Design your living spaces to fit your personality
CLAYTON, CA (Jan. 29, 2025) — At the start of every year, I like to load up on design magazines and scroll through every online design source I can track down to find out what industry leaders are endorsing as the design trends for the coming year.
I think the best way to look at the yearly design trends is not necessarily as a message from the universe to completely redo your entire home – unless you want to, of course – but rather, inspiration to give your existing living spaces, and the furnishings within, a fresh update.
For example, according to Benjamin Moore, the paint color of 2025 is Cinnamon Slate 2113-40, which looks like a cozy toasted purple-y plum. It could be used for a wall color or tabletop accessories that can stand on their own, potentially blending well with your existing accessories.
Various furniture styles might be the focused trend, making a comeback because of their strong classic forms that seem to fit in with any design scheme, or an updated take on a typical design detail that makes us all rethink cushion welting or pillow shapes.
Fabric will forever come in festive prints or unique weaves, using natural or synthetic fibers to create its “hand.” Using these fabrics for window treatments, upholstered furniture or even upholstered walls can make a big design statement.
Specific design styles come and go year after year, or arrive with the new year as an updated style. Country was a cozy, traditional look, but Modern Farmhouse is more contemporary and, well, modern.
Lighting is another exciting trend that evolves, from painted or metal finishes to silk or beaded shades, unique shapes and integrated lighting sources that never require a lightbulb change.
Even exterior landscaping and paint colors have a place on the design trends list, like bold outdoor furniture and fabrics, updated paint colors that accentuate different architectural details of your residence, or even canopies and pergolas that do a better job of protecting your conversation spaces from the elements.
One trend for 2025 that caught my attention is “Real Personality,” suggested by AD PRO, an Architectural Digest Magazine online forum.
I really love this trend because it feels more like a design rule instead of a trend. Shouldn’t every living space reflect your real personality? It seems easy enough, but how do you do it without your living space looking fake?
The best advice I can share on this trend is to design your living spaces as you would dress yourself. You most likely would never wear an outfit that didn’t fit you well: stiff straight-leg jeans, uncomfortable shoes and a too-tight T-shirt that has a logo of a brand you don’t even like. The same goes for your living spaces.
If your living spaces aren’t reflecting your taste in artwork or accessories, furniture or lighting, or even the wall color, your living space is most likely pretty darn uncomfortable and foreign feeling. How can you relate to a living space that doesn’t reflect your soul?
Designing your living spaces should really be a progression of how you’d like to live in them, functional, of course, but also a space that tells your personal story. This might mean a collection of art from your vast travels, case goods that you found during a trip to the antique fair, or drapery panels and accent pillows made for you by one of your talented sewing friends. Stacks of books and baubles on your bookcase, photos of you and your friends and family in a variety of frames and sitting ever so perfectly on your fireplace mantel, an antique brass framed mirror that has been handed down from your great-grandmother.
Be authentic about the items you place in your living spaces and without fail, they will emulate your personality and all of your living spaces will scream “Real Personality.”
Jennifer Leischer is the owner of J. Designs Interior Design based in Clayton. Contact her with questions, comments and suggestions at jenna@j-designs.com.
Jennifer Leischer
Jennifer Leischer is the owner of J. Designs Interior Design based in Clayton, CA. Combining a public relations degree from California State University, Chico, with further studies in design and interior architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, Jennifer began her career as an interior designer in 1998, working for various firms in San Francisco and Orinda, and Denver, Colorado. She describes every designing moment, throughout her career, as a wonderful tutorial about the importance of relationships, open communication, and getting down to the basics of functional, yet stylish, living spaces.