Photography: Brigid Arnott
Just like Mediterranean and Hamptons style interiors feel synonymous with summer, some design styles are simply made for the winter months. But when it comes to transitioning your space from summer to winter, it’s not always easy to turn a light and breezy summer space into a warm and cosy winter one.
Gabby Thomas, Design Lead at Freedom Australia, says that the key to nailing your 2025 winter space is to focus on layering.
“This season, our focus is on layering—whether it’s through sumptuous throws and cushions, richly upholstered sofas, or the inviting embrace of a well-styled bed,” explains Gabby.
Along with your favourite soft furnishings, making sure you have the right lighting for those darker winter days can bring a welcoming sense of cosiness to your home in the early mornings and evenings.
If you need some more inspiration for your winter interiors, these are the best trends to embrace this season.
Traditional trend
Traditional interiors are particularly suited to the winter months. The rich wood tones, layered textures and classicaly shaped furnishings naturally posess a sense of warmth, while aged furnishings bring a cosy lived-in quality to a space. If you want to bring more elements of traditional design into your home this winter, your first stop should be your local second-hand and antique furniture store, where you are guaranteed to find an abundance of timeless furniture, textiles and artworks. Look for dark woods in classic styles, patterned textiles and moody oil paintings to start weaving traditional interiors into your space.
Mountain cabin
(Photographer: Marnie Hawson / Stylist: Belle Hemming Bright)
With their roaring wood burners, heavy plaid blankets and misty mountain views, hunkering down in a rustic cabin is never more appealing than during the winter months. Usually located somewhere wild, cabin interiors both embrace nature and offer a retreat from it. Therefore, you will usually find plenty of salvaged timber furniture, nature-inspired hues, such as forest green, and natural textures, such as wool. The interiors of cabins are generally more practical than fussy, letting their natural surroundings shine.
Fortunately, you don’t have to venture too far to embrace the cosy qualities of this interior aesthetic this winter. Try adding a wicker basket or timber chest full of cosy blankets to your living space, and embrace the colours of nature in your furnishings, such as forest green cushion covers or a sandy beige throw. A timber bench by the door for your muddy gumboots also won’t hurt.
Spanish ranch
If, like so many Australians, your interiors are inspired by our generally warm and sunny climate then it can be difficult to transition into a cosier style when winter eventually rolls around. The increasingly popular Spanish ranch-inspired aesthetic is a good example of how to bring a sense of cosiness into a typically sunnier style.
The Spanish ranch aesthetic retains many elements of classic mediteranean style but with a darker, richer palette. Instead of light woods and white linen sofas, this interior style opts for deep chocolate browns and cosy caramels—a palette that’s currently very on trend. When discussing their Autumn/winter collection, Freedom Head of Homewares, Christie Maartensz highlights the use of “rich plum, amber and honey neutrals” as a “celebration of tactile luxury and timeless quality.”
Embracing a few of these deeper hues in your winter throws, rugs and cushions is an easy way to add some warmth to a more summery space.
Classic cottage
The quaint, storybook-like interiors of the traditional cottage is what many of us associate with the word cosy. By definition, cottages are smaller than other types of dwellings, naturally forcing funiture closer together and creating a more intimate atmosphere. Cottages also tend to be associated with the countryside, which has traditionally embraced more lived-in, comfortable furnishings than their city counterparts. These days, cottage-core is one of the most popular online aesthetics, inspiring many people to live a slower life in the countryside—an aesthetic particularly suited to the rainy winter months, when there’s nothing to do but curl up in an armchair with a good book.
To bring more cottage style into your home, it’s important to have comfortable furniture that you can really curl up in—such as an oversized armchair or squashy couch. Then, you start embracing natural textures in your decor, such as a large wicker basket, pretty patterns in your textiles and plenty of books and art that you love.
Fisherman-core
This year saw the playful fisherman-core emerge as a sought-after interior aesthetic. While closely connected to the Nancy Meyers-inspired coastal grandmother aesthetic, fisherman-core trades the light and bright Hampton’s beach house for a rustic fisherman’s cottage in rainy Maine. To embrace this more masculine coastal aesthetic, you can bring out anything tweed or tartan, along with knotty pine wood furniture and your grandfather’s fishing collectibles. A chunky knitted blanket and some (ideally vintage) fishing-inspired artworks are also a nice touch.
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