From feature walls to vintage boho chic and retro restyling, the last 10 years of interior design and home styling have been anything but boring - making cool but cold minimalism almost a thing of the past.

"The biggest change from the 90s to the noughties was the move from minimalism to the use of much richer, deeper and interesting colours," explains Jan Janecek, a designer at interior design company Bentheim. "The trend for this decade has been for comfort - people want to come home to good, comfortable design which is still cutting edge."

While we may never entirely tire of whitewashed brick walls teamed with wooden floors, interiors styles have grown more individual and less prescriptive.

The 90s were awash with an indistinct colour scheme of beige, white and more beige, the palette of choice for buy-to-letters dressing their warehouse bachelor pads.

But the noughties moved away from all that. In the words of many a home makeover show (of which there were plenty), this decade has been about putting an individual stamp on a property and making it your own. Towards the end of the decade we started seeing property less as a neutrally styled investment (which, frankly, probably doesn't count for much now) for a quick and easy let, and more as a home to live in and fall in love with.

So back came colour and patterned wallpaper, and in came the feature wall, with everything from heavy damasks to florals and designer prints.

It's a look that's here to stay, with some designers saying feature walls offer "recession-proof" style (buying one roll of wallpaper, or one pot of paint, to cover a single wall is more affordable than decorating a whole room). If this means we'll see more dazzlingly original wallpaper designers like Lizzie Allen and Dupenny in the future, then it's surely a good thing.

Whereas in the 90s it was all about buying brand new and slapping it on the credit card, the noughties - or at least the latter, recession-hit part - was about upcycling: reclaiming one man's junk as another's vintage treasure to make-do-and-mend. Craft became cool with Etsy's launch in 2005, and shabby chic was born, giving rise to a whole new style of deliberately distressed, mismatched imperfection.

Ideally we wanted market-sourced originals or Martha Stewart-esque pieces made at home, but the high street introduced us to easy options, too (most recently of all with the arrival of Anthropologie in London). Everyone could parade their modern chintz and kitsch teaware, and update their boring dressers with jewelled door knobs.

Cath Kidston was one of the surprising success stories of the decade

Nigella may have been the decade's domestic goddess in the kitchen, but Cath Kidston upped the stakes with her retro, 1950s housewife style. The sudden success of her signature designs sounded the death knell for minimalism. Her floral prints and old-fashioned oil cloths certainly aren't to everyone's taste, but as a result of the late-noughties nostalgia vibe, she's been a surprising success story. After a relatively quiet beginning in the early 90s, the brand can feasibly be considered the Laura Ashley of the noughties.

For those who can't cope with all that chintz, a time-honoured antidote still exists: Ikea. First introduced to the nation in the late eighties, our love for that clean-lined, flat-packed, affordable Scandinavian style certainly didn't diminish in the noughties. Londoners stormed the midnight opening of Ikea's Edmonton store in 2005, causing a mini-stampede. Who would have thought we'd be fighting over flat-pack?

In the 90s, we were still learning what it meant to go green; in the noughties we started to put it into practice. The likes of TV's Grand Designs, which launched in 1999, nurtured the concept of energy-saving ecohomes. Now there are eco-living home boutiques selling everything from bamboo towels to paper chairs.

Over on the high street, the past decade introduced some brilliant design staples for the home. Super-chic and sexy Zara Home opened in 2006, bringing a classy extension of its fashion range to homeware. Even BHS surpassed itself, signing Kelly Hoppen to design an exclusive home furnishing range.

But the recession claimed victims, too. Scandinavian design store Ilva - a less expensive version of Habitat, and a slightly more individual version of Ikea - ceased trading last summer, as did 90s stalwart The Pier.

Of course, there have been design horror stories (most of which can be seen on Regretsy), including the MDF movement and tacky "themed" interiors. Most were spurred on by the BBC's now defunct Changing Rooms, which finally went off air in 2004 - thank goodness.

But overall, this decade of comfort and colour didn't do too badly at all. What design highs and lows do you think the new decade will bring?