

One tip to do this in your own house is to use biophilic design, where you bring portions of the outside into your inside spaces.

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For those who like a bit of nature, try biophilic design: a method of blending the outside world with the inside.

For those who have access to natural light and fresh air, you can connect your living area to little slices of an indoor garden. You can start with larger house plants, or even a terrarium or vertical garden, to really lean into this lifestyle.