What’s Happening in Interiors — October 2026 | Trend Report
September was the month the Australian industry stopped talking about beige. Dulux put out its 2027 forecast and built it around feeling disconnected rather than around a single colour. Two projects landed in the same few weeks that make the point from opposite ends of the budget. And a national spending report put a number on where renovation money actually goes.Interior
1. Dulux built its 2027 forecast around feeling disconnected
Dulux released its 2027 Colour Forecast at the start of September — three palettes rather than one colour of the year, which is how Dulux has done it for a while now.
Sensory is the calm one: botanical greens, warm neutrals, a muted blue and earthy browns, with Japanese craftsmanship and daily rituals named as the reference points. Dulux sums it up as “find comfort in stillness”.
Play pairs pastels with berry and vibrant orange accents and is pitched at curiosity rather than restraint.
Treasure is the dramatic one ( My favourite to be honest) — berry shades, warm golds and striking teals, described as having “the grandeur and depth of ancient treasures”.
What’s unusual is the reasoning. ArchitectureAU reported that the forecast was curated by the Dulux colour team under colour and design manager Lauren Treloar and colour marketing lead Lilybet Holt, who framed it around technology rather than fashion: “In a world shaped by algorithms, endless content and digital noise, there is a growing sense of sameness and overstimulation.” A colour forecast built as a reaction to the internet is a first, as far as I can tell.
One caveat: three outlets named three different hero shades for these palettes, so for the actual chips go to Dulux’s own page rather than any round-up, including this one.
What it means at home: all three palettes are built to be mixed rather than used whole, so you don’t need to commit to a theme. If you’re testing any of them, test undertone before you test the colour — undertones are what make two greens that look identical on a card fight each other on a wall.
2. A Marrickville apartment did the dramatic version with paint alone
On 22 September The Design Files published a Marrickville apartment by Studio Shields that started as a white box. The living room now has spiced-brown walls and a deep red ceiling. The bedroom is burgundy from floor to ceiling — Tint’s “Wine and Unwind” — with velvet curtains to match. The existing white kitchen joinery stayed exactly as it was, with black island legs added underneath.
Designer Ruby Shields listed what did the work: “paint, wallpaper, art, furniture, lighting, window furnishings and some very considered purchases”. No trades, no structural change, no new joinery.
What it means at home: this is the cheapest end of the Treasure palette, arriving the same month as the forecast. Worth noticing that the ceiling is painted too — colour drenching reads as deliberate when it covers the fifth surface and as a mistake when it stops at picture-rail height. And a rented or strata apartment can do most of this.
3. A Thornbury extension saved money in the subfloor, not the finishes
The Design Files also ran Eucalypt House in Thornbury on 14 September, by CARD Practice. A bad lean-to and deck came off, and a new living, kitchen and dining pavilion went on with an angled roof opening to the garden, plus a bedroom, a separate laundry and a renovated bathroom.
The interesting part is where the savings came from. Co-founder Jimi Connor explained that raising the addition off the ground let them “avoid a more costly concrete slab and instead use a lightweight timber subfloor” — a decision made before anyone chose a tile. The finishes are deliberately ordinary: fibre-cement cladding, Colorbond in Paperbark, green Laminex joinery, blackbutt floors. Connor’s stated intention was “a small number of carefully considered moves” rather than a large extension full of expensive materials.
What it means at home: the number of moves matters more than the square metres. Most of the cost in an extension is decided at the structural stage, long before the fun part, and a house that sits slightly above the ground is a cheaper house than one that sits on it. If an extension is on the cards, that question belongs in your first conversation with a designer, not your fifth.
4. The bedroom is being treated as a room worth furnishing
Yellowtrace covered Ellison Studios’ New Bedroom collection on 29 September, and the premise is the story. Bedrooms are the least public room in a house, so they absorb hand-me-downs and rushed purchases — the collection was built on the opposite assumption, that comfort is worth designing toward rather than something that turns up by accident.
