Matt Gurry

We sure do ask a lot of the modern living room. Once a setting reserved for receiving and entertaining guests, it now doubles as the casual hub for everyday activities in so many homes. This multipurpose identity has come to make furnishing the space a bit of a challenge. Pieces that feel a bit more formal aren’t traditionally the same ones that say, “Hey, come jump on me and watch hours of a series you have already seen a dozen times!

One of the most surprising hurdles people run into when designing their own homes is coming to terms with the permanence of it all. Sure, you may love your sofa when you originally commit to it, but what happens if your tastes change as the years go by? The same question stands for your wall color, your linens, pretty much every element of your home.

You’re looking at your room, and it checks all the boxes you think it should: It has a sofa that’s stylish and comfortable. It has a coffee table that’s attractive and functional. And it’s painted a color that’s the product of weeks of decision-making and hours of taping. So why doesn’t the room feel as composed and cozy as the ones in your inspiration pics? The thing that’s missing is so obvious…but so easy to overlook.

Apartment Therapy’s lifestyle director Taryn Williford lives in a beautiful loft in Atlanta that over the years she has designed with a calm and comfortable touch. The loft is one of seven in a converted pickle factory, which gave the building its sweet (but briny?) name of the Pickle Factory Lofts.Taryn describes her style as Industrial Eclectic, an aesthetic that embraces her space’s former life but warms it up with cheeky tchotchkes, well-placed dramatic colors, and plants.

If you’re looking to bring some of this aesthetic into your home but don’t want to go too “Grandma’s cabin,” consider a sub-style we’re calling Cottage Chic. This look draws from nostalgia and comfort, but streamlines it just enough to work in contemporary homes. To illustrate the style, we shopped the collection of At Home®. It’s the home decor superstore that has everything from little accents to big pieces, all at an affordable price point.

Because Boho’s going to be around for a while, we can confidently suggest you expand the look from your interior design to your outside spaces. We’ve rounded up 14 items that give any space — indoors or out — a Boho refresh. All these pieces come from At Home®, the home decor superstore that simply has it all…and all for affordable prices. Allow yourself to get lost in its aisles, and you’ll find the one little piece that makes a room pop.

For this style refresh, we married classic style with contemporary comfort in a look we’re calling Classic Cool. It uses modern, simple lines as its base while quoting from the more fun parts of styles past. All of these pieces were sourced from At Home®, the home decor superstore that offers a huge variety of pieces at an affordable price point. Whether you’re hunting for one specific item or looking to let the design muse come to you, At Home stores are a great place to do it.

With Spring Cleaning for Your Mood, we’re helping you get your housekeeping done no matter what state of mind you’re in. For 20 weekdays in April, we’ll focus on cleaning a new area of your space, with three different ways to get it done—so it’s easy to stay on track even when you’re busy, tired, or away from home. And to make it go even better, enter to win your Your Everything-You-Need Spring Cleaning Tool Kit from OXO at the bottom of the post.

Who: Ian Yang, founder and CEO of GantriNominated by: Maxwell Ryan, founder and CEO of Apartment TherapyWhere to follow him: InstagramApartment Therapy’s Class of 2020 Design Changemakers is a specially-selected group of the 20 people in the design world everyone should know about by next year. We asked experts (and you!) to tell us who they think should be included—see the rest of the nominees here.

Name: Kevin Foley Location: Gold Coast, ChicagoSize: 1,000 square feetYears lived in: 3 yearsA few years after the Great Chicago Fire, millionaire businessman Potter Palmer filled in a swampy area on the shore of Lake Michigan and built his family a 42-room mansion. More Gilded Age families followed, and the Gold Coast was born. More than a century later, it’s still a ritzy ZIP code, but every now and then one renter stumbles on a miraculous deal. Kevin Foley is one of those renters.

Left unchecked, it can make your whole house look dull.