2019 Decorating Trends: My Six Favorites

As we work our way into 2019 I thought it was a good time to share my annual home decor trends post – my six favorite 2019 decorating trends that I’m looking forward to seeing more of throughout the year. I love the influx of new ideas and while I’m not one to blindly jump on the latest trends, I always find myself inspired with the new design ideas and styles that come with the new year. I’d love to hear what you think about my six favorites that I’m sharing with you today! (post includes some affiliate links – full disclosure statement available {here}).

Dressing Up Your Ceilings

Wood beams and other architectural details in rooms with large vaulted ceilings have been around for a while but I’m seeing more and more ceiling treatments in rooms like most of us have with typical 8′ ceilings. From painting the ceiling a different color to wallpapering it to adding slim wood beams like these beauties (love!), it’s definitely a trend I can get on board with:

 

Faux Plants

If you had tried to talk me into a faux plant five years ago, you wouldn’t have succeeded – reasonably priced ones looked faker than fake and the ones that looked at least a little bit real were astronomically expensive. They have come SUCH a long way in the past few years and I’m finding myself buying more and more of them to mix in with my live ones (pothos and snake plants seem to be the only live plants I’m successful with). The good ones still aren’t always cheap but given that most real plants only have a few months lifespan under my green thumb, if I buy a faux that I’ll have for several years it ends up being less expensive in the long run. My hands-down favorite is the faux fiddle leaf fig (found {here}) I have in our family room (mine is the medium size). It’s the perfect thing for adding life to a room and filling up a bare corner:

This weekend it’s actually 25% off with code REFRESH. It’s definitely a bit of an investment costwise but I think it’s the most realistic of all of the options available and given that I killed two real fiddle leaf fig trees at $100 a pop before buying this one, it’s been so worth it! Another type of faux tree that’s become popular is olive trees like {this one} – you’ll definitely be seeing more and more of them in 2019! And don’t forget going faux with smaller houseplants too – I love having live houseplants when I can but do have a few faux ones in particularly low light areas in my home like this faux fern (found {here}) in the corner of our home office bookcase (I chopped off those two little brown curly pieces that come sticking out of the fern 🙂 ). When you get up super close to it, you can tell it’s a faux but from the typical distance you’re looking at our bookcase it looks quite real:

Here are a few other fauxs you might like (LOVE the lemon trees!!!):

 

Busy & Bold Wallpapers

Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know that “busy and bold” is not exactly my decorating style but I’m surprising myself in how much I’m drawn to some of the fun new wallpapers that I’m seeing! I know that a lot of you cringe at the word “wallpaper” since you’ve been subjected to the horror of having to remove old, ugly wallpaper that came off in little bits and pieces (been there, done that). But if you properly prep the walls with a primer, removal is usually pretty easy. Also, companies have come out with new technologies like “SureStrip” backing for paste-free application and easy removal that’s part of several wallpapers like this super cute buffalo check wallpaper found {here} (it comes in other color options too!):

Do you remember how I talked about floral patterns becoming big back in my 2018 trends post?  Well their popularity is still on the rise and I’m seeing it in a ton of new wallpapers! While I can’t see myself using a busy or bold floral wallpaper from floor to ceiling in a large room, I would definitely do it in a smaller space like a powder room. In larger rooms, I love the idea of breaking it up with molding to soften the effect like Serena & Lily shows with {this blue floral wallpaper} – so beautiful!

Here are a few of the other bold wallpapers I’ve come and love, including several “temporary” papers that are easily removable:

 

Lighter, Wider Flooring

When we were house hunting about six years ago, all of the recently updated houses we looked at had gorgeous dark floors. The tide has totally turned and now with each year, wood floors are continually trending towards being lighter and wider planked. And while hardwoods that are sanded and stained were once the standard, pre-finished engineered hardwoods reign. The contractor who installed our new kitchen floors said that over the past several years his business has moved from over 90% sanded and stained hardwoods to only 10% (with 90% being pre-finished). Obviously it’s a trend I’m totally on board with since that’s what I went with in our kitchen (the details of our kitchen flooring are in {this post} on our kitchen remodel):

There’s also a growing trend towards luxury vinyl wood-look flooring (especially for areas like bathrooms and laundry rooms where water can be an issue) and wood-look ceramic tiles like {this beautiful tile} my parents have in their bathroom:

And according to Pinterest’s top trends for 2019, painted tile floors are also trending – I painted the tile floors in our powder room a few years ago with a solid gray and have been really pleased with how they’ve held up! (see the full “before” and “after” of my painted tile floor {here} if you missed it):

More and more people are going the same route and according to trends emerging on Pinterest, are often choosing to go with bold colors and mosaic patterns.

 

Paint: Soft, Muted Colors + Dark, Moody Colors

It’s always interesting to see each of the paint company’s colors of the year – for 2019, they were all over the place! There is definitely a continuation of the trend that I mentioned in my home trends post from last year of more colorful paint colors but in soft, muted tones. My favorite one of the bunch is Behr’s Blueprint which I used to paint an accent wall in my daughter’s room:

Sherwin-Williams’ color of the year is Cavern Clay which is also colorful but soft but it’s not my favorite (Do you like it? You can check it out {here}).

Since colors are trending, you might think that whites are “out” but I think they’re here to stay for a while at least! These trending colors really pop when used accents in combination with white so we’ll be seeing a lot of white/color combinations. Also trending are dark, moody walls – especially dark greens, blues, and grays like the deep gray/soft black of my home office (you can see more pics of my office {here}) which is Benjamin Moore Nightfall:

PPG’s color of the year, Night Watch is a beautiful dark, rich green that goes along with this trend:

 

Warm Modernism

“Clean lines and simpler design” was one of the trends that I mentioned in my trends post last year and design is continuing to trend towards more modern. When I think of modern design, I often think “stark” but what I’m seeing right now is a trend towards rooms that are more modern but with enough warm woods and textures mixed in to make them feel anything but stark. One good example is this gorgeous woven canopy bed found {here} that has a very clean-lined modern profile but with paper weave detailing that adds texture and warmth (and notice the dark walls too!):

And the trend isn’t limited to furniture – fireplaces and even window designs are becoming more modern too. Yet like you see in this room, when textiles, wood tones, and plants are mixed in, your space can still have a very warm, welcoming feel:

So tell me what you think! Are you loving any of these trends? Or are you still all about farmhouse decor? Enjoy your weekend everyone and for those of you in the path of this winter storm, stay safe!