Peruse the seemingly endless rows of tulips in a litany of colors, and buy bunches at the gift shops run by growers. And … then what? Well, pick a vase to show them off once you get home.
It’s not rocket science, but it seems like a décor guru’s dream to pair their fave flower with a receptacle that brings it to life. We’ve found a few that whet our whistle, and work for budgets from meager to extravagant. 

Be mindful of the sadly short seasonal life span of tulips. The premiere Skagit Valley variety stick around just a few weeks before growers harvest bulbs for future blooms. And maybe that’s a good thing. We appreciate them more when they make a timed appearance.

Ultimately your environment is personal; expressing your signature design statement may initiate with an “expert” idea, and drawing on that is inspiring.

Here’s what else these gurus of style have to say:

• Try bold color on walls. Navy, green, plum, and aubergine reflect a rich, robust way to brand a living space. Easy to design around, these darker tones invite creativity in furnishings and accessories, and that can be a ton of fun.
  
  
• Or primary colors! A careful composite of neutral tans, black, and ivory tones simplify any room, giving it that livability factor for extra comfort.
  
  
• As long as you’re leaning dark, consider stained wood cabinetry and woodwork. It’s rustic and nature-influenced, and embellishes a living space or bedroom with personality.
  
  
• Dress up these darker walls with classic plaids or other iconic patterns, including vintage paisley (for traditional motifs) or radius circles (if you won’t budge from contemporary). Their distinctive aesthetic goes toe-to-toe with dynamic woodwork, toning down the expectation of furniture pieces.
  
  
• Shoot for multi-generational appeal. Choose from the iconic collection of retro and vintage fare and pair it with newcomers in interior design. Couches with clean lines were once verboten as partners with vintage rugs, but with attention to detail in the rest of a space, they can mix splendidly.
  
  
• Bold patterns in limewash and plaster might be making a comeback if design experts are right. They can be permeating if you aren’t conservative with surrounding materials and accents, so go slow.
  
  
• Everyone’s into earthy essence. Nature seeps into classic spaces now, with botanical wallpaper, furnishings made of exotic woods, and even a generous use of artificial greenery and flora. Key to incorporating this ethereal aesthetic is to not overpower with dominant accessories.
  
  
• Make it shine. High-gloss finishes are growing on designers, creating an interesting effect to furniture and even woodworked wall elements. Lacquer adds an automatic lift that grabs attention.
  
  

There’s no shortage of source material to snoop out your own preferred version of what’s new this year. Consult with a pro interior designer, talented friends, or yours truly to come up with a way to refresh your environment. Often it requires a paltry investment – but feel free to go all out if it’s a mood-lifter.

Upscale Outdoor Furniture
As we continue to spend more time outdoors, upscale outdoor furniture has become a must-have for many homeowners. Able to travel once again, outdoor spaces have taken on a more resort-like aesthetic, complete with cabanas and global-inspired patterns and materials. Rattan, mesh accents, and woven seating lends a vintage look and feel. Cutouts and perforated surfaces create a surprising texture and silhouette too. Creating a multipurpose living space, outdoor areas also incorporate gas fire pits, creating a more luxurious and welcoming area.
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Natural Elements
Plants and greenery will always have their place in a home. But in 2022, the greenery will be elevated by other natural elements and materials such as travertine, marbles, terracotta, and stoneware. Earthenware mugs and palace settings have made a huge comeback, as have limestone textures across backsplashes and architectural details like columns.
 
Even the plants themselves are being swapped out. The popular fiddle leaf fig is being replaced by calathea and deep pink and wine-colored house plants like begonias and variegated species like monstera and curvy-edged greenery like the alocasia.

Sustainable and Eco-friendly Decor
Sustainable elements and eco-friendly decor are still one of the biggest trends in 2022 and we don’t see this going away any time soon. Bamboo, cork, recycled glass, aluminum and other eco-friendly materials are just a few of the sustainable materials you will find popping up online and in stores.
 
Rugs made of renewable resources such as wool, sisal and jute, offer a natural decor element to a room, while also helping to create a healthier indoor air quality. Smart home technology falls into this trend as well, with its energy-saving capabilities.

Browns and Earthy Hues
Balancing out Pantone’s 2022 Very Peri color of the year, a purply-blue hue, is shades of browns and earthy hues. These warm tones offer a lovely complementing color to this soft shade. Not to mention, browns such as neutral tans and deep rich chocolates offer a bit more character than your once popular grays.

