This week in design, a growing number of homebuyers are looking to purchase their new properties fully furnished—right down to the pots, pans and bedsheets. Stay in the know with our weekly roundup of headlines, launches, recommended reading and more.
Business News
East Fork Pottery has announced a new $2.5 million investment in its main production facility in Asheville, North Carolina, Blue Ridge Public Radio News reports. According to founder and CEO Alex Matisse, the company’s goal—which will add 30,000-square-feet and 40 new jobs to the manufacturing site—is to double production over the next three years. The revitalization effort comes at a crucial time for the Asheville community, which has suffered lasting effects from Hurricane Helene: A survey from Mountain BizWorks found that the average small business there lost $322,000 due to the storm.
Once hailed as the go-to get-rich-quick strategy among DIY-minded real estate buyers, home flipping appears to be on the decline, with activity decreasing to 297,885 flips in 2024—a drop of 7.7 percent from 2023 and 32.4 percent from 2022, The Wall Street Journal reports. The piece puts the blame on the current housing market’s low inventory and high interest rates (the national average on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is now 6.28 percent). Elsewhere, the rising costs of materials, labor and home insurance have constrained the typical margins for home flippers, while increasing competition from foreign and institutional buyers have made it more difficult to scoop up an overlooked property for a good deal.
Meanwhile, the outlook for home renovators remains bright for the coming year: Among those surveyed for a recent Houzz report, 91 percent intend to move forward with planned renovations and 67 percent expect to keep or expand their project scope in 2026. Additionally, roughly 93 percent of the more than 1,000 respondents plan to work with design professionals in the coming year, especially for projects with a budget exceeding $50,000. On the downside, more than 9 in 10 homeowners anticipate reduced availability of materials and increased labor and product costs, among other obstacles.
Home Depot launched a new marketplace designed to connect influencers and content creators with opportunities related to social media campaigns and affiliate marketing. As Retail Dive reports, the retailer has enrolled thousands of creators onto the platform already—including designers and home renovation experts—and is accepting applications from the general public. The program follows the recent debut of a similar initiative by Lowe’s, with both retailers tapping into affiliate revenue, which is expected to generate more than $210 billion in U.S. e-commerce sales this year.
Health officials in Massachusetts have confirmed the state’s first case of silicosis—a deadly and incurable occupational disease associated with stone fabrication, commonly acquired through the inhalation of crystalline silica dust from engineered stone. According to People, the Massachusetts Department of Health reported that the illness had afflicted a man in his 40s who has spent the past 14 years working for a stone countertop fabrication and installation company. Officials also noted that additional unconfirmed cases could exist in the state. The department has now issued a safety alert for stone fabrication employers, encouraging the use of safety measures for at-risk workers. In other regions, the disease has already become common among stone fabricators: In California, there were 432 confirmed cases identified as of last month, while in Australia, the growing epidemic led legislators to ban the manufacture and installation of engineered stone in 2024.
Launches and Collaborations
Future Snoops introduced a new AI agent called Muse. Accessed through the trend forecasting agency’s online platform, the tool lets creators search the firm’s insights and references, build collages, generate visuals, edit images and compile color palettes.
Rosendahl Design Group North America has established a new strategic partnership with Danish design brand Umage, in which the latter’s furniture will be distributed throughout the continent by the former’s logistics and retail network. By adding the brand to its portfolio, Rosendahl marks another step toward its expansion into the furniture and lighting categories and the evolution of the group’s Danish Design Collective, which includes brands like Kay Bojesen Denmark, Kähler, Arne Jacobsen Clocks and FDB Møbler.
ALT for Living founder Analisse Taft and interior designer Shawn Henderson unveiled a series of rugs inspired by their more than 20-year friendship. Handwoven by artisans in Nepal from silk and wool, each piece in the Negative Space collection was designed with a focus on how rugs play off the surrounding architecture, with styles that feature striking geometric patterns and intentional cutouts.
In collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, online retailer Finnish Design Shop has debuted an array of furniture and home decor items. The Tones of Modernism collection marks the opening of a new exhibit of paintings by Finnish artist Helene Schjerfbeck (on view through April 5, 2026) with a limited-edition series of stools, trays, vases, decorative objects and home scents crafted by five Finnish design brands: Artek, Iittala, Lapuan Kankurit, Nikari and Hetkinen.
Michael McGraw, design industry veteran and founder of McGraw PR, has unveiled a new gallery called Dernier Cri. Located at 247 East 60th Street in New York, the space will debut its inaugural exhibition, “Night Shift,” on January 29. Commissioned by a select group of artists and designers—including Robert Bristow, Windy Chien and Marit Harte—each piece in the exhibit will be rendered entirely in black, united by a shared theme of finding beauty in darkness.
Recommended Reading
Each year, art enthusiasts flock to any number of global fairs, but none hold as much cachet as Art Basel, which now hosts annual full-scale editions in Miami, Switzerland, Paris and Hong Kong. This year, art critic Jason Farago traveled to each corner of the Basel world, documenting his findings for The New York Times and providing an inside look at where the market and its power players stand today.
After seeing an ad online, sisters Olivia and Emily Davis bought the Anabei modular couch for their Los Angeles living room, assuming that the algorithm had recommended the perfect sofa based on their interior design–related scrolling. Instead, they found themselves “quite literally barred” from finding a comfortable spot, thanks to the piece’s prominent metal frame, which they could feel through the cushions and fabric. For The Washington Post, Rachel Kurzius writes about the rise of the viral sofa phenomenon, and how some buyers are losing trust in the social media marketing that drove their purchases.
