News

Life can be a lot. Thankfully, there's art for moments like that!

If you’re still captivated by the Royal Tenenbaums aesthetic, it’s not too late to bring it home.

There’s even a cat house that fits perfectly inside IKEA’s classic square shelving unit, so you can keep all your favorites — books and cats — in one place.

As we prepare to enter a new decade, one paint brand is looking back to a century another. Today, Sherwin-Williams announced its 2020 Color of the Year, and it's a shade that's inspired by Art Deco and the roaring '20s, as well as nature. Any guesses?

If you’re imagining the pile of 2x4s and rusty nails your dad built you back in 90s, think again. Kourtney Kardashian and her ex, Scott Disick, custom designed a playhouse for their three children in Kardashian’s backyard, and this luxe escape is so stunning it could take the cover of Luxury Tiny Homes Magazine. (Which isn’t a thing, but it could be.) Kardashian gave Architectural Digest a look inside the playhouse, which may or may not be nicer than your apartment.

Because a room without a rug just feels bare.

Don’t hold your breath for Glidden’s color of the year: The popular paint brand has announced its decision to opt out of choosing a 2020 hue. While many consumers look to the annual practice for design inspiration (choosing a paint color can get pretty stressful), folks shouldn’t to worry because Glidden’s decision stems from a desire to better prioritize the decorative needs of DIYers who are anxious to get going on their last home makeover projects.

This Palm Springs abode is filled with tribal prints in neutral shades and all of the boho. We love its coordinated, sophisticated look. Get the full tour and then recreate your favorite looks using pieces from Bazaar. NEW Maui Chunky Jute Rug, 8 x 10 – $110 – I purchased this two weeks ago but my boyfriend gave me incorrect measurements and it is too big for our room. It was laid down for one day and then rolled back up.

Now you can own a piece of the Eames House.

They’re not exactly the Care Bears of your childhood, but anything described as “disturbing, unsettling, and precisely what I hope it’d be” is certain to reel us in.

Welcome to Scandi Week—Apartment Therapy’s seven-day focus on all-things Scandinavia (often defined as the countries of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway). Sometimes it seems like the whole world is obsessed with trying to copy this corner of the globe, from its timeless style aesthetic to its now-famous coziness rituals. For the next week, we’ll take a look at all of it—cleaning, pop culture, and of course tons of eye-popping design inspiration.

Your house needs more sloths.

Is it Halloween yet?

Decide if what you need is a little more brains, a little more heart, a little more courage, or you know, just a fresh coat of paint and new throw pillows, and then scroll to get inspired by seven interiors, each paying homage to a different Wizard of Oz character.

All of their minifigs are PERFECT.

Must See TV meets COTY

You could make around $10,000 a year.

This isn't about seat up vs. seat down. This is about the lid, the more important thing.

Flipping through the new IKEA catalog each year gives us more than a just peek into what new products the retailer is adding to shelves; it's a window into what will be big in interiors in the next 12 months. The pages are packed with inspiration, and this year we narrowed it down to eight trends we expect to see a lot more of in 2020.

The author of "Pasta, Pretty Please," and curator of the @saltyseattle Instagram account is known for creative carb-based works of art.

Remember the excitement when the [Sears/JCPenney/Delia*s/American Girl/insert your favorite childhood catalog of choice here] arrived? For me, that feeling is still alive and well. Last week, I eagerly awaited a certain special delivery, and I was not disappointed. In my mailbox I found an advance copy of the 2020 IKEA catalog, and today I get to share it with all of you. The catalog theme is Save Our Sleep, and it’s not hard to imagine why they’ve chosen that focus.

This has both form and function.

Aside from obvious signs like yellowing leaves, it’s difficult to determine your plant’s “mood,” but the Lua makes greenery-to-human communication pretty clear cut.

Here to assist side-sleepers everywhere with getting those recommended seven to eight hours of nightly shuteye is the PillowCube, the self-professed “bed for your head.”

Just when we thought we couldn’t love Target more, we’ve found a new favorite section to browse both in-person and online.

You’ve probably noticed the spike in popularity with everything astrology. It’s no different here at Apartment Therapy, where we write about monthly home horoscopes and the best affordable cities for each zodiac sign. Our latest astrological obsession? Birthdate Candles.

In case you’re still judging yourself for using furniture as a makeshift clothes rack, here’s a reason to shirk your shame immediately: a coat check chair. The tagline for the Kickstarter project sums it up nicely: “Your closet. Reinvented. Into an iconic designer chair. Let your closet join the party.

