By Victoria Pearson Interiors 18.12.2025

7 Styling Tips We Learned From 2025’s Most Viral Home Tours

A fresh year calls for a fresh perspective. Discover the thoughtful design habits behind the homes that captured our imagination this year.

There’s something very human about marking the end of one year and the start of a new one. Although the segue from past to future should be more impactful than a midnight firework display, it should be harnessed as an opportunity for tangible change or evolution.

Often this instinct manifests in our physical spaces. An incoming calendar year serves as the perfect time to paint the walls, revive neglected rooms, finally frame the artworks we’ve had rolled up for months on end, or embrace new aesthetic perspectives. Shifting, swapping, realigning, until our homes feel like us – whoever that may be.

If the new year has you itching to make some interior changes, but you aren’t sure where to begin, we’ve collated our favourite styling tips from 2025’s most popular home tours in our Makers Series.

Balance is key

Renovating a home, no matter the size, is always an undertaking. As UK-based digital creator and actress Tanya Burr told Bed Threads Journal this year, bringing a North London Victorian townhouse to life as a family home filled with “love, warmth, and special memories” proved a tightrope walk between honouring the home’s heritage and keeping it in step with the demands of her, her boyfriend Dan, and their young son Sage’s modern lives.

Tanya’s tip to ensure it didn’t “feel like you’re walking into an antique shop”? Balance. By anchoring archival or period accents with contemporary design pieces, the subtle layering brings the house into a kind of aesthetic harmony. See: the chest purchased by Dan’s parents when they lived in Korea more than 30 years ago, which now supports the television. “Pieces with memory and history attached to them are just so beautiful,” says Tanya.

Celebrate local creators where possible

Fate may have led hotelier Julia Ashwood and her family to the 150-year-old Byron Bay hinterland farmhouse they would call home for the next decade, but imagination and a love for community is what makes it theirs. It checks out – hospitality, and the joy of bringing people together, has long been the cornerstone of Julia’s career in pubs, restaurants, and hotels.

It’s also the thread that ties her work to her home, with the farmhouse reflecting her commitment to supporting fellow makers by commissioning and curating their work. “There’s nothing that I enjoy more than encouraging and supporting someone who's creating,” she says. “And if I can use my work to do that, it really fills my cup.” Case in point: the evocative paintings by artist Jedda-Daisy Culley, or the red aluminium stools crafted by friend and local designer Jack Fearon.

Fashion shouldn’t sacrifice function

While there’s a time and place for elaborately crafted gowns and ornate jewellery, for fashion blogger Lizzy Hadfield, comfort – rather than shock and awe – sits at the centre of her personal style. “I think when you look comfortable, you naturally look more chic,” she says.

It’s a design sensibility that filters into her home – a light-filled terrace in East London’s Hackney brimming with soul by way of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a framed constellation of memories hanging above the sofa. “I prefer a minimal colour palette – white walls, nice wooden floors, and classic character. And then, carefully curated ‘stuff’ everywhere.”

For Lizzy, practicality engenders ease. “When [a home is] practical, it reflects who you are and makes sense for the way you live in it. It doesn’t feel like you’re trying to create a show home.”

When the house talks, you listen

Stylist Sarah Corbett-Winder is confident in her taste (with good reason – the Bed Threads Journal tour of her North-West London terrace was one of our most-read in 2025). Her home is an ode to British maximalism: joyful colour, eclectic furnishings, expressive to the eye yet always coherent.

And while she’s unafraid to try something new, her reverence for the home means reshaping when the space asks for it. “Something that I’ve realised is you need to listen to the house. You’ll know what it’s saying,” she explains. “My office used to be a darker blue, it was actually called ‘Livid’ – I picked it, but it just didn’t work. It felt cold and unwelcoming. Eventually, I admitted it didn’t work. That’s part of it – you listen, you react, it’s a constant work in progress. I’m always rearranging, and I love it.”

Employ the ‘80–20’ rule

Serena Goh is regularly on the move. At the helm of a lifestyle consultancy agency, she’s an avid traveller who needs her home in Brooklyn’s Bed Stuy to serve as an escape from the frenetic pace of her work and social life. Awash in natural hues, rich textures and vintage treasures, Serena's home is tranquil (without verging on spartan) with the 80–20 rule: a design philosophy that dictates 80% vintage, 20% new.

“My dining table is travertine, but I’ve mixed and matched it with these modern chairs,” she explains. The alchemy of old and new keeps Serena’s interiors fresh and functional, proving that contrast – when done intentionally – can create true cohesion.

A versatile foundation can take you anywhere

Olive Cooke’s Byron Bay family home is an interior lover’s dream. It’s also an extension of her penchant for slow living and laid-back aesthetics – choosing to harness tone and feeling rather than a specific era, trend or ethos. “I like to keep materials warm and neutral, so the space feels timeless. Then I layer in fun elements – things like colourful cushions or décor that can easily change,” explains Olive.

By focusing on a versatile foundation of natural materials (timber, sisal carpet, textured finishes), there’s room to draw in personality in a way that leaves space to grow and shift. “It’s about making things enjoyable, but never fussy.”

Make your home an extension of your spirit

Still-life artist Bella McGoldrick has lived in many places throughout her life: New Zealand, then Melbourne, then New York, and finally the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. And while the “mature” five-bedroom home she has created there with her husband Ty and twin boys, Ruby and Rome, required a serious initial styling overhaul, Bella let passion and instinct lead the way.

“Being an artist, the art is super important,” she tells Bed Threads Journal. “Not just mine, but collecting things for the walls that we change around all the time.”