Cork Is The Unexpected Comeback Trend: How To Use It In Your Home

Beyond opening that bottle of bubbly for New Year's Eve, how many of us actually think about cork, particularly in the context of furnishing a house? As it turns out, quite a number of people are embracing cork in their decor. And why not? Made from cork oak tree bark, it's natural, sustainable, and takes a beating better than many other materials. That it happens to align with two current interior design trends — a love of all-things cork and biophilic interior decor — makes it all the more appealing as a design trend that looks set to stay for a while.

The move toward using cork in interior design has been building over the last several years. In 2023, cork got a nod from the likes of Luxury London. The online publication extolled the virtues of using the porous material, particularly in flooring, for its beauty (and how kind it is to the knees if you need to kneel on it). However, cork's relevance didn't end when 2023 did. By April of 2025, it was getting write-ups in Elle Decor and on social sites like Instagram, all of which highlighted the advantages of working with cork in design and its staying power as a building material in the home.

In the design-os-phere, there are a couple of elements that make features stand out. Texture is one of them, and that's one of the most appealing traits of cork as a design material. Texture works particularly well when it's paired with its opposite — something sleek and smooth. Cork and metal would be an interesting choice, for example. 

Additionally, cork is lightweight. For home decorating fans who bring cork furniture into their design schemes, this is an advantage when you need to move things around. However, despite how easy it is to move cork furniture from one end of the room to the other, cork is surprisingly hardy. It has been known to last up to 50 years in some cases, making cork furniture and decor features a good investment. It also boasts being fire-retardant. It's slow to combust, and when it finally burns, it doesn't burst into flames or release toxins. From a safety standpoint, it's hard to go wrong with cork furniture and accessories in your space.

Cork works as both a floor covering and a wall covering. Aside from being beautiful, it soaks up sound, potentially making the acoustics in the house more comfortable. Imagine putting it down on the floor and on the walls in your kids' playroom. Noise would be reduced, and the overall play experience would be more comfortable for them because, let's face it, falling down on a cork floor is an entirely different experience than falling on concrete.

On a small scale, touches like cork hot pot trivets are a thing to bring into the kitchen. A little engraving makes them beautiful. Cork's resistance to heat and fire makes it a practical way to protect counters from hot pots and pans.

Finally, it's hard to overlook cork's decorative appeal. Cork makes a beautiful base for laser-engraved designs. Use this instead of a piece of art on canvas or paper. You'll also create a cool look if you repurpose your old wine corks from your wine bottles to make a budget-friendly bulletin board for kitchen notes and recipes. Just glue the corks to a board to create the piece. You could also turn the extra corks into handles for cheese knives to make subtle complements to your wine and cheese boards.