Even experienced interior designers are guilty of embracing trends that they end up regretting later on. It can be all too tempting to experiment with a particular look that just keeps popping up everywhere, even if you have concerns about it being right for your space or style in the long term.
Here, two pros speak to five different design trends from 2025 that they wish they’d never followed and why. Take this as a lesson from the experts to just say no to things, including extreme neoclassical design, too much greige, and much more.
Meet the Experts
Neoclassical Everything
Nick Smith, the founder of Smithers of Stamford, wishes that he hadn’t gone all in with a neoclassical look, which he noticed trending everywhere at the beginning of the year, when designing a high-rise apartment.
“It felt like the roaring ‘20s had been digitized and sent back to us via Pinterest,” he says. “I fell for it hard.”
Smith was eager to embrace elements including lacquered emerald cabinetry, smoked mirrors, and symmetrical brass inlays in order to fully play to this aesthetic, but he found that his client did not feel at home in the finished space since it felt like a hotel that felt untouchable.
He wishes in retrospect that he had focused on the home’s livability just as much as he thought about its staging.
“Lesson learned: aesthetic nostalgia is only successful when it harmonizes with comfort,” Smith says.
Want more design inspiration? Sign up for our free daily newsletter for the latest decor ideas, designer tips, and more!
Lots of Greige
Smith has completed many greige spaces this year alone—four in total—and he is eager to move on from the look.
“Greige, in its ubiquity, had become a design cop-out,” he says.
Instead, Smith has worked hard to embrace color ever since coming to this realization, playing with pairings including burnt orange with navy and dusty plum with ochre.
“Clients are responding emotionally again,” the designer says. “They’re feeling something in their homes, and that matters more than timeless neutrality.”
Bold Ceilings
irisconcept / Getty Images
Many designers have been excited to go all in with bold ceilings this year, opting to paint the room’s fifth wall a bold color or cover it in a patterned wallpaper.
In a dining room he designed, Smith chose to go with a black and gold floral ceiling, complete with a matching rug below. However, he quickly found that the look was too intense—this designer is now of the belief that a ceiling should recede versus compete with the rest of a space.
“Especially in smaller rooms, the visual weight overhead created a feeling of compression rather than elevation,” he says.
Furthermore, Smith adds, the process of installing wallpaper overhead is quite complicated and is something worth avoiding if possible.
Fast Furniture
Smith wishes that he hadn’t been so quick to give in to Instagram design trends and fast furniture pieces that began to pop up everywhere.
“While the accessibility and instant gratification were appealing, these pieces often lack longevity and true quality,” he says. “We ended up with spaces that felt dated quickly, and the environmental impact of constantly replacing furniture is definitely weighing on me.”
Smith is now determined to invest in timeless pieces, in multiple senses of the word, referring to high-quality pieces that are built to last as well as those that reflect lasting styles versus those of-the-moment trends.
Floating Shelves
Spiderplay / Getty Images
Margie Kaercher, the founder of Hearth & Honey Homes, has learned over time that floating shelves are not always the best one-size-fits-all solution despite their streamlined look. For one, she says, they’re simply not all too practical or durable in high-traffic parts of the home.
“Because they rely solely on wall anchoring without floor support, they can put long-term stress on the wall framing and fasteners, potentially compromising stability over time,” Kaercher says.
She adds that another issue such shelves pose is limited storage space, which is often not appealing to clients.
Read the original article on The Spruce
link