The year is now over a month old, and there's been plenty of talk about what's trending in home design for 2016. From black stainless steel to built-in sous vide cookers, unusual choices abound for the fashion-conscious.
What about the flip side of the coin? Here's a look at things that were once must-haves in every trendsetting home but are now -- sometimes thankfully, sometimes inexplicably -- less appealing than that Christmas cake hanging around in the back of your fridge. The information was gleaned accidentally during the course of many interviews over the past few months with interior designers and home-decor retailers. Trend-spotting sites such as Houzz are also full of opinions about what's hot and what's not.
• Chalkboard walls: Recently they've been everywhere -- offices, wine bars, your neighborhood latte lounge -- but there's a big problem with chalkboard walls. People can erase the stuff! And anybody with a piece of chalk can, well ... express himself in any way he wants. Let's keep chalkboards where they belong: in classrooms (or at least classroom sets for movies depicting the 20th century).
• Edison bulbs: They're being sold at Ace Hardware now. I rest my case.
• Faceted shapes in furniture and home decor: Beloved by modernism-loving designers, mathematicians and fans of M.C. Escher, polyhedrons are giving way to softer, more natural-looking shapes this year.
• Industrial chic: Tired of sitting on a metal stool that looks like it came from a Soviet tank-assembly plant and drinking your $18 cocktail out of a battered Mason jar on a bar top made out of rough-hewn concrete? So am I.
• Midcentury modern ideological purity: A lot of people who pursued their midcentury modern passion to the edge of sanity have discovered it causes some vexing problems. Where do I put my keys in a home that's as smooth and unblemished as the monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 2001? How practical is a butterfly roof in a rainstorm? Where's the private "me" corner in an open floor plan? The look is now being blended into a larger, more heterogeneous mosaic, befitting the average person's multiplicity of tastes.
• Overdecorated rooms: One reason Tuscan style has peaked in California's Orange County is the feeling that rooms have become overstuffed with a surfeit of faux-Continental ornaments and frou-frou. Some Tuscan-style homes began to look like sets for Rudolph Valentino movies. If there are so many pillows on your couch that people can't sit down, then you're overdecorating. Simplicity is making a comeback, but that doesn't mean you have to resort to a naked Bauhaus box. Just choose your accessories carefully and make sure they're meaningful. Pasha pillows and cornices that look like they got ripped from the ceiling of some state legislature no longer have a place in the tasteful modern home.
• Non-color design schemes: Though it's popular in tract-home models and spec properties (the idea being that you can't offend anyone if you don't choose a color), the white/gray/beige/straw look gets old mighty fast if you have to live with it. This monochromatic murkiness might be the reason Pantone chose a warm pink and seductive blue as its colors of the year.
• Recycled wood: This look is still popular in the restaurant and retail realms, but in the home a little goes a long way, and designers have pushed the envelope too far. Headboards made of untreated, unsanded wood? Better have some tweezers handy for all the splinters.
• White kitchens: They've been hot for several years, but I've heard more than one interior designer grumble that she misses colors. Really, your kitchen shouldn't have to depend on spilled spaghetti sauce to alleviate the visual boredom.
HomeStyle on 02/13/2016