This amazing mirror was in the Mr. Brown showroom.
This week, I was lucky enough to go over to North Carolina for a couple days of High Point Market 2015. Each Fall and Spring, the market takes over the town of High Point, North Carolina nearly doubling the population and setting up 11.5 million sq ft of showspace–they literally take over the town. How crazy is that?
North Carolina has long been known for it’s furniture manufacturing so it’s only appropriate that the biggest furniture show would take place there. Much like “Mrket” in NYC, High Point Market is where furniture buyers and interior designers gather to view the collections for the next season.
It was a frenzy of inspiration that will be showing up in posts and future projects, but today I thought I would bring you the highlights. These are some of the trends I think may inspire you as much as they did me.
Whimsical Statement Pieces
When I was in college, it became a running joke that the word “whimsical” always popped up when people were talking about my work. So you can imagine how happy I was to see how playful so many of the pieces were. You can, of course, add as many or as few of these touches as you’d like because often one piece makes a huge impact.
Animal Farm as Comedy
On that same whimsical note, I am pleased to report that designers are finding ways to incorporate animals into designs without real-life taxidermy. Of course, real taxidermy was there because this place had everything. 2 notes from my notebook worth sharing:
1. When given the option to walk past a taxidermy giraffe to use the restroom and just holding it, I will always just hold it. (Husband may find this noteworthy for future road trips.)
2. On booth that shall remain nameless: If Gaston lived in a Toby Keith song, it would look like this showroom.
But, with a couple of real-life exceptions, play animals were used as fanciful accessories that came in every sort of style, shape, and size. A few of my fav examples…
I, of course, also adored the hive pattern that kept showing up. I chose to include the picture below because I heart the bees too!
Furniture can make you feel feelings.
One thing I really love about interior design is it’s ability to make you feel a certain way without you really thinking about it. For instance, I’m pretty sure the Palm Springs-inspired collection by Celerie Kemble on a patio would make me feel like Myrna Loy. Likewise, the soft, touchy-feely items like ticking fabric and rag rugs reminded me of the home I grew up in.
Wood + Concrete
Aside from the natural wood like is shown above, there were so many ways that I saw wood and concrete used to make very modern pieces.
Let there be lights!
At the end of my first night I went to an event at Visual Comfort and discovered that Heaven, for me, is probably some version of a lighting gallery. Some of my lighting picks are below, and we’ll be talking to some of these makers in the coming weeks!
Another trend often showed with lights inside were old-school, grandma-style cloches.
Lesson Learned: Anything under glass looks way more expensive and important.
Mid-Century Modern
Mid-century modern is a trend that is not going away. We all secretly want to live a Mad Men bar-in-the-office lifestyle and be Charles & Ray Eames. What’s wrong with that? Not a thing. The organic lines (check out the pattern on the front of that Dwell Studio sideboard) and the natural woods are beautiful and, in my opinion, can stick around for as long as they like.
We’ll talk more about some of these makers and how to incorporate these trends into your own home in the coming weeks. For now, I’m off to enjoy the weekend!
Happy Saturday!
To watch other videos I’ve made for HGTV.com, click here. 
