How to Use Bold Colours in Interior Design: Tips for 2025 Trends

Approximate Reading Time: 6 minutes

I just love colours (Cobalt Blue is a personal fav of mine) and trying to figure out how to incorporate them into new designs. It's why I am so excited that, at least in the realm of interior design, bold colours are coming back in!

While not every home needs to feature the bold, bright, and vibrant colours of the whimsical aesthetic of dramatic French art-deco design, understanding colour is a great place to start from when trying to design the home of your dreams.

Check out our Inspiration Page to get ideas for your next home design project.

The Colour Wheel and How to Use It

For those of you who are new or just need a refresher, the colour wheel helps provides basic guidelines to help you understand the best ways to combine colours and how they work to complement each other.

While there is beauty in the chaos of experimenting with wildly different colours, the colour wheel allows you to have a rough idea of what colours work with each other harmoniously or what colours work to emphasise each other.

A place I always like to start is figuring out what colours I want to have in a space and where I want it. This can be a feature wall, decorative showpiece or even a piece of furniture that acts as a centrepiece.

Once you choose a colour you like or furniture/ showpiece to centre a room on, you can use a colour wheel to determine how you will use that colour in your space.

Opposite colours create contrast and are complimentary, which can be used to:

• Add energy and make a room feel dynamic.
• Enhance features and focal points that make colours pop.
• Balances and harmonises a space to prevent it from feeling overwhelming
• Evoke stronger emotions
• Use purple and yellow in contrast together for luxury
• Use blue and orange in contrast together for warm, calm spaces
  
  

Adjacent colours create harmony and are analogous, which can be used to:

• Create a calm, cohesive look that helps you relax
• Adds subtle depth and interest
• This allows you to layer multiple colours without being overwhelming
• Evoke a natural, organic feel
• Tie spaces in an element together naturally
• Subtly influence the mood of a space
• Use warm analogous colours together (Orange, yellow, red) to make a space feel more cheerful and welcoming
• Use cool analogous colours together (Blue, green, teal) to calm the space and make it feel more relaxing and refreshing
  

Even when using a colour wheel as a base, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:

Colour Overwhelming

The first is overwhelming a space. Using too many contrasting shades can make a room feel chaotic and messy.

You can avoid this by using a dominant shade accented by another or layering colours next to each other on the colour wheel. Interior design Sarah Lynne Brennan says a safe bet is having a 70-30 dominant and accent colour split to create balance.

The Effect of Lighting on Colour

Different colours can all interact with lighting in drastically different ways, and knowing where and how light comes into space will allow you to best utilise your colour choices.

You should always test your looks in natural and artificial light to see if they hold up and determine which angles light comes into your space. A great example of why this is important is the use of metallic colour shades, which can harshly reflect light and may make a room hard to look at.

Boring Monotony

While using similar colours is not a problem in itself, doing so without providing any visual depth or complexity will make a space feel flat or dull.

Colour-wise, adding a few contrasting colours here and there will tie a space together and make it appear more interesting. If you want to embrace the monotony instead of fighting it, you can also intentionally layer different textures (rugs, carpets, pillows) or materials (timber floors, marble furniture) into a space for added visual interest.

Harsh Transitions

It's all well and good to design individual spaces that look great on their own but thought should be taken on how each space moves into each other. Harmonious, relaxing spaces moving into rooms that are bolder and more vibrant can be jarring.  

You can get around this strategically by using unifying colours throughout a home that act as a bridge into each space. Another option is to neutralise the colours of connecting decor, such as doors and hallways, with softer colours to ease the transition between rooms.

Upcoming Colour Trends for 2025

What's popular is constantly changing, and it might not always be the style you want for your home. Below is a collection of what is looking to be popular colours in 2025 for interior designs to give you some ideas for your next project.

Rich Burgundy: This luxurious tone is becoming popular in living rooms and bedrooms. It can create both dramatic and intimate ambience.

It pairs well with metallic brass and copper finishes and dark timber floors, allowing for a classic, timeless look.

The Rise of Green: Green is increasingly symbolising sustainability and harmony. Versatile, it allows deep emerald accents in bathrooms and subtle sage greens in kitchens.

It blends well with natural elements such as stone or timber-look vinyl/hybrid flooring.

Check out our article, Bringing the Outdoors In: Embracing the Biophilic Home Design Trend, for more tips on how to use green in interior design.

Bold Colours Tempered with Warm Neutrals: Many designers are experimenting with bold colours, such as mustard yellow, burnt orange, or cobalt blue, offset with warm neutrals, such as beige or taupe.

The combination of colours blends well with neutral carpets or light oak hybrid/timber flooring.

Purple lovers can read our article How to Add a Splash of Purple to You Home: Interior Design Insights for tips on using the colour in your home. 
True Joy—Dulux 2025 Colour of the Year: Unveiled as the Dulux Colour of 2025, True Joy is a vibrant, cheerful yellow that evokes spaces with a sense of optimism and creativity. It reflects a global desire for positivity and renewal.

You can feature this in your home by using it as an accent wall, choosing furniture of the colour, and pairing it with neutrals. This will bring harmony and sophistication to a space.

Flooring complements include timber light oak or maple and carpets with soft neutral tones to highlight the vibrancy of the colour.  

Get inspired to use colour in your next interior design project.

They say that a picture paints a thousand words, which is coincidentally almost the word count of this article.

Colour choices are important, but while you can look at thousands of pictures of what others are doing to get an idea of what you like. (Such as on our inspiration page) The most important thing when choosing the colours for your next interior design project is to have colours that work for you and match your vision.

That is something that a thousand words could never hope to imitate.

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