Recycle, reuse, repurpose, reclaim. These words are hot in home design. They also add up to the design buzzword for 2012: resourcefulness.
“Fewer furnishings and accessories, a minimalist approach to living, recycling what you have, these are trends,” said Jill Hertz, interior designer and partner in Jill Hertz Interior Design. “McMansions are out. Smaller spaces are in.”
Inside those scaled-back spaces, people are latching on to über-modern sources like Craigslist, Etsy and Pinterest for products and ideas that create the blend that reflects their personal style. Do-it-yourself, garage-sale chic, eclectic design — each of these phrases describes a look that’s attainable, affordable, stylish and so 2012.
“People are saying, ‘I’m not going to buy over my means, but I’m staying where I am and making it fabulous,’ ” said Linda Wingo, owner of Wingo Design and Interiors. “That’s why we’re seeing a combination of old and new.”
In fact, interior design this year is about
more than old and new. It’s about neutral and bold, sleek and weathered, antique and modern. It’s a study in contrasts — and it clearly reflects what’s happening in the world around us.
“People are tired of feeling down,” said Lana Zepponi, an interior designer with Chestnut Hall Furniture and Interiors in Germantown. “We’re getting over the neutrals and wanting to pop some life back into our interiors. It’s a way to cheer up.”
In her own home, Zepponi uses punches of color on accessories, fabrics and artwork to accent toned-down neutrals. a blend of contemporary art, midcentury furnishings and vintage accessories create an eclectic, but pared-down, look.
In design magazines and shows, colors like tangerine, acid green and robin’s egg blue are accenting neutrals including gray and beige. Layers of texture are providing warmth and contrast. Repurposed items gleaned from estate sales and family attics are blending with clean-lined pieces to create a collected, lived-in look.
It’s like comfort food for the eyes.
“The case goods that are being introduced this year are more clean-lined,” said Lynne Catron, interior designer with Midtown Design Center of Memphis and co-owner of the soon-to-open Fresh Perspective in Germantown. “It’s almost like they’re making them in a way that they can be played against vintage furniture. not necessarily too contemporary or too modern, but just good, clean lines that will mix well with antiques.”
Wingo agrees. in the South, where family tradition has always played a leading role in home decor, more homeowners are turning away from the ormolu and heavy carving of the past and embracing a transitional style.
“People want contemporary, but they want it to not look cold,” Wingo said. “They want modern elements in a warm way. I think that’s the biggest form of contrast we’re seeing.”
Historical forms haven’t disappeared, though. Home products designers are finding new ways to use them that have hurled them into the 21st century.
“As far as furniture goes, we’re seeing exaggerated forms, like taking a Baroque or Jacobean piece, scaling it up and giving it an Art Deco lacquer finish,” Hertz said. “Manufacturers and designers are also playing with scale in fabrics and wallcoverings.”
High-back furnishings — chairs, sofas, headboards — are popular, Wingo said. Zepponi points to the Chesterfield sofa, whose traditional form has lately morphed into the decidedly contemporary Chesterfield chair.
“One thing that’s really good about that piece is that it’s traditional, but with a new spin,” Zepponi said. “Instead of brown leather, we can give new life to it by putting a new fabric on it, like a linen or velvet in a hot color, and change its personality.”
The same thing is happening in accessories, Catron added.
“Accessories seem to be embracing the past,” she said. “A popular look for lamps is to use a reclaimed item like an architectural find or iron fragment for the body of the lamp and partner it with a clean-lined, simple linen shade. it sort of has the best of both worlds.”
It also embraces another trend that’s hotter than ever in 2012: eco-friendly design.
“All of this repurposing of things, it doesn’t get any greener than that, than to use something that already exists,” Catron said. “Also, I think it’s a way to acquire items that are interesting with perhaps little investment.”
Probably for the same reason, weathered materials are in use on everything from bathroom cabinetry to occasional tables to ceiling beams. but they’re not the faux-finished pieces of the recent past — they’re the real deal.
“We just did a doctors’ clinic conference room with two conference tables made out of recycled barn wood,” Hertz said. “They’re so beat up and they have paint stuck to them, and they’re just very interesting.”
The old-and-new trend also applies in the kitchen, said Karen Kassen, a Certified Master Kitchen and Bath Designer (CMKBD) with Memphis-based Kitchens Unlimited.
“With cabinetry, painted finishes are still extremely popular,” Kassen said. “But it’s not like in past years when they were distressed and glazed. What we’re seeing is a more tailored, crisper look.”
Five years ago, she said, clients were requesting carved details and moldings. Now, “plain white recessed panels, not a lot of fuss” is the going style. On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, reclaimed woods are being introduced into the kitchen in distinctive ways, whether through rustic ceiling beams, center islands or even countertops.
“Anything that’s really old is kind of hip and new,” Kassen said.
Call it Anthropologie’s influence or simply frugality inspired by tough economic times, but “hipster-hobo chic,” as Hertz and her team call it, is the biggest manifestation of that trend.
“It’s all over,” Hertz said. “Look at Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, or just walk into Macy’s — they have whole departments of Uggs. it ties into Occupy Wall Street. that whole age, the baby boomers are the largest consumer segment, and they were the hippies. Now you have their kids, these junior hipsters running around.”
Whatever the cause, more people are after that eclectic, vintage-shopped look in their homes — and more people are shopping at home, too.
“There is greater interest in products that are made in the United States,” Zepponi said. “We’ve seen people looking for that almost in the same way they embraced sustainability and the green movement. We have customers come in and ask, ‘What do you have that’s made in the U.S.? And at market, there was a big emphasis on highlighting American-made products. People are wanting to spend their money at home.”
