Your home is a reflection of your personality. Gone are the days when interior decoration was treated as a luxury.

Having comfortable furniture, appealing drapes, good lighting and beautifully painted walls is no longer about modernity or sophistication. It is very much needed as it breathes life within those concrete walls and gives your home a healthy outlook.

Planning to add that much-needed dash of colour and comfort to your home? Here are the latest home design trends that you need to look out for.

Traditional Design:

Even though traditional design mostly draws inspiration from the past, it’s always about providing cosiness and comfort. Detailed woodwork, carved mouldings and framed wall decorations are some of the basic qualities of the traditional interior design. This style is quite accommodating and generally includes deep wood tones and silhouette furnishings to deliver warmth and welcome.

Contemporary Design:

True to its name, the contemporary design keeps changing with the newness of its ever-changing constituents or materials. In that sense, it is much more current than the modern design, which generally refers to the design of the mid-1900s. Liberal use of glass, a subtle sense of sophistication when it comes to furniture, and wooden/tile/vinyl floors ideally create rooms with a contemporary flair. Contemporary design accommodates high ceilings and bare windows but doesn’t have much room for clutter. For colour palettes, while some prefer white and other natural tans, others do go for bold touches.

Modern Design:

Bare floors, flat roofs, clean-lined architecture and clean interiors describe the modern design, which refers to anything from the first half of the 20th Century. The modern architecture incorporates whitewash or white stucco and distinct right angle symmetries. Natural materials that provide warmth and texture – such as wood, teak, stone, leather and linen – are inherent in modern design and architecture. Modern design homes also feature the use of a lot of glass at places where previously used to be walls. Furniture lines are clean and simple to keep the streamlined look and feel of a modern space.

Rustic Design:

Simply put, rustic interiors evoke simplicity of the past by showcasing reality in today’s virtual world. Though a little shine can be appealing, that’s not what rustic design is for. From rough-hewn furniture with straight lines and simple designs to prominent wood grains and more finished furniture, with cleaner lines and straighter angles, rustic home decor gives a more natural feel and adds a comfortable and unique look to the home. One can experiment with this setup by adding offbeat lighting, decorative displays and folk artwork, and developing landscapes with loose and lush plantings and then let nature take over.

Craftsman Design:

Craftsman design homes are typically wooden-structure bungalows, which are often one-and-a-half stories, with large front porches and low-pitched gabled roofs with broad leaves. This design was once quite popular in British-era India. In the US and other developed countries, craftsman design homes nowadays are mostly a fusion of Asian architecture and western arts and crafts. General characteristics of these homes are dormer windows and other structural components that display wooden- or stone-handiwork embracing simplicity and coziness.

Mediterranean Design:

This design is common to the European countries along the Mediterranean Sea – such as Italy, Greece, Spain, coastal France and Portugal. Sloping roofs – mostly covered with red tiles – and textured walls constructed of stucco typically define the Mediterranean house designs. The Mediterranean climate is generally temperate and warm; hence, large windows and balconies are common. Mediterranean houses feature columns, high archways and cooling natural tones of blue, green, white or grey. Italian gardens with hedges and modern Spanish interiors are other hallmarks of a modern Mediterranean house.

Cottage Design:

Cottage-style homes are usually smaller and incorporate an asymmetrical architecture with a steeply-pitched roof. This is a style of easy living and a sense of contentment. It embraces imperfection and features a prominent roofline and picturesque dormers for visual presentation. With classic patterns and natural fabrics, these homes bring you out of you and make feel informal and carefree.

So, go ahead. Give those designs a try and transform your living space today.