Ditch Boring Living Spaces For The 2025 Paint Trend We All Saw Coming

Tides easily turn when it comes to interior design trends, leaving homeowners who committed to spur-of-the-moment design overhauls in a tricky situation. While the appeal of once-trendy paint colors or farmhouse barn doors have started to fade, those who have embraced monochrome in their homes can breathe a sigh of relief. Designers like AD100 honorees Billy Cotton and Jeremiah Brent acknowledge that the mono color trend is here to stay in 2025 (per archdigest on TikTok).

If you've gotten the impression that the monochromatic paint trend equates to boring and conventional, it's time for a rethink. Actually, infusing a room with a single color can bring a ton of stylistic surprises, depth, and character to your space. Also known as color-drenching, the trend involves dressing an entire room in a single color (in one or various shades), resulting in a cohesive space that delivers on impact while pulling off a look of quiet luxury. The act of painting the walls, trim, and ceiling of a room in one color can visually amplify its dimensions, and by curating accompanying lighting, textures, and furnishings, a monochromatic scheme can be a very versatile canvas to work with. It also leaves little room for big color palette mistakes homeowners usually make, which happen more often than one thinks. 

To create a successful monochromatic space, one must consider color and orientation. Choosing the right color is crucial in setting the desired atmospheric tone. Lighter and muted shades radiate a relaxing and calming ambiance, while darker colors embrace a look of opulence and sophistication.

A room's orientation and the amount of natural light it gets are helpful factors in choosing your color palette. A room facing south receives substantial amounts of warm natural light, so introducing a slightly cooler shade of paint like a crisp blue or a slightly-warm neutral can help moderate the brightness. On the contrary, north-facing rooms are subject to indirect sunlight. While the natural tendency would be going lighter, enveloping these spaces in bolder colors like aubergine or brown will create cozy, cocoon-like vibes. East and west-facing rooms benefit from both morning and evening light, so color-drench them to your discretion with a color that speaks to you. Try out matte or glossy paint finishes for depth and contrast.

As you navigate savvy tips for perfecting the monochromatic look, remember the most important one: Leave no stone unturned. Paint not only the walls and ceilings in one color, but also the mouldings, trims, skirting boards, baseboards, radiators, and window sills. Fully commit to the theme by introducing furniture and design elements that closely match your room's chosen shade, like a reupholstered couch or a painted side table. You can also play with fabric textures to inject some visual and tactile layers into your space.