Design and homebuilding experts Carol Orona, Stace McGee, and CR Herro discuss 2022 furniture trends, including the return of built-in storage, minimalist interiors, and buyers choosing fewer but more durable, natural-material pieces. They also note rising consumer awareness of VOCs, off-gassing, and indoor air quality when furnishing a home.
00:00:06:20 - 00:00:25:29
Carol Orona: Were more storage space, but organize storage spaces. We're seeing built ins coming back. We're actually seeing less furniture. You don't see dressers like you used to see dressers and China hutches and China cabinets. It's all built ins. That's the biggest thing. And they're wanting more durable and natural materials.
00:00:26:00 - 00:00:50:26
CR Herro: Creating communal spaces. Because so many people are so locked into their screens, they're being very quietly dissociated. A lot of the interior design trends, furniture based, is very much around flexibility and pragmatic expansion of uses. And with that, I'm starting to see a resurgence of built ins, which is interesting. I love built.
00:00:50:26 - 00:01:05:01
Carol Orona: Ins when they buy something to buy the best that they can, but they don't buy a lot. That's what we've noticed, and that's why the houses are a little bit more empty. But they do buy the best quality that they can afford. You'll see solid woods or you'll see very clean patterns.
00:01:05:05 - 00:01:35:23
CR Herro: I'm seeing the beginning of a trend away from a disposable economy. People are learning. There's a big cost to short term, low durability, throwaway furniture. So. So I'm definitely seeing, you know, more substantive materials that take a bigger beating in better materials that take a better cleaning so that furniture is more durable. And, you know, I think that there's a growing understanding of sustainability that we just can't keep checking all this stuff in a landfill and hoping for the best.
00:01:35:24 - 00:01:39:25
CR Herro: People in certain rooms very much so are making.
00:01:39:25 - 00:01:53:08
Stace McGee: Sure that they get durable, long lasting products. They do understand that there is a definite quality level, but I would say that that not a lot of them go to the really high end quality level.
00:01:53:09 - 00:02:10:14
Carol Orona: They know about the pollen, they know about the smoke because it affects their breathing and their lungs and their allergies and things like that. But you don't notice what the chemicals are doing. If you are bringing new furniture in and out in the garage for about a week or two, because if you put it in right away, the house is going to smell up.
00:02:10:14 - 00:02:20:13
Carol Orona: And that's why kind of what we're also seeing is less of Bolt Street because people are afraid like carpet, you know, what is it collecting? What am I maintaining in.
00:02:20:13 - 00:02:38:13
CR Herro: The house? The awareness of indoor air quality was certainly punctuated by Covid and people being trapped in their house. People get in the internet and start with Covid and then learn about VOCs and then learn about off gassing. And so there is a growing sophistication in fires, making more informed buying sessions. But it's 18 months old.
00:02:38:14 - 00:02:50:16
Carol Orona: That they're going to buy something. It's going to be an investment and the best quality. They're more aware of materials. You don't see the plastics 1964.
00:02:50:18 - 00:03:10:15
CR Herro: As people use these homes in a little bit more intense than their furniture, right? So they're looking at furniture that stands up better, that it cleans easier. They're starting to differentiate the well-made from the not fill made the easy to maintain versus not easy to maintain. And that's going to change in a very good way. Their future purchases.
00:03:10:15 - 00:03:27:04
Carol Orona: Minimalism I think in everything that they're doing, and it's now hitting the housing market as well as, I think the furniture market, they're freer to move about and they like that freedom. And so the house is tend to have very, very simple floor plans, very energy efficient floor plans.
00:03:27:05 - 00:03:43:19
CR Herro: They vote for the company that made the product with their dollars. And so they care about the company, right? They care about the company lines up with the quality of their product. They stand behind it, but also the good company that they align with their ethics and morals.
00:03:43:20 - 00:04:00:02
Carol Orona: I've seen people move in with next to nothing with furniture, and then six months later, that's about what they still have. And I usually tell people to do that. It's like, don't bring everything in clutter of your house, live in your house for a while and decide what you really want and what you don't.
00:04:00:02 - 00:04:20:17
CR Herro: Want, whether it's color or function or just cost. Furniture is a much bigger decision, and I can't say that it's been made to be easy for consumers yet to find the answers to the things we've been talking about this whole time. How durable is it? How well is it made? How easy is it to clean? How responsible was the company that made it?
00:04:20:18 - 00:04:25:11
CR Herro: How will it match? It's a bigger challenge than I think the marketplace is adapted to.