This week in design, one type of Hollywood agent deals entirely in well-appointed homes, offering lucky property owners a spotlight on the big screen. Stay in the know with our weekly roundup of headlines, launches, recommended reading and more.

Business News
Somnigroup—the holding company for mattress brands Tempur Sealy, Mattress Firm and Dreams—has submitted a proposal to furniture component maker Leggett & Platt to acquire outstanding shares of the company in an all-stock transaction. The proposed agreement would give the manufacturer’s shareholders shares of Somnigroup common stock with a market value of $12 for every share of Leggett & Platt common stock, which represents a 30.3 percent premium over the average closing price of the manufacturer’s shares over the past 30 trading days. According to the proposal, the deal would allow Leggett & Platt to continue operating independently. Somnigroup requested a response by December 22.

Magnussen Home Furnishings has signed an agreement to acquire case goods brands Pulaski Furniture and Samuel Lawrence Furniture from Hooker Furnishings, which had acquired them in 2016 as part of its purchase of Home Meridian International. The deal is expected to close on December 10; the price was not disclosed. According to the proposal, Magnussen would take over Home Meridian’s corporate office and showroom, both in High Point, North Carolina. In October, former Pulaski president Page Wilson became Magnussen’s senior vice president of strategic accounts; now, he will be senior VP and head of day-to-day operations of Pulaski and Samuel Lawrence.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. has acquired The Brand House Collective, formerly known as Kirkland’s, in a merger agreement valued at $26.8 million, Retail Dive reports. The deal comes just a few months after Beyond acquired the Kirkland’s trade name and brand assets for $10 million in September. The merger, which is expected to be finalized in early 2026, will see the closure of more than 40 stores by early next year. Following the purchase, The Brand House Collective CEO Amy Sullivan will serve as CEO of the newly created Beyond Retail Group division, overseeing retail operations for Bed, Bath & Beyond; BuyBuy Baby; Overstock; and Kirkland’s Home.

Amid a shaky economy and high mortgage rates, potential homebuyers are remaining on the sidelines of the housing market—prompting a growing share of sellers to reduce the price of their homes, The Wall Street Journal reports. Roughly 57 percent of homes sold from January through October in 2025 had undergone a price cut, according to data from the National Association of Realtors—up from about 47 percent between 2020 and 2024.

Zillow has removed climate risk ratings from listings on its site, eliminating a metric that represented each property’s potential vulnerability to floods, wildfires, high winds, extreme temperatures and poor air quality. The platform rolled out the feature last year in collaboration with climate risk financial modeling company First Street, but as The New York Times reports, it was recently met with complaints by the California Regional Multiple Listing Service, which Zillow uses for real estate data. The database is backed by brokers and agents, who claimed the risk ratings were hurting sales. In response, Zillow quietly pulled the feature from listings last month, replacing it with links to First Street’s site.

Launches and Collaborations
Interior design game Design Home has partnered with Kravet to integrate a curated collection of the brand’s furniture and textiles into its interactive platform. The app, which allows users to decorate virtual homes, will now offer more than 50 virtual pieces from Kravet’s collection, ranging from upholstered items to dining and accent tables.

Recommended Reading
Over the course of a century, the kitchen has evolved from a hidden-away space used primarily by domestic workers to the centerpiece of American home life. For The New York Times, Rachel Wharton constructed a timeline tracing the kitchen’s last 100 years, beginning with the rise of “homemaking” and the advent of modern appliances, eventually leading to the open-concept rooms of the present.

An onslaught of interior imagery—courtesy of design influencers and platforms like Instagram, HGTV and Zillow—coupled with a tepid real estate market has made the practice of home staging more crucial than ever. For Curbed, Kim Velsey consults real estate agents about sellers who have been reluctant to adjust their eclectic tastes (everything from skull and crossbones wallpaper to Lisa Frank–style design schemes) to meet the market.

The realm of auction houses, estate sales and antiques malls is often an older generation’s domain—though a new organization aims to change that. For The New York Times, Emma Orlow profiles the Fine Objects Society, a members-only group that provides antiques enthusiasts of all ages with access to talks, meetups and field trips centered on historical decorative items.

Cue the Applause
Modern Luxury has announced the winners of its Design 9 Awards, honoring more than 90 projects completed by interior designers across the country. A Boston brownstone earned the prize for National Home of the Year, having been reimagined by Sea-Dar Construction, architecture firm Shope Reno Wharton, interior designer Jamie Baird and landscape architect Gregory Lombardi. The organization recognized the work of many other industry leaders, including Barnes Coy Architects, Kelly Behun, Robert Brown, Marie Flanigan, Amy Kalikow, Janice Parker, Workshop/APD and Fernando Wong. For the full list of winners, click here.

In Memoriam
Acclaimed New York architect Robert A.M. Stern passed away at the age of 86 last week. A native of Brooklyn, Stern went on to earn his master’s in architecture from Yale in 1965, and would later serve as dean of the university’s School of Architecture for 18 years, starting in 1998. After working under the architect Richard Meier early in his career, in 1977, he founded his eponymous firm, which grew to become a 300-employee practice crafting everything from museums and schools to homes and libraries, with notable projects including Disney World’s Yacht Club and Beach Club resorts in Florida, the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, and Philadelphia’s 58-story Comcast Center. Throughout his career, Stern’s style was marked by an embrace of postmodernism, resulting in a body of work that became increasingly reflective of past architectural styles. The pinnacle of that approach came in 2008, when he debuted 15 Central Park West: a prewar-style luxury residential building (comprising the 19-story park-facing “House” and the 35-floor tower behind it) that became his most iconic work. “Buildings can be icons or objects, but they still have to engage with the larger whole,” Stern told The New York Times in 2007. “I’m not considered avant-garde because I’m not avant-garde. But there is a parallel world out there—of excellence.”