The story of chintz' '80s heyday and its subsequent decline and return to popularity are just a small part of its evolution.

When’s the last time you ventured over to #FurnitureTwitter? Don’t let the hashtag fool you: This home-centric corner of the web isn’t as bland as it sounds, especially since IKEA now allows you design your own sofa online, and some sofa artists have created truly hilarious masterpieces.  If you’ve never used it, here’s how the customized planning tool works: It gives users the options of size, color and layout.

The effort is to minimize waste and improve the lives of our furry, four-legged friends.

Do you remember the #10YearChallenge that was going around earlier this year? The “challenge” asked that people post a photo of themselves from 2009 next to a photo of themselves in 2019. It was a cute way to reflect and mock our tastes from a decade prior. Then it divulged into one meme after another and honestly, some of them were downright brilliant. Well, the challenge has shape-shifted away from memes.

‘Tis the season to take a dip in cool water or lay out with a drink in hand if only for the sole purpose of putting your super cute swimsuit on display. Yes, we’re talking about pool season, which for many, is one of the most anticipated activities during this sweltering time of year.  One place steel-nerved people will be clamoring to go for a swim in the future is this mind-boggling 360-degree pool infinity pool that’s set to be constructed on top of a London skyscraper.

Only halfway through 2019 and the first wave of 2020 color announcements have begun. This week, PPG revealed that Chinese Porcelain is the first 2020 Color of the Year, and now Behr has unleashed their 2020 Color Trends palette. (June has been feeling very colorful.) We’re not just dealing with one hue, nay, a whole array of 15 that work together to achieve a common goal: a connection to the natural world.

While most of us are welcoming summer, PPG Paints is looking into the future with their 2020 Color of the Year announcement. And being color addicts ourselves, we’re fully on board with this breaking news that fuels our hue-filled lives. Ready to find out what the popular shade is six months in advance? Say hello to Chinese Porcelain, a mix of cobalt and moody ink blue. Why this color, you ask?

With IKEA’s annual Democratic Design Days happening in Sweden last week, information on all the new collections and collaborations are rolling out quicker than this robot can assemble an IKEA chair. The Scandinavian retailer has good news for folks who are constantly on the move: RÅVAROR, a new line of items that briskly transforms small spaces into smart spaces, and packs up just as easily.

Let’s go on a journey, shall we? We’re going to pretend we’re having an outing at the movies together. Now let’s pretend the movie theater we choose is some hip and innovative spot that has double beds instead of chairs. That’s exactly how date nights can go now at the new “VIP Bedroom” theater located in the Cinema Pathe movies compound in Spreitenbach, Switzerland.

Thank you for being a friend, ladies.

Mid-Century Walnut Dresser or Credenza – $650 – Mid-Century Modern double dresser in walnut with six deep drawers. Features figural walnut grain, carved pulls and tapered legs. In excellent vintage condition, showing minor wear consistent with age and use. Height — 31.5 inches Width — 58.25 inches Depth — 17.75 inches. – BROOKLYN From Maxwell:Dear Readers, What are you looking for?

I always find that painting is (relatively) easy and affordable, once you’ve selected your colors, but the process of getting your choices narrowed down is the lion’s share of the work (and for those of us prone to fretting over design decisions, the potential stress, as well).

Have a room that could use an extra dose of drama? This week, Benjamin Moore announced CENTURY, their new luxury line of paint that is not only gorgeous, but has a tactile finish that adds a new experience to a space. They’re calling the finish “soft touch matte,” and it reportedly feels like a soft leather glove.

As we’re known to say around here, painting is an easy and inexpensive way to totally change the look of your space. And while colors come in and out of vogue (neutral whites and grays have reigned supreme for quite some time now), it looks like people might now to be more willing to add a little more hue to their homes.

People have strong opinions on color—in general, and especially the ones they choose to live with and add to their homes. So we find it inherently interesting to see if certain areas prefer one color over another. The people at BEHR recently studied paint sales across the country, and determined each state’s most popular shade.

While we’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of HAY’s collaboration with IKEA (due in stores this October!), the Danish brand has some more great news: They just launched a collection of kitchen items, and they’re available as of today at the MoMA store. HAY Kitchen Market is a curated collection of essentials from HAY’s co-founder Mette Hay.

It’s been a busy year for Flip or Flop star Christina El Moussa, and she’s not slowing down. The HGTV heavyweight, whose split from husband and co-star Tarek El Moussa back in December had the internet in a frenzy, recently opened up her doors to Elle Decor for a home tour.

