Like the president, I have a cabinet of advisers, a small, carefully chosen, smart group of high-octane talent on whom I rely for advice, therapy, insights, sanity cross-checks, and to steer me clear of the perils of bad taste and poor judgment.
Mostly it works.
Mine is an eclectic group of designers, crazy as a circus. Some I’ve worked with on my own homes. Some I’ve met while working in the design world. All I have prevailed upon, as I did this past week. While the world was beyond busy celebrating, they took time out to answer when I pinged them about what they saw trending up in 2012, and what they were resolving to do differently on the design front.
Meet my dream team:
Los Angeles interior designer Gary Gibson helped me design the first home I built, in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He’s done interiors for the rich and famous, including Marlo Thomas, whom I always wanted to be, and which is really why I hired him.
Trend: “You know this is my least favorite question,” Gibson says, “but I’m seeing more individuality in design and fewer homogenized environments.” This comes from having more small boutiques and ateliers, which offer more one-of-a-kind vintage objects.
Resolution: “To inform everyone to use a design professional whenever they can.” Duh!
Interior designer Betty Lou Phillips
of Dallas is the person I’d most like to be if I can’t be Marlo Thomas. A French style maven, Phillips has amazing taste, brains and looks, and she has produced some of the most beautiful books to grace the planet.
Trend: “Orange will be everywhere,” Phillips says. Not the orange of an orange but rather the hues, tints and shades — bittersweet, coral and tangerine. Lately, Phillips’ clients have been eager to add a pop of color to an otherwise neutral room with hopes of adding a bit of bliss.
Resolution: To stay out of expensive linen stores.
Interior designer James Charles
of Long Beach was my prize. I won him at a charity raffle. His English accent and impeccable manners made me so nervous that the first day he came to my house, he found me shaking behind a Boston fern.
He’s designed the homes of Sean Connery, Elton John, the Sultan of Brunei, and, far less illustrious, the second home I built, in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
Trend: We’ll see fewer big chandeliers and more clusters of small pendants.
Resolution: To create even more ethnically diverse interiors, newer looks that transcend the contemporary with ethnic touches and some things of old in a jazzed-up way.
Lisa LaPorta
of Los Angeles was longtime host of HGTV’s “Designed to Sell.” She made me the envy of every mom in America when she worked — and I mean worked — to get my two teenage daughters to agree on a design direction for their bonus room. To all those who asked, yes, she is just as talented as she is adorable.
Trend: Anything goes. That means contemporary kitchens in hundred-year-old homes, and modern chairs with antique tables.
Resolution: “To get back into the design process,” LaPorta says. “As a busy designer, juggling multiple projects, I have ‘go-to’ favorites that always work and look great. But go-to favorites eliminate the real design process and cause me to miss the opportunity to explore exciting new looks, styles and palettes. The discovery process takes time, but fuels my creativity. When it’s eliminated my job feels like a job and not my passion.”
New York designer Elaine Griffin is the one I call for a fast, fun quote. She’s the zip in zipper. You see her pretty face and interiors often in Better Homes & Gardens.
Trend: One IT color for 2011 — dark peacock blue — is just beginning its voyage toward market domination. “We’ll be seeing lots of it,” Griffin says. “Stylewise, the hard, masculine straight lines popular for so long are giving way to feminine, softer, curvier shapes.”
Resolution: “To conquer clutter chez moi! I live in a Manhattan apartment — not known for their spaciousness — and spent 2011 largely ignoring rule number one of clutter-free living: When you acquire, also discard. I also want to educate America about window treatment etiquette. If three out of five curtains are hung as close to the ceiling as possible by the end of the year, I’ll be the happiest designer alive.
Interior designer Karlie Anne Adams
of Denver helped me find my style. When I first moved to Colorado, where I built my third house (will I ever learn?), she steered me away from the Paul Bunyan lodge look I was recklessly careening toward, and back to my Old World leanings and European roots.
Trend and Resolution: “For me, they are the same: Get rid of all the stupid, meaningless objects we have ‘decorated’ with. Let’s get real and surround ourselves with only the objects that mean something, tell a story, and are important. Gone with the fake ferns stuffed in teacups on top of the kitchen cupboards!”
Design psychologist Toby Israel
terrified me when she revealed that experts (like her) can look at your decorating and know your personality — and your mind. Yikes!
Trend: Homeowners will look within more, rather than outward toward the marketplace, to create affordable, calming spaces. Fire pits and fireplaces (real or fake) will become more popular as families gather around hearths more for quiet, downtime.
Resolution: To buy hot-water bottles for all my friends. They’re retro, easy-to-use bed warmers that now come with designer covers. I have a hot-pink fur one nicknamed “The Cat.”
Emily Henderson hosts HGTV’s “Secrets of a Stylist.” She’s a former prop stylist who provides a fresh voice and a renegade aesthetic that I think will be fun to track.
Trend: Neon. That’s right! Not whole rooms in neon, but piping on pillows, and color blocks on walls. The great thing about neon is, if done right (and in small doses), it can make a huge impact quickly, without costing much.
Resolution: To stop buying weird artwork. “I have a problem buying flea-market portraits of strangers and it has gotten out of control,” Henderson says. “I need to spend my money getting the paintings I love professionally framed and giving them some integrity, instead of buying more paintings my husband hates.”
A New Year’s toast to all that, and a huge “thank you” to all the designers who shore me up, make me look better than I am, and make the world, in general, look a good deal better, too.
Syndicated home design columnist and speaker Marni Jameson is the author of “House of Havoc” and “The House Always Wins” (Da Capo Press). Contact her through .
