This week in design, get ahead on holiday shopping by buying the DIY enthusiast in your life Home Depot’s festive new sweater—complete with a built-in, stocked tool belt. Stay in the know with our weekly roundup of headlines, launches, recommended reading and more.
Business News
A new regulation banning the production or installation of engineered quartz is expected to pass in California this month, The New York Times reports. The emergency regulation, sponsored by California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, would center on manufactured stone that contains more than 1 percent of crystalline silica—a material that’s released as dust when a slab is cut and can become lodged in a worker’s lungs, leading to a sometimes fatal condition called silicosis. The proposed ban would give fabrication shops 180 days from the date a final rule takes effect to phase out their use of the man-made product, KQED reports. After a two-month grace period, Cal/OSHA could halt operations for businesses that fail to comply. Since 2019, there have been 657 confirmed cases of silicosis in California and 35 silicosis-related deaths among workers in fabrication shops, in addition to a rising caseload of lawsuits against shop owners and quartz manufacturers. While manufacturers argue that proper processing techniques would ensure occupational safety, the Cal/OSHA board maintains that low compliance and a fragmented industry pose too many risks to workers. Similar regulations, meanwhile, have been passed in markets like Australia, where quartz countertops have been banned since 2024.
Borrowing costs are continuing to rise, with the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage reaching 7.28 percent last week—the highest level since November 2023. As The New York Times reports, rates have been steadily climbing since the end of February, when they had momentarily dipped below 6 percent. Then came the war in Iran, which drove up energy costs and renewed concerns over inflation, leading investors last year to increase the 10-year Treasury yield (which underpins mortgage rates among other borrowing) to its highest level since 2002. Accordingly, the mortgage rate rose to 7.28 from 7.03 percent two weeks ago represents the biggest jump since October 2022. Meanwhile, Retail Dive reports that consumer confidence is also continuing its recent slump, falling to a 12-year low this month amid concerns over high borrowing costs and gas prices combined with weak hiring trends.
Artist Theaster Gates has acquired the 130-year-old American tableware manufacturer Pickard China. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 1893, the Chicago-based producer of fine china and decorated tableware has a legacy intertwined with American history, having once served clients such as the White House, Congress and the State Department. It was this sense of heritage that Gates, a Windy City native, was drawn to, along with a desire to usher the brand into a new era of design experimentation through connections with contemporary artists and designers. Moving forward, Pickard’s existing team will remain with the company, with new initiatives to be announced in the coming months.
Kitchen and bath manufacturers Kallista and Robern—subsidiaries of category giant Kohler—have announced a merger. The reorganization will see Robern folded into the Kallista brand, with products from both companies available through one website and specification platform. In conjunction with the merger, Kallista will debut the first Kallista Design Gallery, opening October 12 in a 3,500-square-foot space in Kohler, Wisconsin.
Annual design fair Collectible NYC has announced that it is moving to the Upper East Side. The event, which previously took place at the Financial District’s WSA building, will host its third edition from November 6 to 8 in a former movie theater on East 86th Street.
Neighborhood Intelligence (formerly known as Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.) and real estate services platform Fathom Holdings have canceled their planned merger, Home Textiles Today reports. The plans were first announced in June, when the company agreed to acquire Fathom in a deal valued at $53.38 million. The agreement would have combined the platform’s national residential brokerage and title business with Neighborhood Intelligence’s digital asset holdings, representing an evolution of the latter’s “Everything Home” strategy, which aims to serve consumers at every stage of the homebuying process. Now, the companies have mutually terminated the agreement, with their boards concluding that the valuations of the businesses did not reflect fair value (though they do plan to explore opportunities for data sharing). The retailer has had a busy fall: In September, it announced a partnership with Alliant Credit Union to launch a consumer services platform called Beyond Credit Union; that same month, it canceled its agreement to acquire F9 Brands, the owner of Lumber Liquidators and Cabinets To Go.
Top Knobs, a subsidiary of specialty building products PrimeSource Brands, has acquired decorative plumbing company Jaclo and its sister brand Durst. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Based in Cranford, New Jersey, Jaclo is a fourth-generation family-owned business with roots dating back to 1901. Today, the company specializes in bath fixtures sold through showrooms and dealers across the country. Following the purchase, both Jaclo and Durst will continue operating under their own names, with no changes to product lines, ordering process or sales representation. The deal will also see them join PrimeSource’s Dimora Luxury Brands group, alongside Top Knobs and Watermark Designs.
Launches and Collaborations
Together with Los Angeles developer Alison White Homes and local firm Annette Tatum Design, Serena & Lily has helped to stage one of the first newly built luxury residences in the Pacific Palisades community. More than a year after the 2025 wildfires, which caused widespread destruction and forced Serena & Lily to close its store in the area, the company has supplied the furnishings for a new 6,511-square-foot home on Muskingum Avenue, which is available for purchase with all the curated products included. The brand has also made a charitable donation to local nonprofit Steadfast LA in support of rebuilding the Palisades Recreation Center. The home will be open for tours on October 15; for more information, click here.
London brand Plank Hardware has teamed up with designer Leanne Kilroy—known online as Good Bones London—for the debut of a cabinet hardware collection. Released in the U.S. for the first time this month following an initial introduction in the U.K., the assortment includes six petite designs (including two handles, a swing pull, a drop pull, a knob and a backplate) available in an array of unlacquered brass, polished nickel and blackened bronze finishes designed to be mixed and matched.
Recommended Reading
The original rise of midcentury modern design signified a new era of cultural optimism after World War II—in the 2010s, its widespread resurgence among millennials represented a fresh embrace of vintage styles and a departure from the previous generation’s “new and shiny” home preferences. For The Wall Street Journal, Misty White Sidell explores how the aesthetic’s popularity has waned rapidly in recent years, with the once-cool style now largely considered cringe thanks in part to a proliferation of low-budget replicas found in commercial spaces and short-term rentals.
Earlier this year, cookware giants Groupe SEB and Meyer sued direct-to-consumer kitchenware brand Caraway for depicting its PFAS-free products as safer than comparable products on the market. As Anna Hensel writes for Modern Retail, Caraway decided to use the litigation to its advantage—incorporating the lawsuit into its new marketing strategy, and encouraging shoppers to sign a petition against “Big Cookware”—kicking off a larger discussion about how brands should address consumer health concerns in advertising.
It’s been a record year for the most rarefied real estate listings—those priced at $100 million or more—with more homes on the market in that range than at any other time in history. For The New York Times, Ronda Kaysen examines how the sharp uptick (17 of these homes listed in 2026 so far, up from just nine last year) reveals a growing demand among billionaire homebuyers for palatial estates with next-level amenities—including, in some recent listings, a bowling alley with a private 1950s-style diner; a car museum; a hammam; and an airport security–style X-ray machine.
After 1975, dinner party participation fell into sharp decline—with the share of Americans who host friends or family at home at least monthly falling by 70 percent in the years since. For The Atlantic, Derek Thompson dives into the sociological factors that have contributed to that shift, including more harried dual-income households, increased intensive parenting time, and above all, a rapid rise in screen time.
Call for Entries
Revival Rugs has launched its inaugural Ugly Floor Contest. Participants can submit a photo of the ugliest floor in their home for the chance to receive a $1,000 Revival gift card and a free design consultation. To enter the contest before the October 31 deadline, click here.
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