Some decorating trends age gracefully. Others don't. Here's what designers and homeowners are leaving behind.
Trends move fast. Velvet's in this year, gone the next. But it's the decade-old trends that are trickiest to judge — everyone's wearing nostalgia glasses. Here are eight design choices we loved once, and why we're glad they're finally fading out.
Courtesy of Zak Chapman
Gallery Walls
Courtesy of Fabio Teles
For a while, gallery walls held everything: curated art, family photos, your kid's finger paintings, every inspirational quote you'd ever bought. It's time to retire the free-for-all. Pick a handful of photos you actually love and group them with intention. Let one or two pieces have pride of place, and store the rest. Rotating frames are another easy fix — swap what's up every few months instead of covering every inch. Leave some wall bare. Empty space isn't wasted space; it's what keeps a room from feeling cluttered, and allows the room to breathe.
Open Shelving
Courtesy of Umar Kakarh
The promise was simple: open shelving would make your kitchen look like a magazine spread, ready for guests at any moment. In practice, it just became clutter you couldn't hide. Your home isn't supposed to look sterile — it's supposed to look like you live in it. Swap open shelves for storage that's both functional and good-looking: cabinets and drawers that hide the mess but still feel like you. Alternatively, if you already have the open shelving and need a way to contain the mess, baskets can be found or made to fit any style.
Coffee Carts
What was a coffee cart actually solving? First thing in the morning, nobody wants to wheel a cart across the kitchen before they've had caffeine. That's exactly why the coffee cabinet has taken over — everything lives in one place, easy to reach, out of the way when you're not using it. The cart can retire as a sweet relic of how far coffee setups have come, and we can continue not tripping over a cart before coffee.
Factory-Perfect Wood
Courtesy of Keegan Checks
Glossy, machine-smooth wood is officially done. People are tired of decor that looks clinical, cookie-cutter, and fake. The shift now is toward real wood, or finishes that mimic its natural imperfections — grain, texture, the subtle irregularities that come from something actually being made rather than stamped out. Designers are reaching for pieces with character, not pieces that look identical to the one beside them.
All-Brass Everything
Courtesy of Denys Gromov.
We won't miss this one at all. Your house doesn't need to repeat the same finish from room to room — in fact, we'd actively discourage it. The ‘all-brass’ of 2016 was nice at the time as relief from the faux-gold, but please. Let your metals and fixtures vary as you move through the house, and don't be afraid to mix finishes within a single space. Better yet, skip metal in a few spots entirely and bring in wood or stone instead.
Matchy-Matchy Furniture Sets
Right alongside all-brass, the perfectly coordinated furniture set needs to stay in the last decade. Your home is meant to be personal — lived-in, comfortable, a little imperfect. Pieces that don't match, that reflect different moments and tastes rather than one showroom trip, are what make a space feel like yours instead of something plucked straight off a catalog page. Bring in pieces that fit your family and comfort needs, not just because they’re all the same material.
Word Art
Live, Laugh, Love. It had its moment. Now, any version of it — single words, inspirational phrases — reads as generic as everything else on this list. If you want words on your wall, make them words that actually mean something to you, in a font that isn't the same one hanging in every big-box craft store. Better still: make it yourself. It's easier than you'd think, and it'll be the one piece in the house nobody else has.
All-Gray Everything
If this list has a villain, it's this one. Unless you're staging a home to sell — and even then, we're not fully convinced — your house shouldn't default to gray just because it's safe for the next buyer. We're not saying paint every wall a bold color. We're saying: unless your personality is gray, your home shouldn't be either.
The common thread? Your home doesn't have to look like everyone else's. Trends fade. What you actually love doesn't.
Trends are seasonal. Maintenance shouldn't be. Before you swap out another gallery wall, make sure the appliances holding your home together are getting the same attention — Appliance Rescue Service's seasonal check-up catches small problems before they become expensive ones.
Courtesy of Karola G