Of course, you can lean into the earth-toned spectrum with red and green undertones. Think rusts, terra cottas, caramels and even a lighter pastel peach-brown hue.
 
Tan and chocolate colors have also made a comeback due to the next 2022 home decor trend on our list – the retro-inspired 70s throwback. While we’re not suggesting pairing it with an avocado green or mustard yellow, there are many lovely brown shades that offer a rich, inviting look and feel.

Retro-inspired Decor and Motifs
Aside from the brown color palettes that push vintage vibes are other retro decor, motifs and patterns. Sporadic touches of secondhand decor items and vintage-inspired decor offer a nice throwback to the 70s era and can brighten the space with a pop of color.
 
Plus, retro-inspired decor and repurposed vintage items do double duty, offering a sustainable approach to homes and spaces.

Bold Sculptural Furniture
Tuxedo-style sofas and square, boxy edges of the furniture are on their way out. Instead, this look is being replaced by softer curves, sweeping lines and other contoured elements. A contoured sofa invites you in, embracing you with welcoming armrests. Curved tempered glass tops on coffee tables and arched bookshelf cabinets also lend softer curves.
 
Curvaceous lines like these also offer a more eye-catching sculptural look and feel to a space and portray the shapes more commonly found in nature.

Maximalist Style
It appears we might be seeing the last days of the minimalist trend. While some prefer a neat and tidy home, the maximalist style is having its moment in the sun. In lieu of zen-like interiors with clean aesthetics, there are ornate furniture and decor paired with richly layered patterns, colors and textures. Think plush fabrics like velvets, mohair and fringed sofas and chairs.
 
Canopy beds are a perfect example of maximalist style, making a bedroom a tad more ‘extra’ with its classically carved headboard, posts and finials. Explore more ways to pull off the maximalist style.

Multifunctional Spaces
Due to the pandemic creating a need for privacy and seclusion, open floor plans are thought to be mostly extinct. However, that doesn’t mean that homeowners have not made the most of each individual space. When we used to use one large communal space to gather, in 2022, we have transformed each segmented area into a multifunctional space. Instead of a designated single-use room, we are finding clever ways to integrate several activities into one space. For example, a guest room and home gym. Another example might be a dining room with a wall-to-wall shelving unit that presents a home library collection. 

The color king chooses classic blue as its color of the year

If there are fifty shades of gray, count on triple that for an old favorite: blue. Pantone gets this and, in typical fashion, is not afraid to lean on it for its 2020 “color of the year” designation.

The marquee source for go-to color advice, Pantone Color Institute™ supplies designers, graphic and print artists, and hobbyists with definitive hue-related tips and hints. Its licensed shades offer industry standard consistency as they create vivid, sublime, or subtle colors. For 2020, Pantone has selected classic blue as its annual designee.

And classic it is, as this version of blue is a compelling blend of rich and neutral, dark and medium; its utility in home interior design, clothing, and art is unlimited. Blue is making a comeback in the second decade of the 21st Century, and Pantone is celebrating in style. This is a win-win for designers of denim clothing, and an intriguing potential boost for designers of modern furnishings.

Among shades on the master list of Pantone blues that sing the blues are navy to royal, French to robin’s egg, and sky to Copen. Classic blue seems to be a happy medium with contemporary significance. Find it in bed linens, tapestries, furniture finishes, artwork, and even kitchen appliances. Blessed with versatility, it’s still a really gorgeous shade you’ll want to focus on and work with.
 
Seeing is believing
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Consider this eye-catching paint job, courtesy of none other than classic blue:

​Classic blue velvet offers a rich, romantic feel to this velvet upholstered chair:

​And casual is as casual does, with this high-top sports shoe reaping the benefits of Pantone’s honored color:

Win in Sin City – the Las Vegas Summer Market

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas – unless you’re lucky enough to snag a spectacular new inventory product or product line.

In case the Las Vegas Summer Market has not crossed your radar screen, you’ll want to get up to speed. This annual event kicks off its 2019 shindig from July 28 through Aug. 1 with a better-than-ever list of exhibitors selling home goods you may want to consider for your inventory.
Ecommerce merchants and others gather for the extravaganza featuring up to 50,000 visitors perusing exhibits from more than 500 exhibitors. The Market is the largest of its kind on the West Coast. It’s a social, commercial, and educational experience you won’t want to miss.

