Interior Design Glossary

Bohemian (Boho)

Bohemian, or boho, is a relaxed, layered style that mixes vintage, handmade, and globally sourced pieces with natural materials and warm earthy tones. It reads as collected over time rather than bought in one visit, and it rewards personality and texture over matching sets and strict rules.

Coastal

Coastal design is a light, airy style inspired by the beach and sea, built around a palette of white, sand, and blue, natural textures, and plenty of daylight. It favors relaxed, comfortable furnishings and materials like linen, jute, and weathered wood over anything formal or heavy. Modern coastal drops the literal seashell-and-anchor motifs of older beach decor in favor of a calm, breezy feel evoked through color, light, and texture.

Industrial

Industrial interior design is a style drawn from converted factories, warehouses, and lofts that celebrates raw, unfinished materials such as exposed brick, concrete, weathered wood, and black metal. Rather than hiding the structure of a building, it leaves ductwork, pipes, and beams on show and pairs them with vintage and salvaged pieces for a stripped-back, urban look. The palette leans dark and neutral, and the overall feel is honest, spacious, and deliberately a little raw.

Japandi

Japandi is a hybrid style that blends Japanese minimalism with Scandinavian functionality. It combines low, clean-lined furniture, natural materials, and a muted, earthy palette to create calm, uncluttered spaces. It pairs the Scandinavian love of warmth and comfort with the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi, the beauty of natural imperfection.

Mid-Century Modern

Mid-century modern is a style rooted in 1940s-1960s design, defined by clean organic lines, tapered legs, warm wood tones like walnut and teak, and a mix of functional form with a few bold accent colors. It grew out of post-war optimism and new manufacturing techniques, so it prizes simple, sculptural shapes that were made to be both affordable and beautiful.

Scandinavian

Scandinavian design is a Nordic style built around maximizing daylight, natural materials, and everyday comfort. It favors pale palettes, light wood, and a small number of well-made pieces over decoration for its own sake. Born in the long, dark winters of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, it treats light and warmth as the primary problems to solve, which is why the look is bright, uncluttered, and quietly cozy.

Transitional

Transitional design is a balanced style that blends the warmth and comfort of traditional decor with the clean lines of contemporary design. It keeps classic, comfortable furniture shapes but strips away heavy ornament, sitting in the middle ground between old and new. The result is a calm, timeless room that feels current without chasing trends, which is why it is one of the most popular styles for real homes.

Focal Point

A focal point is the element a room is designed around, the first thing your eye lands on when you enter, such as a fireplace, a bed, a large window, or a striking piece of art. Establishing one gives a space a clear visual anchor so the arrangement feels intentional rather than scattered. Every well-composed room has a dominant focal point and often one or two secondary ones that support it without competing.

Negative Space

Negative space is the intentional empty area around and between objects in a room. Leaving it unfilled gives the eye somewhere to rest and makes the pieces you do include feel more deliberate. Borrowed from art and design, the idea is that emptiness is an active ingredient, not just leftover room.

Open Floor Plan

An open floor plan, also called open concept, is a layout where two or more common areas, usually the kitchen, dining, and living rooms, share one large space with few or no dividing walls. The goal is a connected, flexible area where light, sightlines, and movement flow freely between functions. It became the default in modern homes as a reaction to the closed-off, single-purpose rooms of older layouts.

Traffic Flow

Traffic flow in interior design is the path people take as they move through and between the rooms of a home, and designing for it means arranging furniture so those paths stay clear and natural. Good flow lets you walk from the door to the sofa to the kitchen without squeezing past furniture or doubling back, while poor flow forces detours and makes a room feel awkward however nice it looks. It is one of the first things to plan when laying out a space, before the furniture and decorating decisions.

Zoning

Zoning is the practice of dividing a single room into distinct functional areas, such as a living zone and a dining zone in an open plan, using rugs, furniture placement, or lighting rather than walls. It gives each activity its own defined space so a large or multi-use room feels organized instead of shapeless.

Accent Lighting

Accent lighting is the third layer of a lighting plan, a focused light used to highlight a specific feature such as artwork, a plant, or an architectural detail. It is brighter than the ambient light around it and aimed to draw the eye, adding depth and a sense of intention to a room. Where ambient light fills a space and task light serves an activity, accent light exists purely to shape mood and direct attention.

Ambient Lighting

Ambient lighting is the general, base layer of illumination in a room. It provides overall brightness and sets the mood, typically from ceiling fixtures, floor lamps, or wall lights on a dimmer. It is the light you navigate a room by, and it forms the foundation that task and accent lighting build on.

Color Temperature

Color temperature describes how warm or cool the light from a bulb looks, measured in kelvin (K) on a scale that runs from warm, yellow-orange light at the low end to cool, bluish-white light at the high end. Counterintuitively, lower numbers look warmer and higher numbers look cooler: a cozy 2700K reads golden like candlelight, while a crisp 5000K reads like midday daylight. In a room, color temperature sets the mood as much as brightness does, which is why the same space can feel snug or clinical depending on the bulbs.

