A HOMEBOUND YEAR HAS MEANT RETHINKING OUR ROOMS, BELONGINGS

In normal times, new trends in home design and home decorating bubble up simply because it’s time for something different.

A few years of bold color and homeowners start painting things gray. After enough minimalism, a hunger for plaids and florals comes roaring back.

But this time last year, a cultural experiment began that changed our relationships with houses and condos and apartments around the world.

Suddenly, constantly, we were inside them.

So much of public life – work, school, exercise, shopping, dining and (virtually) socializing – began happening entirely within the walls of home, at least for those able to do so.

Architects and interior designers say that after 12 months of varying degrees of lockdown, people are discovering what does and doesn’t work in their homes, and becoming more confident about acting on it. They’re realizing how familiar spaces can serve them better.

“Out of frustration comes brilliant ideas,” says Lisa Cini, founder and president of Mosaic Design Studio.

Some trends:

REPURPOSING ROOMS

Amhad Freeman, founder of the Nashville, Tennessee-based Amhad Freeman Interiors, says clients now have time to really think about what they need from a room.

He recently helped convert an upstairs room into a multipurpose space where kids are “not afraid to jump around on the furniture.” The room has desks for schoolwork, but “it’s more of a lounge now, so that they can do a lot of different things instead of just focusing on the computer,” he says.

Another client hired Freeman to redesign an unused home office into an elegant, in-house cocktail bar.