If you’re like me, a committed follower of trends and directions in design, from Property Brothers and their stable of shows to Christina prowling the coast to that wonderful couple single- (or double, actually) handedly renovating an entire community in Louisiana from scrap lumber, the latest trends in home decorating keep us on the edge of our seats. Therefore, a newspaper article in this morning’s paper, titled “Designers weigh in on the latest home trends for 2020” caught my attention to the exclusion of the upcoming primary or pictures of the president’s New Year’s Eve party. (Where, for the informed reader, he spent the quiet black-tie event sipping champagne, laying off workers in his winery, and planning drone strikes.)
“Neutral” is out, and “character” is in. That “hotel / spa” feel that has been cultivated recently is now returning to ceramics collections and kiddie clutter. So, pretty much everything we’ve been doing for the last three years is “dated”. We’ll expect to hear design phrases like, “that’s just so 2017” in the coming year. Truth be told, Her Ladyship and I have always been trend-setters, ahead of the curve, visionary. We foresaw the purple/lavender revolution of the mid-‘90’s. We pioneered the black and white kitchen. Gray has been our go-to design anchor for as long as I can remember. In fact, Herself has favored white cars for, well, since Henry Ford let go of black, and now look what’s happened. It seems as though every third car on the road is white. Manufacturers, sensing this, are experimenting with new colors like “blinding blue”, “burnt-to-a-crisp orange” and “toss-your-cookies green”. Even white is branching out to winter white, pearl white, off-beige, and white-with-brown tints (or “this car needs washing”, not sure which). Whether these colors will translate into accent walls remains to be seen.
To be totally honest, designers do box themselves in from time to time, so that’s followed by a period of “outside-the-box”. There’s no place else to go. Unexpected colors, intriguing design features and pieces that your great grandparents took to the dump a century ago. So, it now appears to be the case that the typical, sophisticated designs that appeared in every magazine, every home furnishings catalog, and every home flipping design show, has resulted in millions of American homes looking essentially alike. Not much diversity, pops of the same colors – teal or yellow, unique furniture that all looked the same. The orchids on the mantel, the photograph wall. There is the collection of pacific pottery that they all urged us to pack up and put the next yard sale. We all know what the decorating neutrality means. It’s ageless, so no need to redecorate. The home furnishing market plummets, the people inventing new names for paint colors will be laid off or worse, forced to take jobs in the fast food industry coming up with new names for plant-based burgers. So, we ramp up the “character”. Back will come the collections of African masks, the Tiki birds we bought over the years at Disney. One designer even went so far as to suggest that we could “use black in the powder room. Why not?” Maybe we can make it look like a place where bad things happened in Game of Thrones?
So, if we want character, interest, something out-of-the-ordinary, and to kick things off for a distinctive decade that we refer to and paint over later, are some of my suggestions.
Colors: Pink is an often-overlooked color, except in our niece Charlotte’s bedroom. Let’s reinvent pink as a go-to splash of color that will get everybody talking. Remember the ‘50’s tile bathroom? There you go – it could work again because most of those that remember it are, well, either dead or in a nursing home. Orange is strongly paired with the ‘70’s, so its time has again come. Perhaps more muted or with less shag carpeting and dark, heavy wood paneling. Blues have been overdone, so let’s jump on the green bandwagon. Lime green is eternal, at least in the rainforest or the produce section of the supermarket, so why not in the home? Let’s make lemon yellow a topic of conversation too. It will cover your cream-colored or tan walls in one coat, and bring a dazzling sparkle, along with migraine headaches, when used properly in your living room.
Furniture and furnishings: We’ve done the recliners, the club chairs, the Danish modern. The time is ripe for a resurgence of the Victorian settee with those wonderful curvy lines and humpy seats, the straight-backed, uncomfortable chairs, and the elaborately carved tables. If upholstered pieces need recovering, use a leopard print or something garishly paisley. Again, why not? We’ve seen these in celebrity homes, particularly if the celebrity is just a bit, shall we say, left-of-center? How long has it been since you’ve seen huge ferns and feathers used either separately or in combinations? I know, right? Not since Mark Twain’s home in Connecticut was sold at auction. Queen Victoria was literally the “Queen of Clutter”. Every square inch of shelf space had knickknacks. You often couldn’t see the wall color for the pictures at Balmoral. She almost invented the 3-D painting by hanging pictures on top of other pictures. Every room was stuffed with furniture – side tables, coffee tables, those inventive tables with leaf that you put up against a wall so you could load them up with more stuff. During her extended reign, the whole world of furniture and furniture design exploded. Even tenant farmers had crocheted doilies on armchairs. Mounted big game has virtually disappeared from the design landscape except for the odd castle in Scotland. What happened here? In the interests of game preservation, there is a distinct need for someone to come up with a line of faux animal heads. Maybe Better Homes and Gardens and the National Taxidermists Association could work together and send us some designs. For the smaller spaces, perhaps a line of mounted field mouse, chipmunk, and squirrel heads. Now those would give any home character as well as nightmares for young children.
Design features and floorplan: One of the design changes that was discussed was the “repurposing” of spaces. Children’s bedrooms have always been multipurpose rooms. There is usually a bed, but that’s just the starting point. There are also computer stations, gaming stations, areas for collecting, sometimes even places to hang up or put away clothes. We call those closets and bureaus. Let’s take, for example, the mudroom. Put a comfy chair here, along with a television, and you enjoy the wonder of children trooping by in their muddy boots, dropping their hats and mittens everywhere. We could call it the mud/drawing room. Another suggestion was that one can transform an underused, formal living room into a “media” center. Of course, that would necessitate the return of the leather recliners, placed in rows, which as we all know is a design no-no. OK, I’m going out on a limb here, by announcing a new start-up, “The Bus Station Design”. Efficient use of space, rows of comfy chairs. New Age Projection Room. Yes, I think this could really take off. It could keep the kids at home and off their computers and iPhones. Why should media rooms only be for movie starts and NFL quarterbacks? Every home becomes a movie theater, an entertainment center. Decorative accents could include popcorn stations and drink dispensers. What the heck, let’s put a black half bath right next door.
To wrap this up, I know what you’re all thinking, as do I. Is design ever really new, or do we just reinvent? It’s like wallpaper – it comes and goes in waves. Those people that “want to make it their own” aren’t really original. Good heavens, the pharaohs of ancient Egypt did the same thing when they furnished their tombs. Yesterday’s marble countertops are today’s quartz. Hardwood floors will be carpeted in the next twenty years, and mark my words – crown moldings will take the place of “clean and simple”. Will it all stay forever? Will our tastes change and be changed? If they don’t, designers and design influencers will be out of business. So, with all things design, I’m thinking . . . . . ok, let’s try that!
I'm Thinking...No! 