Pendant Light

A pendant light is a single fixture that hangs from the ceiling on a cord, chain, or rod, suspending one shade or bulb over the space below. Also called a pendant light fixture or pendant lamp, it is used to light a specific spot, such as a kitchen island or dining table, while adding a decorative focal point at eye level. Unlike a flush ceiling light, a pendant hangs down into the room, so it does visual work as well as lighting work.

Recessed Lighting

Recessed lighting is a fixture installed into a hollow opening in the ceiling so the light sits flush with the surface rather than hanging below it. Also called can lights, pot lights, or downlights, each unit points light downward from a housing tucked above the ceiling, leaving only a small trim ring visible. Because nothing projects into the room, recessed lighting gives a clean, uncluttered ceiling and is used to spread even, general light across a space or to wash light down a wall or over a work surface.

Sconce

A sconce is a light fixture mounted on the wall rather than the ceiling or a table. It directs light up, down, or outward and frees up floor and surface space while adding a decorative element. Sconces can provide ambient, task, or accent light depending on where they are placed and how they are aimed.

Task Lighting

Task lighting is focused, functional light aimed at a specific activity, such as reading, cooking, or working. It is brighter and more directional than ambient light and reduces eye strain. Because it is targeted, it lets you light exactly where you need it without flooding the whole room.

Track Lighting

Track lighting is a system where several light fixtures, called heads, attach to a single continuous track that carries the electrical current, so one wired connection powers a whole row of lights. Because the heads clip on anywhere along the track and each one pivots and slides, you can aim light exactly where you want it and rearrange it later without new wiring. It is used to spread general light across a room, to highlight artwork or a feature wall, and to light spaces like kitchens and sloped ceilings where fixed fixtures are awkward.

Boucle

Boucle is a fabric woven from looped yarn, giving it a soft, bumpy, textured surface. It is popular for upholstery on chairs and sofas because it adds cozy texture in a solid, neutral color. The name comes from the French for 'curled,' which describes the small loops that catch the light and give the fabric its depth.

Cane Webbing

Cane webbing is a woven sheet of thin, flat strips cut from the outer bark of the rattan palm, pressed into an open, repeating pattern, most often the hexagonal 'open weave' look. Sold by the roll or the yard, it is the material used to fill the panels of caned chairs, cabinet doors, headboards, and bed frames, where its natural texture and see-through weave add lightness and a handmade, vintage feel. Because it comes as a flat sheet rather than a woven-in-place seat, it is a popular way to add a natural, airy panel to furniture.

Jute

Jute is a soft, natural plant fiber spun from the stalks of the jute plant and most often woven into area rugs, runners, and baskets. Its warm, golden-tan color and chunky, braided or boucle-style weave give a room an earthy, casual texture, which is why jute rugs are a staple of coastal, bohemian, farmhouse, and Scandinavian interiors. Softer underfoot than most natural fibers, jute is prized for looks and comfort rather than heavy-duty wear.

Linen

Linen is a natural fabric woven from the fibers of the flax plant, prized for its strength, breathability, and relaxed, textured look. In interiors it shows up on upholstery, curtains, bedding, and cushions, where its slightly slubby weave and soft matte finish read as casual and understated rather than formal. Linen creases easily, and in decorating that gentle wrinkle is part of the appeal: it gives a room a lived-in, effortless feel that flat synthetics cannot fake.

Rattan

Rattan is a natural material made from the stems of climbing palms, woven into furniture, light fixtures, and baskets. It is lightweight, warm, and adds organic texture, especially in boho and coastal rooms. Unlike hollow bamboo, rattan is a solid, flexible vine, which is why it can be bent and woven into curved, sturdy shapes.

Shiplap

Shiplap is a type of wooden board with a rabbeted (notched) edge that lets each plank overlap the next, creating a tight seam with a distinctive evenly spaced groove between boards. Originally a practical cladding for barns and sheds because the overlapping joint sheds water, it is now used decoratively on interior walls and ceilings for its clean, lined texture. The look is closely tied to farmhouse and coastal interiors, where the horizontal lines add character to an otherwise flat wall.

Terrazzo

Terrazzo is a composite material made by setting chips of marble, quartz, or glass into concrete or resin, then polishing it smooth. It creates a speckled, colorful surface used for floors, counters, and accents. Originally a way for Venetian workers to reuse marble offcuts, it has become a modern favorite for its durability and playful pattern.

Velvet

Velvet is a soft, densely woven fabric with a short, dense pile that gives it a plush feel and a subtle sheen that shifts as light and the nap move. It is popular for upholstery and drapery because it adds depth, richness, and a sense of luxury to a room. Once woven only from silk, most modern velvet is made from cotton or durable synthetics like polyester, which has made it practical for everyday furniture.

Wainscoting

Wainscoting is decorative wood or panel treatment applied to the lower portion of an interior wall, traditionally topped with a chair rail and finished with a baseboard below. It began as a practical way to protect walls from knocks and damp and to insulate cold rooms, and it survives today as a classic architectural detail that adds depth and craftsmanship to a plain wall. The look ranges from formal raised panels to simple flat or beadboard styles, so it suits both traditional and transitional rooms.