The Cost of “Trendy” in Interior Design

"I really like this, but is it on trend right now?"

I've heard this so many times, and every time my answer remains the same: "Trends will change, and at the end of the day, you'll be left with a space that is not trendy and not you."

Why Trends Exist in the First Place

I think trends have their place in the design world — they give builders and commercial developers a starting point where they know they can make money. A trend is, at its core, a bet on mass appeal. It's useful when you're flipping a house, staging a listing, or building spec homes for a buyer you'll never meet. But unless you're looking to sell your space in the near future, my advice is to throw trends out the window.Most people aren't renovating to impress a future buyer. They're renovating to actually live better in the space they already have.

The Real Cost of Chasing Trends

Here's the part that should give anyone pause before gutting a kitchen to match this year's Pinterest board: If you try to keep up with trends, you'll likely be doing a full renovation every five years, sinking real money into it, and you may not even be happy with the outcome of any of them.

I'd go further: trend-chasing is one of the more reliably disappointing ways to spend a renovation budget, both emotionally and financially. Interior design isn't about following trends — it's about creating a space that reflects who you are and how you live.

Principles Over Trends (But Not at the Expense of Meaning)

I'm not advocating throwing design principles out the window. Proportion, flow, lighting, and function still matter enormously, and I'd be doing my clients a disservice if I pretended otherwise. But if you truly love something, that trumps any principle in my book. The goal of design is to create a space that makes you smile every time you walk in. Even if a room bends every rule in the book, if every piece in it means something to you, I'll take that any day over a soulless house full of builder-grade "trendy" finishes that will look dated within a few years.

And "dated" isn't hypothetical- it's already happening. Design coverage this year points to homeowners actively retreating from the massive, all-gray open-concept look that defined the 2010s, now enclosing those same open floor plans with pocket doors and built-ins to get back some privacy and warmth. The lesson isn't "gray was a mistake" it's that any look chosen purely because it was everywhere will, eventually, stop being everywhere, and you'll be the one living with the aftermath.

What This Means as a Designer

My goal as a designer is to translate a client's personality and the pieces they love into something that works within sound design principles. Each space should be unique, just as each person is. "Trendy" never makes a statement, and it never makes people walk in and say "WOW." So my final advice is: follow your heart, not trends.

If you would like to talk more about this or have any other design questions, please reach out through my contact page to set up a call and I will be happy to help in any way I can.

Thank you for reading!

Skylar Holman - Spirit Design Studio