These 2010s Living Room Trends Didn’t Age Well (Designers Are Begging You to Move On)

All-Gray Designs

All-gray everything is so 15 years ago, according to designers. “Cool grays dominated for years, but can feel cold and lifeless compared to the layered, warm neutrals and mixed woods we are seeing now,” says designer Jordan Vaughn, the founder of Alayna Louise Interiors. If you haven’t switched up the 50 shades of millennial gray room in your home, now’s the time to introduce some variety with other colors and maybe a fresh coat of paint that isn’t a cool gray. 

Designer Shannon Murray, the founder of Shannon Murray Interiors, agrees that gray “quickly became an explosion” in the 2010s and feels very much of that era. “We are seeing a fast track away from this sterile color,” Murray says. “It truly got to be too much and too saturated into the home world.”

Can’t quit gray? Just try something warmer so it feels a bit more modern. Or completely change up the palette of your decorative touches to break up gloomy grays. Murray has seen an increased desire to use warmer tones like beiges, cinnamons, and browns, so maybe start there.

Fast Furniture

Vaughn also thinks homeowners and renters alike are moving past the fast-furniture pieces commonly used in the 2010s. In 2025, her clients are eager to purchase longer-lasting, specialty items instead. 

“People seem to be craving craftsmanship and personal narrative again,” says Vaughn. Secondhand shopping, whether you prefer estate sales or Facebook Marketplace, is an easy way to score well-made, character-filled pieces at attainable price points. Plus, you’ll always have a story about how you found a given item. 

Accent Walls

Accent walls, particularly the bold and bright ones, haven’t aged well, according to designer Lexie Saine. “At the time it felt like an easy way to inject personality into a room, but now it reads as dated and one-dimensional,” Saine says. 

Instead, commit to coating all four walls in the same hue, no matter how bold. “A single wall in a vivid color often breaks up a space rather than pulling it together,” Saine says. Go ahead and even paint the fifth wall, aka the ceiling, using the same color you did for the rest of the room, the designer suggests. “That saturation instantly feels more modern, cohesive, and enveloping, creating a living room that looks intentional rather than piecemeal” she explains. 

The Modern Farmhouse Aesthetic

Chip and Joanna Gaines put modern farmhouse style on the map in the early 2010s, but this aesthetic isn’t what it once was cracked up to be, it seems. “Clients were really trying to commit to the farmhouse look in the 2010s, and I am so happy to see this style disappearing,” says designer Kelley Kolettis, the founder of Kelley Kolettis Designs.

Kolettis feels that this look simply became too ubiquitous and also just doesn’t suit every home throughout the nation. “Unless you live on a farm in an authentic farmhouse, you should not have shiplap on every wall, Mason jars on every surface, cow and chicken wall art in every space, signs that tell you to ‘gather,’ or barn doors separating every room,” she says. 

All-White Rooms

You now know designers are done with the all-gray look. Well, the all-white vibe has seen better days, too. Kolettis says the white-on-white spaces of the early 2010s “felt very sterile and cold, having no personality at all.” 

Plus, this look wasn’t super practical, either. “White shows everything — fingerprints, spills, cooking splatters, dust,” notes Kolettis. Instead, she’s excited for this decade, where warm shades, pattern layering, and mixed materials combine for highly personal interiors that also can camouflage a little bit of chaos in between cleans.