My Visit To the Furniture Market - Design Trends

Pin It  Highpoint Furniture Market is a showcase of all the latest and greatest in design trends. It comes twice a year and is probably one of my favorite perks as a designer. I took a couple pictures on my last visit of my favorite concepts.


I want to go ahead and apologize for the photo quality. Some of the vendors don't like you taking a bunch of pictures so I had to take a few of them in stealth mode.


I saw a whole lot of gilded mirrors in all sizes at almost every booth I visited. This particular display was going up a set of stairs which I thought was a very clever and whimsical use of space.

This was one area of the show that had original vintage items. I thought this splatter look was very interesting. Now, I remember when splatter was really big back in the late 90s and I loved it then but it was more of a neon color scheme. Once I had noticed these lamps I felt like I was seeing quite a lot of fabrics with the splatter pattern on them but this time in chic hues like maroon and bell flower blue. I thought this would be a fun DIY for an office or a kids room if you are trying to jazz up a space.

I cannot tell you how many floral fabrics I must have seen. I especially liked the mixture of florals on a  modern sofa or florals on a vintage or antique chair. Gave me some ideas for the loveseat in my living room that needs to be recovered.
This one was my favorite, can anyone guess why?

This Thanksgiving I'm thankful for many things but two of them in particular are;

1. That antlers in all sizes are back and cooler than ever. I love the little carved wooden plaques that some of them come on. I have seen this trend hint around for the last year or so but be ready for a huge amount of them to pop into the market and local stores soon.

2. Many of them are coming in resins that look so real you would never know the difference  There is a mixture in this photo of vintage pieces and resin ones.

On another note this is not the first collection of items paired all together that I saw, remember the mirrors above? Collections of all kinds of things like plates, keys, teacups, buttons, or mirrors all put together on a mantle or a wall is a definite trend.

Now go hit those flea markets and find yourself some vintage antlers.

I was really tickled when I saw this up on the wall and pretty impressed with the creativity. I had one of those "why didn't I think of that" moments. This is a nice option if you want to save money, you can find unfinished wood plaques similar to this at Home Depot then just find some antler looking sticks and glue them on the plaque or drill some holes and attach with a strip of leather. Most fabric stores have scrap leather in a bin you can choose from for super cheap. Notice again, it's a collection of stick antlers...I'm tellin ya collections are huge.

This picture has a lot going on but I wanted you guys to see these crazy lights.

 Velvet curtains..Notice the rope that ties them back. Industrial concepts are adding more plush elements lately.

I love Ralph Lauren's lighting. Medium to high on the price scale but oh so gorgeous.

This was the outside facade of a building I saw in Highpoint. The man that owned the building had been collecting these shutters and adding to them for years to cover the outside. He just recently finished his project. I think this would be so cute on a pool house or a shed, a kids playhouse, even a doghouse. There are so many shutters at a local Restore or Habitat for Humanity location that could be used.

Those of you that know me in person have heard me rant about recycling oyster shells, well here is a good excuse to start doing it. Check out this light fixture, also saw it on mirror frames (DIY project maybe?)

Another industrial use of a pulley and rope to tie back a curtain.