2023 interior design trends you need to try

Biophilic Design

Don’t be phased by the phrase. It’s a concept that embraces our feel-good connection with nature and brings it right inside building design. From natural light to natural materials, from greenhouse to in your house, from easy outside access to easy living space.

We’ve paved the way too, with open-plan living spaces that combine kitchens and family rooms, French doors to our gardens, and skylights in our townhouses. Here’s how you can celebrate the natural world at home:

• If you’ve had space for a Christmas tree, you’ve got space for an indoor tree. Choose a fabulous large pot and bring in an olive tree, a weeping fig, a dragon tree or yucca plant.
• Make it a statement not a supporting act when you decide where it’s going to live.
• Use the patterns and colours from nature in your soft furnishings. We’re not talking old-fashioned cottage-style chintz, but bright, bold, abstract chic.
• Think of the flow from inside to outside and move furniture around to maximise the natural space between the two.
• Think of glorious green as a balance to the much-loved minimalist white space that many of us opt for. When it comes to plants, you don’t have to be green-fingered, fake is fine, but choose something tall and delicate. The tranquillity effect will be sure to grow on you.

Dark Academia

Now this is a new trend that heads in a different direction. If you like strong, dark colours, rich textures, and making your home your castle – in the romantic, literary sense of the expression - then this is an approach to interiors that really sets the scene. It’s all about creating a warm but dramatic space that flings its arms around you. (image: @benjis_newmore)

• A great example is the recent trend for recreating panelled walls in contemporary homes. They lend themselves perfectly to the ideas of Dark Academia. A very modern look with a firm nod to the atmosphere of history and tradition.
• Dark charcoals, Verdigris greens, deep sea blues and rich Magenta are a great partnership with brilliant white skirting boards, window and door frames.
• As with a stage set, you create the background and then add the props. A marriage of new and old, the contemporary and the curious, works brilliantly.
• Heavy colours and textures don’t mean heavy-handed when it comes to soft furnishings. Soft tartan and tweed throws, dark cushions with luxurious contrasting tassels, will make you want to sink into that sofa.

The Five R’s

This leads on perfectly to what’s called the Five R’s. It’s a set of principles applied to dealing with waste but has re-purposed itself as an interior design trend. When it comes to setting up or taking a fresh look at your home whilst being as true as possible to the ethics of sustainability, the buzzwords; refuse, reduce, re-use, re-cycle, and re-purpose, come into play. Old is new for this New Year. 

• Collectables are having a come-back and finding quirky, original pieces for our homes is a treasure hunt, whether you search through eBay or take a trip down memory lane to an antiques market.
• Mix and match couldn’t be a better way to create a new look. It encourages you to be yourself, to add your own personality to your home and to think outside the mainstream shopping box.
• The variety of vintage goes a long way in adding character and originality to your home. Vinted is the name of the game when it comes to fashion, Oxfam have taken the pre-loved to the catwalks with Second-hand September, now it’s the turn of home accessories and furniture.
• Cutting back on clutter is part and parcel of the impending Spring clean. A clear-out of all the little things that line our shelves and fill our walls will immediately give you a new sense of spaciousness. Pick out your favourites and give them their own space – they’ll stand out rather than being one of a crowd.

DIY

No need for a tool kit. No need to consult a fashion forecast. No need to follow someone else’s lead. No need to get hung up on decorating ideas. This is DIY trendsetting. Biophilic Design, Dark Academia, the Five R’s, are all about character and personality. Yours.

The last couple of years has seen us all re-assess, re-invent, and review our lives and lifestyles. It’s a perfectly natural progression to seize the next twelve months to set your own home style. The blessing of a new home is that it’s a blank canvas for you to make your own. Here are the basics to set your own trend:

• Be your own influencer. Identify your favourite colours and textures and make sourcing them an adventure.
• Where you might have kept patterns on your cushions, put them on the walls or on the floor.
• Where you might have colour co-ordinated a room, mix and match for an eclectic, cheerfully bohemian, freestyle.
• Where you might have relied on spotlights from the ceiling, go for statement lamps to define the different functions, and moods, of your rooms.
• Where you might have given each wall its own picture, reclaim some clear space and create a mural of framed artwork on just one wall.
• Where you might have gone small, think big. Swap the scatter cushions on your sofa for two supersize ones, replace the carefully placed throws with a great big faux sheepskin, fit for a family snuggle, glamorise a bedroom with a huge mirror, and exchange the potted plants on the window sill for a free-standing indoor tree. Less is more, big is beautiful, and experimenting with scale brings a whole new look to a room.