8 Soothing Neutral Interior Design Ideas to Inspire a Refresh

A restrained colour palette is anything but boring.

In recent years, embracing an all-neutral palette in the home has become one of the more popular trends for designers and design enthusiasts alike to embrace. It's not rare to hop onto social media and see a space that's swathed in warm, pared-back hues. It’s also not the easiest look to get right if you're not perfectly balancing textures, tones, and shapes.

When well executed, this style creates warm cocooning spaces that feel intimate, inviting, and effortlessly chic. Opting for a tapestry of materials and surfaces is key to getting the most out of this look and will help create visual interest within the home. Also key to this look is selecting furniture and décor that is sculptural and introducing a medley of neutral tones.

To help inspire you in your own home, we've rounded up a selection of homes that nail the neutral-toned interior trend and that are sure to inspire your next makeover.

1. Midcentury Marvel

A midcentury modern aesthetic was the design inspiration behind Olive Cooke's home, with plenty of natural materials – dark timber, pale marble tiles, and soft furnishings in shades of mustard and clotted cream. Curved furniture adds to the calming look of the space.

2. Rental Magic

If you're living in a rental home, turn to Ella Barba's welcoming abode - It's proof you can still make a space ultra-stylish even if you can't make permanent alterations. The home is swathed in lashings of creams, whites, and tans, uplifted by various textures and shapely furniture.

3. Dreamy boudoir

Neutral tones in the bedroom are a great way to promote peaceful sleeping. Here, stylist Tim Neve has opted for a curved, bouclé bedhead that's the perfect example of using texture and shape in a room.

4. Desert Beauty

Studio Marrant's Kelsey Coppetti renovated her Arro Dunes home with calming neutrals and organic textures inspired by the surrounding landscape. Stucco walls, woven rugs, timber furniture, and timber ceiling beams make the home sing.

Give your home a neutral makeover.

5. Zen Retreat

Loui Burke's zen space presents a successful homage to wabi-sabi, the Japanese philosophy of finding beauty in the imperfect. The building’s industrial warehouse design is warmed up by an aesthetic that features neutral tones and a materials palette of timber, jute, linen, and hammered brass. “What lacks in colour, I like to think I make up for in texture,” he says.

6. Monochrome Magic

Lia Townsend's eye for detail within grazing tables extends to her home's chic interior which utilises a layered, neutral colour palette. The current look is minimal and deftly blends contemporary and classic décor. In the open-plan living and dining room, upholstered seating in the form of a white linen sofa and dining banquette bench keeps things classic and comfortable while contemporary artworks, including a piece by Caroline Walls, add a modern edge.

7. Spanish Vibe

Stucco walls, arches, natural materials, and a warm, neutral colour palette prevail in the homestead and play into the Spanish aesthetic. The home embraces rich decorative details albeit in a pared-down way as owner Emma Lane likes to "keep it elegant and simple."

8. Cosy Sanctuary

This cosy bedroom is the perfect example of how a variety of warm, neutral tones makes a space intimate and cocooning. And where better to have this look than in the bedroom? When decorating your boudoir opt to shades like Hazelnut and Oatmeal.

A restrained colour palette is anything but boring.