If you sell home furnishings and décor, you’re well aware that the competition is mind-bending. There is no shortage of product offerings, and choosing from among them can be daunting. Why not treat yourself to a weekend in one of the country’s most prolific cities for everything fun?
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The Summer Market features more than 4,300 brands and lines of stellar home goods in a wide array of price ranges. More than 500 unique temporary exhibitors will entice with unique offerings. Visualizing, touching, and trying out goods that represent your brand as a seller will build confidence in your inventory and make you more knowledgeable on how to meet customer needs.

What can go wrong when you celebrate a design-forward palette? Not much, according to Pantone LLC, an entity devoted to the wonderful world of color. Pantone shades appear as go-to matching guides for artists, interior designers, and just about everyone engaged in a pursuit of imagery.

For 2019, the nod goes to “Living Coral” as Pantone’s Color of the Year designation. And there are good reasons why.

First, it never hurts when old and new engender the same emotion. Coral is a fave; a mainstay from Mid-Century days among cutting edge designers. Its rich melon base with a spicy red ingredient woke up living rooms, apparel, and even some automobiles with warmth and pizzazz.
Living Coral emulates its ancestor, but adds in a pinkish tone that brightens. It offers golden undertones to embellish warm palettes. And it enlivens both infrastructure and accent décor with a personality all its own.
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Coral’s origin is, of course, rooted in cold water ocean reef environments. Its heyday in wearability celebrated fashionable necklaces, bracelets, and rings. The substance comes in a variety of shades, but for consumer purposes, the melon-based hue is most popular.

​Doesn’t it seem like there was way more to do in the bath as a kid?
 
If you’re anything like me, sitting at a desk all day hurts my neck and back. I spend entire days dreaming of stepping into the bathtub and slipping away into calm, fragrant bliss but when I finally pour in epsom salts, I’m bored. Immediately. My record shortest bath? Three minutes. Which, apparently, is only 4 seconds longer than the record for world’s shortest bath. Anyway, I’m just glad that my current apartment doesn’t charge me for water.
 
I still want to like baths, though. I’ve tried to battle this bathtub ennui by watching movies on my tablet (from the top of the closed toilet seat), using bath bombs, reading a book -- but the pages always get all wet and I can never drink water without dripping condensation all over the floor. The guiltiness of not working on anything always creeps up on me, as well -- my partner calls it a symptom of being a workaholic. But I’m determined to make baths work for me.
 
My jaw dropped the first time I saw the Me Time Bamboo Bath Tray Caddy at Urban Outfitters. Its sustainable bamboo construction fits in with the motif of my minimalist-inspired, plant heavy apartment and remains modern with metal arms. The bamboo also resists mildew, so that’s perfect -- especially since my apartment doesn’t have the best built-in ventilation (do they ever?). The metal arms are especially helpful, since they adjust to fit across any size bathtub, so I can take it with me when I move or go on longer trips.

Let’s face it, this last part of winter, when it seems like it’s been months since we felt the warmth of the sun, it’s not fun. But it doesn’t have to be so bad. We’re going to talk about warming up your decor for winter, getting through whatever the winter equivalent of the dog days of summer are.

Can we start with the obvious? It warms up your decor and you. Add a gorgeous, plush throw blanket to the back of a sofa or armchair. We’re partial to this one from Pottery Barn, because let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to curl up in all that softness. A soft gray shade adds a contemporary touch to an already-appealing design.

We like this one from Ethan Allan, too. An oversized cable knit reminds us of snowed in days spent at grandma’s house, while maintaining a modern, updated look for the living room. Not only does this throw add warmth, it delivers a substantial dose of texture, creating dimensionality in any space.
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Last throw we’re coveting this winter is from Wayfair, a cozy fleece Sherpa blanket that begs for an afternoon binging Netflix. It’s a classic for a reason, and softness and warmth simply radiate from this enticing throw. Great for the end of the bed and curling up in the afternoon, it’s stylish enough for the living room, too. 

What’s popular right now? What are customers looking to add to their home, and what are the trends likely to drive sales?

Cashing in on the latest trends is a huge part of a successful ecommerce platform, but it must be balanced against the risk of being overly focused only on what’s trendy in the moment.
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We’ve curated a list of a few current design trends that offer stylish place right in the sweet spot—trendy enough to inspire sales, not so trendy as to be out of date in less than ninety days.