Each year the mountain-home world shifts a little. Here's what we're seeing clients ask for heading into 2025, and, more usefully, what we think will still look good in 2035.
Warmer modern
The hard-edged modern look is softening. Oak floors, plastered walls, and a return to real stone are leading the way. Expect more full-bed stone than veneer, more natural plaster than drywall, and more warm-wood ceilings than painted ones. The homes reading best right now are the ones that would have looked at home in 1975 and 2025.
Quieter kitchens
Less gadgetry, more joinery. Panel-front appliances, furniture-like islands, and integrated ventilation are the new default in the homes we're building. The showpiece kitchen with eight visible stainless appliances is giving way to kitchens where the joinery is the statement and the appliances disappear into it.
Indoor-outdoor in all four seasons
Covered outdoor rooms with real heat sources (radiant floors, built-in fireplaces, retractable screens) are extending the living space by several months in McCall's climate. The trend isn't a bigger deck. It's a smaller, better-built outdoor room that works in October as well as July.
Smarter mudrooms
The mudroom is quietly becoming the most programmed room in the house. Heated floors, drying racks, separate ski and mountain-bike zones, pet-wash stations, and enough hooks for the number of people who actually come home on a Friday. Built right, it protects the rest of the house from the mud and snow the mountain sends in.
Honest lighting
Recessed-can ceilings are on the way out. Fewer fixtures, better ones, chosen and placed intentionally. Layered light (ambient, task, accent) specified at the same time as the ceiling plan, not after it.
What we'd caution against
- Anything that looks "of the moment." Herringbone backsplashes, black-and-white kitchens with a single color accent, and the specific shade of sage that's everywhere right now are going to date the fastest.
- Open plans with no acoustic thought. Big open rooms need acoustic consideration. A little upholstery, a rug, and the right ceiling treatment is the difference between a room that feels calm and one that feels like a hotel lobby.
- Oversized everything. A 12-foot island that can't seat more than four is not a good island. Size to use, not to scale.
What to do with a trend list
Pick the ones that match how you actually live. Skip the rest. The best custom homes we've ever built are the ones where the owners held onto their own taste, and let the trends inform the edges, not the center.
