6 Home Decorating Trends That Will Never Go Out of Fashion

Remember when shag carpet was all the rage? What about wallpaper or paneling? That poster of Jose Canseco you had up in your bedroom as a kid? Fads come and fads go, but if you care about decorating your home in a lasting manner, you need to aim for more than the current must-haves trending on Instagram and Pinterest.

Here are six home decorating trends that prove they’re anything but trendy, yielding a timeless décor that allows the work you put into remodeling your home to never go out of fashion.

1. Quality

No matter what your particular aesthetic, buying pieces of quality is a trend that never goes out of fashion. From fine furniture and high-end area rugs to vintage designer dinnerware and artwork, choosing well-made items—especially if they’re artisan crafted—will ensure your home is filled with beautiful and even one-of-a-kind items instead of the mass-produced, factory-quality items most people buy repeatedly over the course of their lifetimes.

2. Comfort

While comfort isn’t what comes to the forefront of most people’s minds when they think of decorating their homes, leaning toward comfort when you’re trying to decide how something should look will keep you from making any decisions or purchases that you’ll end up hating. Bedspreads should be soft. Recliners should be relaxing. Countertops should be functional, wide, and easy to clean. In every choice and in every room, make sure comfort and utility reign, and you won’t accidentally make choices you want to go back on.

3. Functional Design

A couch with massive pillows might look good in a photo, but does it work for sitting? Be sure to make functional design a centerpiece of your overall aesthetic when decorating your home, and you won’t get caught up in passing trends. Much like aiming at comfort, aiming at design that is functional will keep your decision-making on track. A home is where the needs of body, mind, spirit, and soul should be nurtured, and the tenets of a functional approach to design honors that reality.

4. White

Color makes a bold statement, but if you want a palette that will stand the test of time, go for variations on a classic by mixing it up with white on white. Especially when it comes to ceilings and trim, do not opt for this season’s hottest looks. Flat, white ceiling paint will go the distance of decades without ever looking strange or dingy, and glossy, white trim makes any space look classy.

Beyond that, choosing white curtains, white furniture sets, white shower curtains, and white lawn furniture will all ensure your place never looks like the set of a photo shoot for a novelty card mocking a particular decade. And when you choose white in a lot of settings throughout your home, you can more easily spice things up with colors to enliven it. It’s easy to repaint your walls in a few rooms every five years or so to take advantage of certain changes in taste and season. It’s not so easy to do a complete overhaul across that same time frame.

5. Books

From living rooms to sitting rooms and guest bedrooms, investing in bookshelves and books is a great way to stay always on trend. Especially as people turn to e-readers, audio books and the Internet to get their “reading” fixes, books have begun to take on a nostalgic quality that may soon put them in the same camp as a vinyl record collection—In short, owning a lot of books will make you impossibly cool.

Also, because books aren’t just decorative, furnishing your home with them is practical so whenever you or a guest have a hankering for poetry, Shakespeare, true crime, or a young adult novella, your home collection will be able to provide.

6. Family Heirlooms

Family heirloom can run the gamut from cheap but beloved costume jewelry to Tiffany lamps. If you’re lucky enough to have heirlooms with functional home appeal that are also of lasting quality, you simply cannot go wrong making use of such pieces in your home.

Whether it’s your great-grandfather’s old secretary or your favorite aunt’s china, cherish these family treasures by granting them starring roles in your décor.

Decorating a house can say as much about you as it does about the time in which you’re doing it. By making these six decorating choices, you’ll ensure that even though the times will change, you’ll remain pleased with your décor.