The Latest: Oct 2026

Interior designers have to make a lot of aesthetic decisions for other people, but every once in a while they get the chance to work on a project for a very special client: themselves. Designer Jacklynn Little (@jacklynnlittleinteriors) recently redesigned her own condo kitchen that hadn’t been updated since the condo was built 16 years ago.

Almost no house is complete without a home office these days. And they can range from something as small as a nook in the living room to as involved as renovating your garage. A spare room inside your home is probably the preferred way to create a functional workspace. Brielle Tolmeijer (@brielle_interiors) had just that in her 120-year-old Dutch Colonial home. In an Instagram post highlighting her office renovation, Brielle called her would-be office a “sad, forgotten room.

In general, neglected basements tend to fall into two categories. Either they are bare-bones bunkers that act as convenient storage units, or they are dated time capsules that likely haven’t been changed since Nixon was president. Basements come with tons of potential — and can be ideal for large families or social butterflies — but giving them a modern makeover often falls to the end of a home’s to-do list.

Even if you have an extremely dated space, it doesn’t always require a total demo to look new and stylish again. Take Geneva Slye’s (@just.geneva) bathroom, for example. “The first thing you notice about the bathroom is the pink tile,” Geneva says. “It is original to the house that was built in the 1950s.”Also part of the bathroom upon move-in?

“I could never figure out the best use of this space or its true potential,” DIYer Crystal Ransons says of her home’s large storage closet. The space was the only “extra” room and had gone through several phases of use.

Every once in a while, style switch-ups are good for the soul — even if the room “before” isn’t terrible to begin with. For Emma and Zack Shay, their kitchen wasn’t bad-looking by any means, but they wanted to ditch the blue-gray cabinetry for something that felt warmer and homey.

If there’s one 1990s or early aughts feature that DIYers and designers are ditching when redoing a kitchen in the 2020s, it’s a two-tiered island countertop. Multi-level bar seating is making way for something more practical — often an expansive, single-level island or peninsula. You can see examples in this green kitchen makeover and this navy one — and in Sheri Abernathy’s (@brasswalnut) recent kitchen makeover.

“I have a really high-quality bed with a vaguely modern aesthetic that no longer suits me,” Maya Drozdz says. She bought the bed frame years ago, but her current style shifted towards an eclectic, vintage look. Maya had originally wanted to replace just the headboard, as that was really the only noticeable part.But because it couldn’t be detached from the frame, Maya had to come up with another solution instead of replacing it.