AD PRO Trend Report: The Designer Home in 2023

Amhad Freeman, a Nashville interior designer, reports that clients are reclaiming tables from their previous temporary incarnations as spare work tables, bringing back a loyal old favourite: the dining room. “Why is it a room just sitting in the corner?” he asks. “Our attitudes can change. It can be formal, but it doesn’t have to be.”

“Across the board, customers are prioritizing ways their homes can accommodate personal rituals.” – Becky Carter

Orlando Rodriguez of New York City-based Whitehall Interiors has advised clients to reinvent unused spaces and create amenities like podcast rooms. “The room is a small, simple room with acoustic treatments, a counter that houses microphones and speakers,” he says. “It captures the social media zeitgeist of our time while allowing the use of cramped spaces that would otherwise be ‘dead space’.”

Little Wing Lee’s customers also want to take advantage of what they have. “We always think about the flexibility of the spaces, so that a stool in the living room can become an additional seat at the dining table,” she says. “If the kitchen is also a meeting point, then it works the way it’s supposed to.” And designer Becky Carter’s clients want that functionality to feel familiar, too. “Across the board, customers value how their home can accommodate personal rituals,” she says, “whether it’s a part of their kitchen designed for brewing the perfect coffee, an immaculately designed bathroom vanity, or one very special designed reading nook, clients are returning to their homes as an extension of their daily practice.” Designers who can adapt to the nuances of their client will differentiate themselves from the competition.

Puttin’ on the Ritz

Freeman and Mellone say their clients still crave their own five-star hotel bathroom — one that leans toward warm neutrals and premium fixtures. “The biggest question I get is they want a nice toilet,” laughs Freeman. Other designers hear that their customers want bathrooms with contemporary functionality at the highest level, but still looking like a traditional bathroom, free from futuristic interfaces and technologies. “Our customers are now asking for very traditional plumbing,” says Huh. “It’s a bathroom that looks like a bathroom, and a really pretty one compared to something minimal.”

When it comes to kitchens, customers naturally ask Mellone for the usual luxurious travertine and carrara. “But also things like Caesarstone and Corian because they are so functional. And it becomes a challenge to make those things kind of cool.” The secret, he says, is using it for texture.

Eleanor Schiltz

Personality-oriented design

Customers are definitely moving towards decoration, say designers. “Before COVID, you wanted your space to be a sanctuary from the outside world, something more neutral and less chaotic,” says Corey Kingston, director of Le Whit. “Today people are tired of staring at white walls. They want a cozier and more personalized home.” Those clients whose personality drives them to collect art want spaces that integrate their collections, not just archive them. “We see requests for many walls in a home to best display art,” says Hollis. And they want color everywhere – on these walls, in furniture, in the veins of materials. “People are really open to color clashes,” says Huh. “You’re ready to mix wallpaper and pattern and go full blast. Louis XVI chairs and Victorian chairs, fringes and tiebacks, all in salon-like arrangements with different groupings and darker, more saturated colors.”

“People are ready to be braver. Look up in the neutral bathroom: there’s wallpaper hanging from the ceiling.” -Little Wing Lee

Mellone is best known for his luxurious minimalism, “but even I’m losing my fear of color a little bit,” he says, working with clients to incorporate accents of primary colors drawn from their contemporary art collections. “Everyone tries to differentiate their spaces,” says Beckstedt. “They want there to be a surprise from room to room. Color and pattern can change to create this difference, united by a mix of furniture that still remains consistent throughout. It’s definitely on a massive upswing.” And relevant throughout the House, too: “People are ready to be bolder,” says Lee. “Look up in the neutral bathroom: there is wallpaper on the ceiling. It’s all about color and texture in very curated areas.”

High-Tech, Low-Tech or No-Tech?

Technology moves faster than any style trend. Some customers find peace in wiring their entire home to their watches, while others are five minutes away from tossing their phones in the ocean. Designers must be willing to accommodate or even articulate their clients’ relationship with their gadgets and gizmos, whatever they may be. Continue reading…

Photo: Rich Stapleton

Even in kitchens, these traditional strongholds of white on white and metal, customers “take 100 percent more risks,” reports Beckstedt. “They ask about veining in lavender and other colors, especially on marble. Even granite.” Freeman says his customers respond to “mood colors” for countertops and marble. “Warmer tones, but not necessarily gold. There’s a new finish called Titanium, which is black polished nickel – and it’s beautiful, quite stunning.”

In the end, it’s all about a bit of joie de vivre in the Home Sweet Home. “COVID has taught people that they really want to live their lives,” says Huh. “There’s this revival of passion for life.” When that passion includes a design education, designers can incorporate that. “The market for design can seem abstract,” says Charlap Hyman. “My goal is that the client really likes seeing everything they have and that it gives their life a different, compelling structure – and that they’ve been able to support galleries and make a good investment.” And if that passion means, styles and bringing together movements that might once have clashed, or colors that previously transcended the pale, all the better. “Design allows that,” says Huh. “Lots of pillows, a bit of a mess, your aunt’s old chair that doesn’t quite fit. It’s an eclectic openness to life.” Or, in the immortal words of Dorothy Draper, “The Drab Age is over.”

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