If you’re over the hues of 2017, you’re in luck—paint companies are steadily releasing their trend reports, along with their 2018 Colors of the Year. Today, we have the pick from Sherwin-Williams, which is “mysterious,” “opulent,” and “inspired by wanderlust.

For plant lovers who’d rather leave watering routines to the horticultural pros, allow us to point you in the direction of Barcelona-based paper artist and set designer Raya Sader Bujana’s miniature paper plants. The little leafy replicas are so eye-catching you’ll instantly want to lean in for a closer look at the details. It’s hard to believe what Bujana can do with only paper as a medium.

The soon-to-be royal won't be returning for Suits' eighth season--and we might miss her apartment the most.

Heading to the movies this holiday season? Well then you should probably be aware that there is some serious travel and house porn hitting an indie movie screen near you. Call Me By Your Name (out in limited release) is a coming-of-age love story set in the Italian countryside during the summer of 1983, and starring Armie Hammer. Hammer plays a 24-year-old research assistant to an art professor who joins the professor and his family at their summer retreat.

If you’ve been missing the on-point mid-century aesthetics of shows like Mad Men and Good Girls Revolt, you might want to watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel strictly for that. The new Amazon show from Amy Sherman-Palladino takes place in the late ’50s and shows us the best apartments the Upper West Side had to offer at the time.

The Shape of Water—Guillermo del Toro’s latest film and nominated for seven Golden Globes—is a modern aquatic fairy tale, the story of a mute woman who falls for a fish-man. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, the interiors provide a peek into the past, the past’s vision of the future, and insight into its memorable characters, who struggle daily with the injustice in being any kind of an Other.

Many a renter has dreamt of a dishwasher while sticking their hands into soapy water, scrubbing a stubborn pot. And while there are many benefits of a portable dishwasher, some kitchens just don’t have the space. Earlier this week at CES, Heatworks announced Tetra, a compact, smart and energy efficient dishwasher here to offer some sweet dishwashing relief for the dishwasher-less among us.

Resisting the urge to swipe and scroll the day away is a battle many of us face and inevitably lose. Fortunately, Vienna-based designer Klemens Schillinger has done his part in trying to help us loosen the grips on our smart phones with the invention of five “substitute phones.” We know – who knew there was such a thing?

This stunner of a modern home seamlessly blends indoors and out with a sleek elegance that delights and surprises. Architect David Guerra designed this concrete and glass oasis for clients in Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. Located on a hillside with stunning views, the ground floor of the home is designed with sliding glass doors to create a sense of unity with nature.

Picking office furniture is generally a no frills, utilitarian endeavor. Grab some desks, chairs, file cabinets, conference tables and call it a day. Whoever was in charge of that task for the New York Times, though, decided to spice up the workspace with some modern pieces—so modern, in fact, that they’re baffling the staff.

Ever since Lucy Ricardo accidentally baked the world’s biggest loaf of bread on a 1952 episode of I Love Lucy, kitchens have been at the center of virtually every TV family’s story. In honor of TV’s love affair with the kitchen, HomeAdvisor, the marketplace that connects homeowners to home improvement pros, has carefully rendered the floor plans of some of your favorite TV hearts of the home.

As someone who has watched the Netflix reboot through twice, I’m confident in saying it is a smashing success. I laughed. I cried. I wanted another eight episodes. The new Fab Five are so charming; it’s hard to stop watching. They’ve retained the same format at the original: Five gay men make over a (usually) straight guy. They redesign his home, his clothing, his hairstyle, and his inner confidence.

When Robert and Samantha Garlow of Shedsistance designed and built their tiny home in the woods of Yakima, Washington, they created a super cool small space with an impressive amount of room for all of their outdoor gear. Fast forward a few months and they have to make room for another form of adventure: parenthood. The couple spent about $30,000 building the 24-foot long, eight-foot-six-inch-wide, 13-foot-five-inch-tall home.

By now, you already know that Melissa Joan Hart and company are in talks to reboot Nickelodeon’s 90s hit, Clarissa Explains It All. As the Hollywood Reporter said of the project, the new show would see former star Melissa Joan Hart reprise her role as Clarissa Darling, but this time, she’d play the mom of the family. How very Girl Meets World of them!

The Avengers are reuniting one more time on April 27 for Avengers: Infinity War, the fourth installment of the franchise, which has been going strong now for almost a decade. In preparation, it’s not a bad time to rewatch some of your favorites from the series, which encompasses three movies each about Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, on top of a dozen others, including the record-breaking Black Panther from earlier this year.

