Furniture and Interior Design are Gettin' Funky (Again)
But not like blue shag carpet and avocado wallpaper, or, maybe?
The pendulum shift has brought us back to 1930s staples, 1970s funk, and a little bit of 1980-90s pop, but in a good way. It might seem like chaos, but with the right control the results can be breathtaking. Let's back up a bit, for those who are busy and haven't seen the new trends coming.
If you look at mainstream interior design over the last decade or longer, you’ll notice a lot of... gray. Gray floors, white walls, faux wood grain laminate, faux stone laminate, and flat, cold minimalism. For a long time, the trend was to make spaces look like pristine, mass-produced hotel lobbies. Sterile like a hospital operating room. Color wasn't outlawed completely, but was chained to neutral colors like tans, beiges, and browns. The classic look is the flat white walls and ceilings with the light finished wood laminate Pergo flooring with the white or light grey cabinets pairing grey and white stone counter tops. Recessed lighting everywhere and nothing really…exciting.
The 2026 design forecasts are officially confirming what we’ve been feeling in the shop for months: the pendulum is swinging hard in the other direction.
People are tired of sterile spaces and cheap looking finishes. They are craving warmth, tactile texture, and what designers are calling ‘narrative interiors’: spaces that feel lived in, authentic, and unapologetically personal. Homeowners and creators are leaning away from the disposable, plastic coated look and diving headfirst into character, organic textures, and bold, vibrant color. And honestly? We are absolutely here for it.
From the Workbench: Pink and Turquoise?
More and more consumers are opting for custom built heirloom furniture over disposable fiber board coated in plastic. Forecasts are that custom, quality built furniture sales are on trend to be up 9.4-11% annual growth rate (CAGR), per market research firms Cognitive Market and Grand View Research. There is a stubborn myth out there that heirloom quality woodwork has to be formal, dark, heavy, expensive and kept in a room you aren’t allowed to touch.
This week in the shop, we’re entirely busting that myth.
We are currently building a set of custom tables for a local teacher’s classroom. She needed a durable, practical option, so we went with solid pine; a beautiful, honest wood with incredible natural grain character. But when it came to the finish, she didn’t want a standard color profile.
Her instructions? Paint one of the table bases bright pink, and the other vibrant turquoise. Cotton candy pink. Santa Fe turquoise. Fun. Colorful. Personal. But still with a bit of tradition on top.
Watching those bold, funky colors meet the raw, honest texture of solid wood has been an absolute joy. It’s the perfect collision of old school dark wood tones, an interesting grain profile, met with structural integrity and a modern, playful soul. Those tables are going to take a beating from a room full of kids, but because they are built with real joinery and solid timber, they won’t end up in a landfill in three years like flat-pack furniture. Instead, they’ll just gain character. Or better yet, we can rebuild them later down the road because quality builds make redesign and refinishing possible, something that veneer and vinyl can’t do.
The New Rules of Quality
When we talk about quality, ‘generational expertise’ or building things the old way, it doesn’t mean we’re stuck in the past. The engineering of proper joinery is older than our country, with the best written examples going back to Roubo in 1777. Rather, what we mean about building it old school is that we put it together using tried and true methods, no fancy Chinese made hardware systems, nothing crazy, and no plastic. The design can be however weird you want to go to suit your personality. The build is tried and true methods going back centuries, the design and finish can be whatever your heart desires.
True custom furniture isn’t about rigid design rules, keeping up with trends, or recreating the past. It’s about:
Honest Materials: Choosing real wood that breathes, moves, and has a tactile story to tell. Pine is fine. Staple with maple. Sash with ash. Bespoke with oak. Doesn’t matter the wood, just needs to be from that magical place called the forest.
Structural Integrity: Using construction methods that work with the wood, ensuring the piece outlasts the trends. Fancy fasteners or over engineers hardware need to get gone!
And most importantly:
Personal Expression: Embracing the eclectic, the colorful, and the funky. You are the one who lives here. You are the one who uses this thing. This is a way for you to bring joy to your little section of the earth, a little expression of who you are. Be yourself!
Whether your style is classic oak or hot pink pine, the foundation remains the same: build it right, build it to live, and build it to you.
