Washingtonian: How to Embrace Slow Home Design This Year
What’s hot in 2025? Area designers share the latest trends–and anti-trends.
Written by: Eric Wills
What are the trends for 2025? For starters, custom work by artists, such as this hand-painted mural in a DC guesthouse (interiors by Maria Crosby Pollard). Photograph by Nick Johnson.
If there are any certainties as we embark on a new year of design, here’s one: More than a few homeowners sitting on historically low interest rates will hunker down and renovate or remodel instead of moving. So when we compiled our list of what’s hot for 2025, we decided to take the long view. No viral fads or disposable trends but rather measured advice about how to design a home you’ll be happy in for years, if not decades. And that starts with worrying less about creating an Instagram-ready showpiece and more about figuring out what you and your family need for the foreseeable future. That can be a hard question to parse, but these ideas should nevertheless generate some design magic in 2025.
Finding Value in Vintage
Designer Maria Crosby Pollard found a vintage bed, lamps, and rattan side tables for this guesthouse in DC. Photograph by Nick Johnson.
The rise in shipping costs and a recent spike in inflation have strained some renovation budgets. For Maria Crosby Pollard of Alexandria’s Crosby Designs, one challenge has been how to do more with less. When she recently overhauled a repeat client’s living room, she managed to reuse the old sofa, sending it to an upholsterer who added an extra three feet so it would fit in the reconfigured space. She has also established a robust network of vintage-furniture dealers, whom she relied on during the pandemic when supply chains were snarled and who remain a go-to resource. For a client who loves antique beds, she sourced a $200 vintage frame that she upcycled with some paint, upholstery, and a box spring. “We’re always trying to figure out ways to be thoughtful about the quality of the things we can get while also being mindful of our client’s budget,” Pollard says.