Babies don’t know much about design. Every time I’ve tried to delve into the finer points of Eliel versus Eero Saarinen with the under-one crowd, they just stare at me blankly (and occasionally drool). Thankfully, Julie Merberg has a new book coming out May 8 called Baby’s First Eames (Downtown Bookworks), and I am thrilled that finally, newborns and I will have something to talk (rather, screech and coo) about.

If you live in a small space, chances are that your kitchen is also equally diminutive. As you can see, my particular kind of tiny rental kitchen is of the single wall variety, with a paltry two cabinets width of counter to speak of. While that (and the single outlet) mean I have to cull the clutter and keep appliances elsewhere when not in use, even when the counter is cleared, that’s not a ton of space to work with if you’re trying to cook a meal.

While we still have six months left of 2018, that hasn’t stopped paint companies from looking forward to 2019 and beyond. If you’re dying to know what colors will be hot for the last year of the decade (we’re looking at you, renovators and redecorators), Sherwin-Williams just announced their color forecast for next year. Here are its picks for color trends for 2019.

If you dig shows and movies like Big Little Lies, Gone Girl, and even Buffy The Vampire Slayer, you need to be watching HBO’s Sharp Objects. The eight-episode miniseries is based on Gillian Flynn’s debut novel and is centered around Camille Preaker (Amy Adams), a St. Louis-based journalist who is sent back to her hometown in the southern part of the state to report on the year-old death of one young girl and the recent disappearance of a second.

There’s no denying that the 1980s hatched some of the most iconic movies of the 20th century—and most of the cult classics beloved by Gen X and older millennials. To celebrate their love of all things ’80s, the folks at Angie’s List teamed up with Neomam Studios to meticulously design a variety of unmistakable floor plans.

Bachelor party on a yacht, you say? Sure, but anyone with money can do that. Instead, this stag night shall be held on a private cargo ship, ostentatiously outfitted with a casino, helipad, basketball court, climbing wall, hot tubs, dance floors, and a Rolls Royce converted into a DJ booth.

“Crazy Rich Asians” is sparkly and colorful; the story is heartwarming and heartbreaking; the acting is joyful, and the fact that this is the first entirely Asian cast of a major studio film since “The Joy Luck Club” makes its success all the sweeter (a sequel is already in the works). It also happens to be visually stunning. The majority of the movie is set in Singapore, which main character Nick Young’s family basically owns.

After the cameras turn off, some reality TV winners never find their footing. Not so for Erin Robertson, who wowed the judges and took home the grand prize on season 15 of “Project Runway.” Now, the designer has teamed up with her neighbor, interior and product designer Nicole Fichera, to open Hourglass, a pop-up boutique and content studio filled with new designs and vintage finds in Boston’s famed Fenway neighborhood.

“I do need just a simple favor,” Blake Lively says to Anna Kendrick in the new movie “A Simple Favor.” Her request is easy enough—to babysit her son for a few hours one afternoon—but then, she suddenly goes missing for days on end. The suburban noir thriller is a gripping cat-and-mouse game of wits between Lively’s Emily, a powerful executive in the fashion world, and Kendrick’s Stephanie, a dismissable homemaker who idolizes her.

“Friends” is the kind of series that tends to elicit debate. In the 24 years since it debuted, viewers have argued over issues both fictional (“Were Ross and Rachel on a break?”) and very real (“Soooo, where are all the non-white people?”). But there is one huge question that’s confounded audiences since the very beginning—or rather, one hugely questionable set: Monica’s apartment.

When it comes to Color of the Year announcements, this isn’t our first rodeo; we’ve already written about a handful of 2019 COTYs and we still have some months left of 2018. But, we don’t often see too many WOTYs—Wallpaper of the Years, that is. With the decorative trend making a bold return in recent years, it’s only fitting to celebrate it, courtesy of British brand Graham & Brown.

The hype is the well-deserved; Netflix’s summer smash rom-com ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ is sticky sweet, like cotton candy, perfect for when you’re in the mood for a burst of flavor—or color, as is the case for the design. Much like Lara Jean’s love life, her room is whimsical…and messy. A true romantic’s safe haven.

When Prince George and Princess Charlotte head over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house, they hang out in some very fun digs. That’s because Carole Middleton, the mother of Kate Middleton, recently revealed some festive fun she likes to bright out for her grandkids during the holidays. Carole, a professional party planner, told The Telegraph that each grandkid gets their own Christmas tree in their bedrooms “so that they can decorate it themselves.