by Furnishly | Nov 17, 2025 | Design Inspiration, Style
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I’ve often heard the simple, go-to advice for making a cramped space appear bigger: paint it white. Homeowners (and sellers) have long relied on this classic hue to craft an illusion of openness for potential buyers. However, nowadays, real estate professionals are recommending more unconventional hues to entice future buyers.
“A common misconception about paint colors is that white walls will make a space feel bigger. For white to work in a cramped space, you need natural light and other natural features. Otherwise, it can look dingy,” mentions Libby Fehsenfeld, home stager and owner of Tralala Interiors.
To help you move beyond white walls and choose the best paint colors to transform any cramped room, we consulted a few leading real estate professionals. Here is their best advice.
by Furnishly | Oct 17, 2025 | Design Inspiration, Style
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independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Zillow just released its 2026 Home Trends Report, which analyzes millions of homes listed for sale over the past year to determine what’s in, what’s out, and what’s new in the world of home buying and selling. As it turns out, more and more people are looking to bring their self-care home — specifically, to their bathroom.
The Biggest Bathroom Trend in 2026, According to Zillow
Zillow’s 2026 Home Trends report reveals that “spa-inspired bathrooms are appearing 22% more often” on listings, and “mentions of wellness features rose 33%.” This isn’t exactly a shock; Zillow’s 2025 Home Trends Report, also covered by Apartment Therapy, has tracked the change in what buyers and sellers want in their bathrooms.
That 2025 report found that “wet rooms” were “featured 19% more often in listings on Zillow” compared with the prior year, and in general, people who list their homes were more 16% inclined to talk about the property’s “wellness features.” The fact that these trends continued to hold strong the following year makes sense, but they haven’t just persisted; they’ve become even more popular. It’s safe to say the pursuit of a luxurious bathroom experience isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
From the name alone, a “wet room” may conjure images of damp countertops and puddles on the floor. Don’t worry, it’s much more luxurious than that. Wet rooms are a more compact style of bathroom historically more popular in other countries like Sweden. If a standard American bathroom setup is a cubicle, a wet room is an open-plan office.
This means instead of a distinct shower/tub combo, or a totally separate shower and tub that have nothing to do with one another, the whole bathroom is kind of like one big shower. “As you are not as confined to the standard sizing requirements of showers and tubs, you can create a much more open, airy, and uncluttered bathroom layout,” interior designer Tamarra Younis told Apartment Therapy in 2023. They can also be easier to clean, since you can just spray everything down. Plus, folks might have a tub in the corner of a wet room, making a luxurious shower/bath combo an entire experience.
Why Spa-Inspired Bathrooms Are on the Rise
It’s not just about wet rooms; Zillow’s newest report mentions the broader category of “spa-inspired bathrooms,” which can mean anything from a wet room to a sleek groutless shower to a bathroom with an upgraded showerhead, candles, and towel warmers.
Choosing a bathroom with an expansive groutless shower instead of a bathtub isn’t just for those seeking extra luxury or making the most of a small space. It can also be more accessible: Since you have to step into a tub, it can be dangerous for people with mobility issues and might not make sense if you’re in the last home you ever plan on owning. With a wet room, you don’t have to maneuver in or out of the shower, and in some smaller rooms (like this one remodeled by Portland-based Hammer & Hand), the toilet can double as a shower seat.
Are Bathtubs Really Disappearing?
For all the people eyeing a wet room or spa-like bathroom remodel, there are plenty of others who are perfectly content with their tub. It can also have its own kind of “wellness features.” As Andrew Hancock, president of Gilman Heating, Cooling & Plumbing told Apartment Therapy in 2024, bathtubs are “evolving into a luxury feature rather than a standard one,” and the right soaking tub can “turn a bathroom into a real retreat.”
Ultimately, you can do whatever you want with your own space. If you want to hold on to your beloved claw-foot tub, please do. But at the same time, if you’ve been considering tearing it all down for the sauna-inspired shower of your dreams (or of the buyer who will buy your house one day’s dreams), now’s a prime time to get your feet wet.
by Furnishly | Sep 11, 2025 | Design Inspiration, Style
They’re a treasure trove of eccentric gems.
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by Furnishly | Sep 5, 2025 | Design Inspiration, Style
Almost two years ago, my husband and I bought our dream home on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia: a 1980s brick house with three bedrooms, two baths, and 2,900-square-foot space. It has all the hallmarks of the era it came from — single-glazed windows, gaps that leaked air, gas appliances, and no insulation in the ceiling or internal walls — but we fell in love with it at first viewing.
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by Furnishly | Sep 5, 2025 | Design Inspiration, Style
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independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Sometimes, older buildings that have been converted into condos or apartments can be oddly shaped and sized. That was the case with this particular Madison, Wisconsin, condo located in Capitol Square. The one-bedroom, one-bath residence featured a generous living, dining, and kitchen area — but also featured a tucked-away, highly angular bonus room that offered a unique challenge in regard to furniture configuration.
“The previous owners had a dining space in there,” explains Chris Bailey, the staging coordinator at The Cozy Home, the company hired to work on this project. “The photos from a previous listing showed a workspace in there, but it wasn’t scaled properly. There was a large desk you had to scooch around.”
When it comes to staging, the goal is to help people see themselves living in the space, which is especially useful with one that’s oddly shaped. Here’s how the pros made the space more functional, and helped the home sell as a result.
They anchored the oddly-shaped space.
When working with a tight and oddly shaped space such as this office, it’s important to consider scale. The size of the furniture will considerably impact how the space appears as well as how it functions. A too-big desk can be a nuisance to have to navigate every day, and furnishing the space efficiently can allow for maximum usable space. “If you put too much or too-big furniture, it becomes less functional,” the stager says.
The designer and her team went about focusing on anchoring the room. In interior decorating, anchor pieces are typically larger and offer a visual focal point that your eyes are drawn to when first looking at the room.
Anchoring is particularly important in open-concept spaces where the bounds of the living room, dining room, or, in this case, the office may be fluid or expandable. To achieve this, The Cozy Home put down an appropriately sized rug to ground the workspace.
They created a reading nook.
But the stagers didn’t just stop at the workspace. They were even able to make this bonus room somewhat multifunctional by adding a chair in the corner to create a reading nook that sort of floats behind the desk.
“A chair works well in that nook in the corner because it’s an acute angle,” Bailey says. “In this space, you’re using that acute corner for the small nook because it sits there and then you can use the open space for the table. You can fit more than if you were to flip it.”
Those working with a similar space might consider embracing those tight corners or small nooks within their home to create a functional retreat, such as a reading nook, or something visually interesting.
“When you have an oddly shaped room, take those acute angles and look for opportunities or a design moment,” Bailey suggests. “Maybe instead of a reading nook it’s a tall plant or lamp; or use that space because it’s inherently cozy for some smaller niche.”
The condo was on the market for $324,000 and is currently under contract.
“Stagers have to work with what’s there,” Bailey says. “We create privacy where there is none and anchor spaces. A lot of open floor plan homes are not well-thought-out and it can be very difficult to create a cozy space. We achieve this with rugs, scale, and lighting.”
