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I’m not going to bang on about the whole car crash that was 2020, but one thing that being trapped inside for 23 hours a day for weeks on end did achieve for many people was finally giving them the rocket up the ass they needed to get on with a bit of DIY.
For most households, this manifested about as ambitiously as yer fella having finally fixed that dripping tap he’d been threatening to sort out since 2015 and promptly taking a month off to celebrate.
But for other rare unicorns (you know, the type of mums with three under-fives that were posting on Instagram each morning with a full face of makeup, an hour’s workout completed, breakfast made, and all three children holding up proof of life while the rest of us were still deciding which gin to have with the cornflakes) some really polished-looking redecorating was achieved within a very short window of time during lockdown and no mistake.
Social media therefore would give us to believe that everyone else’s homes are as sharp as all get-out right now thanks to Covid, but remember, the reason why supermom is big on social media is the same reason why serial killers are big on the evening news; they’re the exception, not the rule.
If everyone had both mad skills and commitment to interior design and/or murder, it wouldn’t be notable or interesting; so don’t feel bad if you’re still risking eye burn from your 80s avocado bathroom, or your lounge décor is so out of date now that if you just tough it out another couple of years it’ll be cool again.
That said, if your new year’s resolution for 2021 is to finally get on with redecorating or updating a certain room of your home and you’re looking for a bit of inspiration, being a bit of a late developer in the Covid Changing Rooms stakes actually gives you something of an advantage, as you have the benefit of learning from the mistakes of others.
With that in mind, in this blog post I’m going to share five of the sharpest interior design trends you need to know about for 2021, which are not just hot right now but that are also likely to age reasonably well and not be “so 2021, darling” by like, 2022.
Grandmillennial
- Grandmillennial summarised: Think “21-year-old social media manager inherits grandmother’s cottage, moves in gaming chair and LCD TV, calls it good.”
Grandmillennial is the 2021 evolution of Granny-Chic. It’s about rewiring your responses from cringing at dated twee velvet furniture and classical floral print accessories to cooing about them in delight.
It’s the kind of look that at first glance makes us think “that’s a bit unfashionable even for me” but that quickly begins to grow on you, due to both a potential sense of nostalgia and because as long as the room or home in question doesn’t actually smell like your gran’s ancient poodle is still in there somewhere, is kind of twee in all of the right ways.
The key to carrying off Grandmillennial is getting the right mix of dated and modern, and avoiding cluttering things up so that it feels stuffy or like its auditioning for Hoarders.
Retro Neon
- Retro Neon summarised: Think “I’m 42 years old and if I want a lava lamp and a neon lighting strip in my bedroom, I will jolly well have a lava lamp and a neon lighting strip in my bedroom.”
Retro neon is all about the lighting; and not just the light itself but the design and form of the lamps and fittings, with the rest of the décor fashioned around it. Retro Neon is also a surprisingly flexible approach to creating a themed room, as it can realistically be styled in any decade from the 60s through to the 80s or even 90s at a stretch. Plenty of scope for personalisation!
Rustic Vogue
- Rustic Vogue summarised: Think “all mods cons disguised by vintage charm.”
Rustic Vogue is widely being hailed as “the new CottageCore,” but unless you actually know what CottageCore is I the first place (and if you do, please feel free to share with the class) that’s probably not going to prove wildly helpful.
Rustic Vogue is to an extent a style you can only pull off if you have a fairly old and feature-rich home; like a cosy Victorian terrace with a fireplace, or an old-ish cottage with exposed beams.
It’s all about making a feature of the natural elements of the home, and harmonizing them with the modern; integrating say, a range of different woods and textures, and/or a reupholstered vintage chaise lounge with funky modern cushions.
Vintage Tropical
- Vintage Tropical summarised: Think “island life, without ram-raiding B&M Bargains.”
Vintage Tropical is a nostalgic, retro island style, bringing to mind the exotic island vacations of the heyday of air travel; when one got dressed up to fly, rather than shuffling onto a Ryanair flight in pyjamas to head for a destination airport two hours from its named city.
Done right, Vintage Tropical incorporates bright, bold looks and patterns such as gold or gilt on midnight blue wallpaper with genuine reclaimed fittings and 50s-60s ornaments; and done wrong? It’s those ubiquitous pink flamingos and palm prints, often accompanied by French bulldogs in sunglasses, and “50 shades of rose gold,” none of which any jeweller would recognise with a gun to their heads.
Houseplant Jungle
- Houseplant Jungle summarised: Think “put a plant on it. Get another plant. Think this bit could do with a plant, TBH. Hey, you know what this room needs? MORE PLANTS.”
Houseplant Jungle is one of my favourite looks, which is ironic as I find actually watering my plants far harder work than it actually should be. This may or may not be because I like exotics like carnivorous plants, air plants, and finnicky succulents, but this look is something of a contradiction in that is it simultaneously both really low maintenance and really high maintenance all at the same time.
Houseplant Jungle works well with natural woods (particularly darker woods) and cream linens, jute, cotton, and hemp; but with enough houseplants you can cover more or less any sin, so what lies beneath is far less important than how well you manage to wallpaper it in leaves.
This is what makes Houseplant Jungle a fairly low maintenance look to pull off; but on the other hand, don’t underestimate the potential time commitment involved in caring for a whole buttload of plants on an ongoing basis, particularly if they all have different care requirements, watering frequencies, or regularly need repotting and pep-talks on not dying.
Something else to bear in mind is that if you do go for the full theme of Houseplant Jungle with the generally accepted cream/beige/pale grey colour spectrum, keeping soil stains off everything and cleaning off mucky marks every time you water your plants or move them around can soon become onerous too.
Have you redecorated or are you planning to redecorate in one of these styles? SHOW ME THE PICS! Or am I missing a trick, and there’s a style I’ve completely overlooked that should definitely be ranked among the sharpest interior design trends for 2021? Fight it out with me in the comments.
