5 swaps designers want you to make in your home in 2025

This new year has definitely felt like the start of a new mood in design. Already, designers are talking about colors, materials and approaches that have been in favor for ages, and how they plan to eschew them for new ideas.

So these are the swaps they'll be making – and want you to be making – which will refresh your home and are indicative of rising interior design trends of 2025. It's probably no surprise that all are pointing away from cool tones, minimalism, and hard lines, and swapping to a feeling that's softer, more cozy, and more liveable.

1. Swap bold tones for earthier versions

Brights might have been a big color trend in 2024, but it's a lot easier to live with colors that have a hint of the earth in them. You'll find them to be more calming, even charming, believes Zoe Feldman, the Washington, D.C.-based interior designer who suggests we should all be switching to 'muddy' earthy tones in 2025.

'I find pink to be a very flattering color for most people. It’s very warm when used the way we do, in a muddier way than, say, a bubblegum princess might,' she says. 'I use pinks that are a little brown, during the day it can feel nice and bright and at night it feels like it’s lit by candlelight. It has this beautiful ability to move you emotionally through the day. Farrow and Ball’s Setting Plaster, Sulking Room Pink, and Peignoir are all perfect examples, while the brand’s Oxford Stone has a pink tint to it – ideal for those who might be pink-averse.'

2. Swap a glass coffee table for antique pieces

A design staple for many years, the glass coffee table is coming under fire in 2025 by designers who want to soften every surface they can.

'I would always advise if you have kids, you shouldn't have a glass coffee table,' says Heather French, co-founder of the Santa Fe-based studio French and French. And even if you don't have the practicality issues of tiny fingers putting smudges all over your coffee tables, Heather still suggests they don't age well, and going for something with more character is an obvious swap to make.

'You want an antique that will age with time and patina and get better with age,' explains Heather. 'You need to think about how you want to live in a house. And having a piece you can wipe off – or not worry about too much – is really important.'

3. Swap the height of your kitchen cabinets

This a big swap to make, but one to definitely consider if you are planning a kitchen remodel in 2025. The big debate in kitchen design at the moment seems to be around should your kitchen cabinets go right to the ceiling, or stop short?

In 2024, the advice was mostly to go for the former, but for 2025, some designers are suggesting to swap this once-on-trend look for a gap. Designer Lara Bates of the studio Lara Et Al explains that, 'This year we don't take cabinets right to the ceiling because that little gap allows the space to breathe, stopping kitchens from feeling too closed in.'

4. Swap you formal seating for more casual arrangements

The past couple of years have seen design trends go smarter, to focus more on formal entertaining than on squashy couches to hunker down in. But the New York-based designer Noa Santos asks that this be a time of relaxation, and for softer shapes to come in.

'Interiors need to not feel ostentatious, and Iuxury is being redefined,' Noa says. 'You don’t want to feel like you’re in a museum, you want to be comfortable, and have a house that works for the way you live. Every home needs a corner to flop down into. If everything in your home is precious you're constantly holding your breath – the design needs the mix of an inhale and exhale, the balance of the fabulous and the functional.'

5. Swap a matching trim for a contrasting one

Replacing the decades-long trend for white wood trim came the idea of matching the trim to the walls. It's a trick used by designers to feel both elevated and to make rooms look taller - there is less to break up the sightline.

However, Lara Bates think it's time to swap this for a third way - a contrasting trim color that's totally different from what's on the walls. I never pick the color for the wood trim until the very end. It comes once the other colors are in the room,' Lara says. 'You want to tie it to something in the room, though it may not always be what you’d expect. It could be a color picked out of a dash on an artwork or in the pattern of the rug.'

Many of the trends we are seeing for 2025 are based on creating cozier, more welcoming and more characterful home and many of the swaps designers have suggested reflect this. Keep in mind how you want your home to feel and how you live in the space when you make swaps (big or small) to your home.