Our executive editor and interiors guru Giles Kime offers his top trends for the year ahead.
Coloured baths
No, no, not avocado. A few years ago, the Water Monopoly blazed a trail with its Rockwell bath, available in a handful of pastel shades, but coloured tubs are now being used to lend a distinctive look to bathrooms, adding colour and much-needed fun. Drummonds does a range in a fetching choice of shades.
The lazy Susan
Vanessa Konig’s lazy Susan.
Thomas Jefferson, the third American president, is supposed to have invented this ingenious bit of kit for his (presumably rather dilatory) daughter, Susan. In the Edwardian era, they were one of the labour-saving devices — together with the electric mangle and the dumb waiter — that took pressure off diminishing staff numbers. Now, they’re back: designer Vanessa Konig has created a new 21st-century incarnation in jaunty colours that looks to take the world by storm.
Herringbone brick floors
If there’s one buzzword in interior design right now, it’s texture. Together with weaves and roughly hewn wood, brickwork floors are bringing an industrial vibe to both indoor and outside spaces.
Decoration for decoration’s sake
When design historians look back at taste in the early 2020s, they will see the bejewelled (and slightly unhinged) extravagance celebrated by the V&A Museum’s Fabergé exhibition as the final nail in the coffin of minimalist restraint.
Maximalism is here to stay, so modernists, minimalists and hair-shirt ascetics would be advised to emigrate for a decade. Or perhaps two.
Coloured glass
Clear glass? That’s just, like, soooooo 2021. The multicoloured Murano-style variety is a popular look, but, frankly, any coloured glass will do, with vintage scoring particularly highly and mixing colours strongly encouraged. Martin Brudnizki’s And Objects recently dreamt up this scented candle ensconced in a Murano vessel that typifies the look.
Gloss paint
It perhaps seems counter-intuitive that something costing less than £10 at Homebase can lend such a louche, luxurious look to a space. However, there’s no doubt we’re discovering that a little gloss goes a very long way in the transformation of both rooms and woodwork. For real Hicksian drama, black is the obvious choice, but any moody hue will add glamour to even the pokiest room.
The mini sauna
Visitors to the gargantuan Waterloo premises of luxury bathroom specialist C. P. Hart can’t have failed to notice the cute, pocket-sized sauna in the scheme devised by interior-design practice Taylor Howes. At last, the home-spa experience is no longer the preserve of those with palatial bathrooms.
The outdoor kitchen
During lockdown, we made the startling discovery that there aren’t many things we can do inside that we can’t do outside, notably cooking. Clive Christian, Officine Gullo and Gaze Burvill offer all-weather kitchens fully kitted out ready for every culinary activity, from fridges and hobs to pizza ovens and Teppanyaki grills.
The cabinet curtain
Want to make a kitchen, utility room or bathroom look a little homespun? Simply replace doors with curtains—if not on an entire run of cupboards, then perhaps only one. The gathered look adds a folksy feel that adds an instant Mrs Tiggy-Winkle vibe and offers a great way to inject pattern and colour.
The bathroom armchair
In case you haven’t noticed, the bathroom is the new sitting room. Paintings, prints, televisions and even upholstered furniture are all finding their way into bigger bathrooms, offering exciting new places to entertain guests.
