Home design: What’s hot, not and why

Remember when you couldn’t wait to paint the living room Millennial Pink? As 2020 gets underway and the annual itch to refresh our spaces hits, that color might not be feeling so fresh. Millennial Pink, like most trends that show up everywhere, all at once, has receded like a splashy (yet subtle, dull, almost beige) pink wave washing out to sea.

Some of us aren’t too torn up about it. “I have never been a pink, purple, girlie girl,” says Lauren Buxbaum Gordon, who in 2019 was named Nate Berkus’ first partner at Nate Berkus Associates, his Chicago-based design firm.

These days, a lot of other designers aren’t feeling it, either. When online marketplace 1stdibs released its annual designer survey this week, the once-ubiquitous shade of pink wound up on the “out” list.

Which leaves room for something entirely different — like the new trends that designers are calling out for 2020.

“Everything is more accessible these days,” says Gordon, “whether you have a huge budget or not, because there are all these resources, even including Etsy, where you can find things that let you get a little more creative and adventurous with design.” The 1stdibs survey noted that designers are finding items online, including on social media platforms such as Instagram — though Gordon warns that she has rarely sourced items on Insta, mainly because “you’re not really sure how things are made or where they’re coming from.”

What’s taking off as pink and purple fade? Nature-inspired green, which can be dark and mysterious, or modern and bright. “I have always felt good about green,” says Gordon, who chose apple green for her 4-year-old daughter’s room in her Chicago townhouse. “I’m drawn to a bunch of different shades of green, and have them throughout my home,” she says. Dark greens in particular, she notes “go with just about anything” because they’re so often found in nature.