We just finished the High Point Market in October and have been on a fast-paced track to showcase our W-S Fall Parade of Homes, as well as get our retail/design center space decorated for the upcoming holidays, including our Christmas Open House on November l3th. The Parade of Homes showcase houses are sold, the showroom is updated, and we are ready for Christmas. Now we have the time to focus on what we saw at the market this year, which was exciting when thinking back over it. Each of the showrooms brought back some history and tradition which for the last 8 years or so have been more modern and clean. This year was a nice cohesive mix of an older, more traditional mix, with the cleaner lines of modern nicely mixed in, and well done. So, this is what will be challenging to designers alike to mix these two designs in one person’s home. Some of the colors lurking in our future are reds and emeralds. Time will tell if these colors will truly make it back. I, for one, love red in accents because it does bring depth to a room, as black once was the color that all designers had to use a touch of. Red walls are so overwhelming, I’m not sure people will be open to trying that again, while my clients are just now removing it. They get tired of it on walls. I would say to start with, try an accent wall so there will not be so much of it. Emerald Green is another story. We love it on a chesterfield sofa, but for walls, I’m not sure. We also love mixing teals, greens, and even some red thrown in for pillows, again a form of neutral. Artwork is so much fun with all the bursting colors. Neutral areas are always a good base against accents of color for art, pillows, and accessories. The rooms that were more modern at market were mostly white with wood and textures displayed, but also with loads of oriental vintage rugs as their color. It was actually a pretty good look. They brought in the “old fashioned” with the rugs against modern. Pretty cool look. We go to market to get new resources and to see the new trends. It is also educational, if you can make your way to the seminars. We really try to hit all the seminars in both Atlanta and in High Point. They have kitchen and bath trend seminars, designer lighting seminars, blog advice seminars, and marketing help seminars. We walk away from market with so much information in my brain that I must take time to sort it out. The good thing is when you need an idea, it comes from within and could be from years past of all the markets you have been to. I keep thinking about all the pretty spaces that we can create from what we have learned.