Decorating in the New Normal

Lee Braden and kitty in her “Hearth Room”

“Don’t look back. It’s not where you are going.” I can’t count the many times I have heard that adage as I struggle to survive recent life shocks. But the opposite is true when it comes to decorating in the New Normal.

A huge sector in home design today is fixated on the past. Let’s be clear, however. Not the immediate “Before Times.” The beige Restoration Hardware look that dominated decor just before lockdown is largely kaput among design devotees.

Something different happened during the pandemic.

The Covid storm caused a young sapling of design ideas to take firm roots. Today’s rooms are richly colored , layered spaces peppered with vintage treasures that wink at history and often include elements handcrafted by the homeowners themselves. While decorating in the New Normal has a historic foundation, it isn’t copycat design. Unlike the revivals seen in the Victorian period, today’s Neo-Revivalists mix and match period styles with aplomb adding a dollop of bold contemporary touches. They also are individualists. Big box stores are not for them. They don’t want what everyone else has, resulting in a new bull market for vintage and antique furnishings. Upcycling furniture feels good to them. This tribe has a strong “can do” attitude borne out of captivity. Neo-Revivalists take on home improvement tasks that make earlier DIYers seem like kindergarteners.

Here are 5 Decorating Trends for the New Normal and the Neo-Revivalists Behind Them

1. Twisting the Past to Fit the Present

Since magazines were shut-in like everyone else, décor lovers turned to design books for inspiration. Eyes were opened to homes decorated in the historic period styles more typically depicted in hard volumes. Today, however, no one wants a room based on one era, just those particular period touches they happen to like.

Lauren Caron of Studio Laloc has captivated Instagram audiences (@studiolaloc) with the restoration of her Pacific Northwest Craftsman home with nods to the English Arts and Crafts style. Both her dining room and her scullery are cult favorites. But she mixes it up. In the dining room, she added a federal-style sideboard and modern chandelier to her home’s Craftsman built-ins. In her scullery (the name itself harkens back to an old English country house), she personally painted supersized flowers on the floor that recall Warhol’s oversized blooms.

2. Signature Style

While seeking something available and in-stock for delivery during quarantine, people began trolling sites like eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Etsy for home furnishings to refresh their rooms. They soon brought home well-priced deals that gave their space a signature style unlike any found in a catalog. Furnishing with old brown furniture and other vintage home accessories is now solidly back. Alisa Bovino (@aglassofbovino) vowed to decorate an entire room from Facebook Marketplace and she succeeded. (She says it helps to measure but the main rule is to buy what you like.)

3. The UnKitchen

Now that we are using our kitchens more than ever before, we are personalizing them with antique cupboards and tables (instead of fitted cabinetry and islands), upholstery and kitchenalia. Nostalgic for a simpler home that doesn’t double as a work and school place, perhaps we wistfully remember cozily sitting while mom and grandma did all the cooking for us.

Gone is the era of the “great room.” Everyone wants walls. Neo-Revivalists prefer turning the kitchen into a snug “keeping room.”— at phrase used in Colonial times for a large kitchen with comfortable seating. Erica Swagler created one in her home.

Former Editor in Chief at House Beautiful, Sophie Donelson, dubbed this trend the “unkitchen” during an influential Clubhouse hosted by Jacqueline Wein of Sotheby’s and vintage seller, Anna Weaver that attracts the Neo-Revivalism crowd.

Published in Bible of British Taste Blog

Jacqueline Wein’s own kitchen has elements of the look.

4. Artisanal DIY

Folks became artisans during the pandemic because no one wanted a paid contractor inside their house. Weekends were spent watching home improvement videos and then undertaking heretofore professional grade tasks. Not just simple paint jobs and easy plumbing, these quintessential do-it-yourselfers made designer furniture, murals and millwork.

Lee Braden (@cornerofsunset) wowed the web with her “hearth” room and library that she and her husband redid themselves in their 1990’s builder’s special. Don’t miss how they incorporated the air grate into their mural design plus the millwork detail in the green library. That’s skill.

Alisa Bovino was besieged with orders for her handcrafted burl wood coffee table. The how-to is up on her blog.

5. The Stooping Score

Neo-Revivalists are idealistic as well as individualistic. They view furnishing with someone else’s trash as good for both the wallet and the envrionment. Lockdown-induced neighborhood walks took dumpster diving to greater heights, spawning a new descriptive term “stooping.” The Instagram account @stoopingnyc is a sensation with over 160K followers with similar accounts in Brooklyn and Queens.

Now posting a dumpster gem on Insta is a badge of honor. I succumbed. The painted chair was stooped on Park Avenue. Sure looks like a “fancy chair” from the late 1800s to me. But, as a Neo-Revivalist, it’s provenance doesn’t matter much as long as I like it.

How will you decorate in the New Normal?