The range covers what bedrooms usually go without: two beds, a walnut-stained dresser, an occasional chair, a side table, a bench and a room divider, in upholstery, walnut, oak and high-gloss lacquer.
What it means at home: you don’t need the collection to take the point. The two things that change a bedroom most are a bedhead you can lean on and somewhere to sit that isn’t the bed — a chair or a bench at the end of it. Both are usually the last things bought and the first things that would have made the room work.
5. Modular kitchens turned up in oak rather than in melamine
Dezeen’s new releases round-up on 22 September led with Danish studio Vermland’s modular kitchens made from oak, running from tall wall-mounted cabinets through to open shelving. Two Australian pieces also made the cut: Tom Fereday’s folded-aluminium Sail tables and Adam Goodrum’s Hangman lighting for Rakumba.
What it means at home: modular has historically meant cheap, flat-packed and white. A solid-timber modular kitchen is a different proposition — it can be added to, moved, or taken with you, which matters if you’re renovating a place you don’t intend to stay in forever. The trade-off is that modular systems are sized to their own grid, so they suit a straight run far better than an awkward corner. If your kitchen has one of those, measure before you fall in love.
6. Two rooms are taking 60 per cent of Australia’s renovation spend
The State of the Australian Renovation Market 2026 report, updated on 1 October, estimates Australians spent more than $50 billion on home renovations this year — and that bathrooms and kitchens together account for over 60 per cent of it. The report draws on trade marketplace data, industry associations including HIA and Master Builders, and homeowner quotes across 14 cities.
Its national ranges: a bathroom renovation between roughly $10,100 and $20,200, and a kitchen between roughly $8,100 and $20,200. Location moves the number a long way — the same work is reported as costing around 28 per cent more in Sydney than in Hobart.
What it means at home: those ranges are too wide to budget from, which is the actual finding. A kitchen at the bottom and one at the top are not the same project — the difference is usually whether the plumbing and electrics moved.
What this means if you’re renovating right now
Four things worth acting on from this month.
- Colour is moving deeper, and it’s the cheap lever. Both the forecast and the Marrickville apartment point the same way. Paint is the lowest-risk thing in any renovation to change your mind about, so if you’ve been waiting for permission to go darker, this is it. Start with warm versus cool before you start with a colour name.
- Decide the structural questions first. Slab or subfloor, services moved or kept — these set your budget, and no finish selection will claw back a decision made badly at that stage.
- Price two versions of the same kitchen. One with the sink and cooktop where they are, one with them moved. The gap between those quotes is the most useful number you will get all project.
- Spend something on the bedroom. It is reliably the last room funded and the room you spend the most hours in.
If there’s a thread this month, it’s that the money and the drama are being decided in different places. The apartment that looked most transformed spent on colour and left the plan alone; the house that spent on building spent it under the floor where nobody will see it. Both are the opposite of how most renovation budgets get written.
If you’re trying to work out which of those two your own place needs, that’s the question a layout review or an online design consultation is for — and if it’s a kitchen specifically, the Kitchen Layout Dictionary goes through all 50 layouts and their sizing for $57.
Sources
- Dulux Colour Forecast 2027
- ArchitectureAU — Dulux’s 2027 Colour Forecast celebrates authenticity and the human touch
- The Design Files — How Moody Colours Transformed This Sydney Apartment
- The Design Files — CARD Practice: A Cost Effective Cottage Renovation In Melbourne
- Yellowtrace — Ellison Studios, The New Bedroom collection
- Dezeen Showroom — New Releases
- State of the Australian Renovation Market 2026
Still not sure what’s right for your own place?
That’s the part I do — and there are two ways in, depending on how much you need sorted.
Fix My Floor Plan — $297 a room. Send me your floor plan and a few photos. I’ll tell you what I’d change: where the furniture goes, what’s making the room feel awkward, and the practical next steps to fix it. Back with you in 5–7 business days, and there’s not a single meeting involved.
Or a Design Consultation — $550. Ninety minutes on your whole space: layout, colours, materials, joinery, storage, or just a second opinion before you commit to something expensive. Online, wherever you are in the world.
