Short answer: Eight movements we are already applying in high-end projects for 2026: materials, colour, kitchens, bathrooms, light and comfort. No seasonal fashions.
· Trends · 9 min
Every September brings trend lists that mean nothing by January. We work on eighteen-month timelines between first sketch and handover, so a seasonal fashion is literally useless to us: what we draw today gets lived in during 2027.
These eight lines are already inside the projects on our desks. They are not predictions but decisions taken, with materials bought and prices agreed.
The years of dramatic Calacatta veining on every surface are closing. What clients ask for in 2026 is stone with character but without spectacle: limestone, unfilled travertine, finely veined quartzites. The material stays noble; it simply stops shouting.
In numbers: natural stone runs between €180 and €450 per m², with limestone and travertine occupying the lower half of that range. It is one of the rare trends that also lowers the budget.
Nordic bleached oak and very dark walnut are giving way to mid tones: natural oiled oak, lightly toasted ash. Open grain always, so the fibre can be seen and felt.
The reason is practical rather than aesthetic: a mid tone in hardwax oil absorbs domestic wear without showing it, and can be repaired in patches instead of forcing a full sanding.
Fifteen years of open-plan kitchens have taught an uncomfortable lesson: noise and smell. In 2026 the show kitchen stays open, but regains a working kitchen behind it, where the messy part happens.
In large homes it is now the dominant request. In smaller flats it is solved with a concealed door or a sliding panel that closes off the hob when guests arrive.
Bathrooms are moving towards continuity: microcement or 120×280 cm porcelain, level-access showers with linear drainage, wall-hung joinery. Fewer joints, less limescale, less maintenance.
The caveat never changes: continuity only works over correct waterproofing, with the membrane rising 20 cm above the shower head. Without it, tidemarks appear within a year.
Cool grey has finished its cycle. What is arriving are genuinely saturated earth tones — clay, deep olive, chestnut, muted terracotta — over broken white and limewash bases rather than pure white.
It works because it accompanies natural materials instead of competing with them: deep olive next to oiled oak and limestone builds an atmosphere neutral grey never delivers.
The most decisive technical trend of 2026: replacing general lighting with a layered system — indirect ambient, directed task, accent and decorative — at a warm 2,700 K with dimming across every layer.
It is the intervention that transforms a home most per euro spent. A complete lighting scheme in an average home runs €6,000–18,000 including fittings, and it entirely changes how the same room reads at nine in the evening.
Contemporary homes — hard surfaces, open plans, high ceilings — sound bad. In 2026 acoustics stop being a retrofitted patch and enter the design: geometry, absorbent materials and diffusers integrated into the joinery itself.
The measurable target is a reverberation time of 0.4 to 0.6 seconds in living spaces. An acoustic survey costs €900–2,500, and integrated acoustic design €3,000–12,000.
The dedicated study is dead: it is now study plus guest room, or library plus music room. The same applies to the home gym, which folds into a generous dressing room or a wellness zone with a sauna.
Designing dual use is not furnishing the same room twice: it means resolving services, concealed storage and acoustics so both uses coexist without friction.
Materials that imitate other materials, furniture that cannot be repaired, and palettes that only make sense within one season. A well-designed home should age twenty years without its date of birth being obvious.
If you are planning a renovation for 2026 and want to know which of this makes sense in your home, send us the floor plan and let's talk.
Quieter natural stone, mid-tone timber, the return of the back kitchen, seamless bathrooms, saturated earth colours, layered lighting, designed acoustics and genuinely dual-use rooms.
Saturated earth tones — clay, deep olive, chestnut — over warm neutral bases. Cool grey and pure white keep retreating in favour of broken whites and limewash.
The return of a separate back kitchen, the island as a solid piece with a 60–100 mm edge, mid-tone timber fronts, and quartzite or sintered stone worktops.
Seamless surfaces, level-access showers with linear drainage, wall-hung timber vanities and one characterful stone piece. All of it resting on properly executed waterproofing.
A materials and lighting update without touching the layout usually runs €400–900 per m²; a full renovation with layout changes starts around €1,200 per m².
If you want to apply these decisions to your own home, start with the space rather than the object: