The Next Big Thing in Design

Mid Century design has always had its collectors, and always will. I think the fact that huge swaths of real estate in this country are Post War means that there will always be a strong market for things that look good in those environments.



But let's be honest with ourselves...the craze of Mid Century; the insinuation of it into every level of design and commerce, into every level of society, probably spells its doom. Three years ago, no one over 30 was familiar with the term "Mid Century." Today, elderly folks are using all the right key terms to accurately attribute their furniture on Craigslist. Or innacurately. Suddenly everything is Mid Century. The awful table made out of a wagon wheel. The "French Provincial" girl's bedroom set.



We are visually saturated with these images, and the eye grows weary. Rather than finding the lines fresh and stimulating, they will begin to seem a little old. Common. When every mop and kitty litter commercial begins to feature homes decorated in vaguely or overtly Mid Century style, it's a good sign that the renaissance of MCM is over. It's been appropriated by the mainstream, and it has become, for the time being, boring.



So what's on the horizon? If we know one thing, it's that trends swing to extremes: once overstuffed and comfy got old, we turned to clean, lean, and modern. So, if the slim, uncomplicated lines of Mid Century seem overplayed, what will the market turn to next? What, exactly, is the antithesis of the 60s?

Interviews as far back as 2006 and 2007 have tastemakers declaring the 80s as The Next Big Thing. "Mark my words," they say, and yet several years later it hasn't truly come to fruition.

At an auction several years ago, a designer, mistaking my friendliness for naivete (happens all the time), decided to share with me her trade secrets. Pointing to a Mid Century chair she said, "Whatever you do, don't buy that stuff. It's on its way out. Florals and Modern Country are making a comeback."

One thing we do know is that we won't, currently, find the Next Big Thing all that attractive. Maybe right now we even find it repulsive. That's because it hasn't been overexposed yet, and retailers haven't adapted it to make it more approachable.



So, maybe Kelly Wearstler's weird mauve lacquered 80s hotel furniture is just a frontrunner for the styles we will all be dying for in a few years. Maybe we love to hate her because we don't (yet) understand her. Maybe the visual equivalent of elevator music really is the Next Big Thing.

What's your forecast for the NBT? What trends are you spotting?

Make Your Own Industrial, Danish, or Antique Furniture

So, how often do you have a specific furniture design in mind that you can't find ANYWHERE? Or the pieces you DO fall in love with all seem to be in the four-digit range?

Maybe you spend hours on Craigslist or Ebay waiting for just the right piece to come up, and it never does.

Think about making your own. Not from scratch--this isn't the "This Old House" blog. But you can source the basic components of the furniture you want, and assemble the coolest custom pieces.

And believe me, if you can put together that IKEA Billy bookcase, then you can most certainly do this.

If you love industrial chic--things that look like they're from old factories, schoolhouses, and science labs, this is a great site for inspiration. And sticker shock.




Figure out what the basic components are and then source them at Home Depot and Ebay:

These huge, uber-industrial casters are only $30 for a set of four on Ebay!



Add them to some steel shelving, $53 at Home Depot or Amazon. BONUS: it can be assembled horizontally as a workbench. Attach metal casters for an industrial bar cart, desk, or moveable kitchen island.



Or to these pine IKEA shelves that most people use for garage storage (this would look a lot like the first picture, don't you think?)



Or search Ebay or Craigslist for old wooden crates and attach the casters for a rad rolling toy chest, laundry cart, or storage bench seat!



Like the organic-modern vibe? Shockingly cheap to make.

Search "wood slabs" or "burl slabs" on Ebay. Both these pieces were only around $35.



Search "hairpin legs" for the bases. Screw them in.

Depending on the size of your slabs and hairpin legs, you can make anything from a huge dining table, to a long bench, to a pair of little side tables (total projected cost around $70).



Or attach them to a generic dresser for a George Nelson look:



These are the tapered wooden legs I bought to make my son's "Danish" bed. I attached them to the bottom of a captain's bed and painted the whole unit black. Voila-Danish storage bed.

These come in tons of sizes and you can attach them to the bottom of an ottoman, stool, bench, wood slab, or remnant of marble or quartz from a local countertop place.



Search Ebay for old wooden tripod bases, and with around $8 in electrical parts you'll have the most amazing industrial/salvaged/antique floor lamp.



For $2250 less than this one on 1st Dibs!



Want to Anthropolgie-ize an armchair or ottoman, or construct something completely custom?



You just can't fake the patina of real antique legs. These were available (very cheaply, I might add) on Ebay under "wood furniture legs":



Add $8/yard linen from Premier Prints:



And here's some others I loved:






Are your creative juices flowing? What would you consider making?


SOURCES FORTHCOMING!

Design Skool-Mixology

Can geometric-modern, African, and Western co-exist in one room?

Can and should.






Think of your home as a dinner party...the conversation is always better when there's a mix of people.

Ditch the floor-to-ceiling Mid Century or West Elm and invite some new folks to the party!

"Hand-made with natural materials" is the common theme here. The pieces can "have a conversation" without boring us with same-ness.

A charcoal wall, giant fig tree, Navajo rug, and brass thingies bring it all together.







Shazzam!

felt lamp found via Jamie's new project here-thanks ladies!

Doing It

I've made a little headway on the oldest boy's room. Do you want to take a peek?



If you don't remember the general feel I was going for, I made a basic design plan here.




Then I bought the bed and pillow here.



Bedding is difficult for an older boy. His pirate sheets totally didn't work anymore. A comforter? Hurl.



I found this charcoal grey cashmere blanket at the thrift store yesterday (it's from that brief period of time when Banana Republic made some luxury home/gift items and cashmere baby clothes). It was new, the right size, and $12.95. The antique bed means I have to walk a fine line between granny and hip/young. The bedding looks masculine and kind of vintage militaria to me. I think it works.

We're going for a dark grey-blue wall and tested out some big swatches. The darkest one got the thumbs up.

But my most favorite addition is the brushed bronze starburst lamp. We had to have an electrician punch holes up the wall and across the ceiling to put it in. Our 90-year old house is almost completely timbered...there's only a couple inches between each framing beam, whereas most homes have one beam per wall and one across the ceiling. Thus the zigzagging holes.



Now we need to get the rest of the furniture (I'm thinking industrial) and art (some cool art posters from Poster Cabaret?)




This vintage Kevi chair would look delish in here, right?

Design Skool-Charlotte Perriand

Alternate title: "Proof that lady parts don't make you soft and stupid"

History doesn't march forward in a singular path towards enlightenment.
More often, it just goes around in circles, like a a merry-go-round passing the same marker over and over again, not necessarily better or worse or different than the time before.

Women didn't first enter the workforce in the 1940s. Or the 1960s. We might have even been more daring, more free, more experimental at the turn of the century than we are in our image-conscious good-girl world today.



I'm thinking of Charlotte Perriand, whose accomplishments in the 1920s and 30s make the 21st century look almost medieval.





She designed chairs for le Corbusier (the ones that are commonly attributed only to him), kitchens for his famous Unite d'Habitation apartments, pre-fab buildings with Jean Prouve, the League of Nations in Geneva, Espace Unesco in Paris, and, my favorite, these leather and chrome sling chairs and and barstools for Les Arc ski lodge.





You can click here for a more comprehensive list of her many accomplishments.

This was her response when they tried to make her get the coffee--a precursor to bra-burning?

Design Skool

This is going to be a new feature, okay?
Together we are going to get skooled in the world of design.

Mostly I want us all to get to know lesser-known designs and designers from the Mid-Century era because they are WAY more exciting than the over-exposed normal stuff (tomorrow, Charlotte Perriand...doesn't ring a bell, does it? It should, it will, and you will die, but don't skip ahead!)

But today, let's go to Australia. Australians are crazy drunken koala lovers. All of them. No but really, as a whole Australians don't seem to be big rule-followers. So, Australian design seems very fresh to me.

Let's look at this pretty great example of ethnic-modern by Thomas Hamel, koala-hugging Aussie dude extraordinaire.

kuba cloth pillows + sofa of your dreams + sexy graphic ethnic rug =



candy-colored leather + every house needs a Persian rug =



super-classical ebonized klismos chairs + fretwork screens + lean/modern chandeliers=



built-in sectional that goes on for days, oh my gosh I would never leave =



What makes this modern, despite lots of antique and classical pieces?

Chalky-white walls

Bleached and pickled woods

Heaps of natural fibers (that's fibres to you Aussies)

No heavy/dark/ornate fixtures or old-people art (you know, gold framed portraits etc.)

Good job, Thomas Hamel. You have the Modernhaus seal of approval. The apex of your career, I'm sure!

Read more about talented Aussie dude here.

p.s., Thom (can I call you that?) ummm can we re-think the shell mirror though? I mean, I know the house is in Florida and you're referencing the ocean thing and all, but I'd almost rather see something cheeky like a giant plastic Marlin hanging there. Every house needs something sort of out of place to throw things off a bit, yeah?