Design Through the Decades: The 1990s
Homes make room for tech products and task chairs, while sofas slip into something more comfortable
Victoria Villeneuve
October 31, 2019
Houzz contributor. Remodeling veteran, copy editor and reporter who enjoys writing about home and garden, especially when they intersect with travel, history, health, literature or the arts. Previously at Sunset magazine and the San Jose Mercury News
Houzz contributor. Remodeling veteran, copy editor and reporter who enjoys writing... More
This series looks at the stories behind iconic designs from each decade, starting in 1900. This installment covers the Aeron chair, Jonathan Adler ceramics, Shabby Chic style, the tiny-house movement and more.
Homes throughout history have adapted to the latest technology, whether it was with kitchens big enough for a Kelvinator in the 1910s or with living room storage walls for a radio and phonograph in the 1940s. The growth of the web in the 1990s had more people looking for a place to put their personal computer.
Previous: Design Through the Decades: The 1980s
Homes throughout history have adapted to the latest technology, whether it was with kitchens big enough for a Kelvinator in the 1910s or with living room storage walls for a radio and phonograph in the 1940s. The growth of the web in the 1990s had more people looking for a place to put their personal computer.
Previous: Design Through the Decades: The 1980s
Computer Station
The typical computer back in the ’90s wasn’t a sleek silver laptop, but rather a boxy beige PC tethered to a desk along with a monitor, hard drive, printer, fax machine and stacks of CD-ROMs. Since there was often just one computer per household, having it in a central location made sense. Many parents today still use this approach to keep an eye on their web-surfing kids.
Cory Connor Designs worked a computer station into a custom built-in bookcase in this New York family room. An undermount tray holds a keyboard, while a pullout bench masquerades as a cabinet. The rear wall of the bookcase is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Peacock Blue to contrast with the company’s Decorator’s White on the millwork and Revere Pewter on the walls.
Find an interior designer near you on Houzz
The typical computer back in the ’90s wasn’t a sleek silver laptop, but rather a boxy beige PC tethered to a desk along with a monitor, hard drive, printer, fax machine and stacks of CD-ROMs. Since there was often just one computer per household, having it in a central location made sense. Many parents today still use this approach to keep an eye on their web-surfing kids.
Cory Connor Designs worked a computer station into a custom built-in bookcase in this New York family room. An undermount tray holds a keyboard, while a pullout bench masquerades as a cabinet. The rear wall of the bookcase is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Peacock Blue to contrast with the company’s Decorator’s White on the millwork and Revere Pewter on the walls.
Find an interior designer near you on Houzz
Entertainment Center
The Real World introduced the MTV generation to reality TV, which aired on ever-bigger cathode-ray tube sets. A deep armoire came in handy to contain the sets and the era’s other entertainment must-haves: VCR, CD player, PlayStation or Nintendo game console (or both), games, controllers and remotes.
When designing an eclectic San Diego home for her clients, Andrea May included this living room armoire for their plasma TV. These flat screens made inroads in the 1990s until they were supplanted by LED and OLED technology.
Browse armoires in the Houzz Shop
The Real World introduced the MTV generation to reality TV, which aired on ever-bigger cathode-ray tube sets. A deep armoire came in handy to contain the sets and the era’s other entertainment must-haves: VCR, CD player, PlayStation or Nintendo game console (or both), games, controllers and remotes.
When designing an eclectic San Diego home for her clients, Andrea May included this living room armoire for their plasma TV. These flat screens made inroads in the 1990s until they were supplanted by LED and OLED technology.
Browse armoires in the Houzz Shop
Home Office
The term telecommuting was coined by former NASA engineer Jack Nilles during the 1970s oil crisis as he looked for a solution to traffic, sprawl and dependence on finite resources. It was a pie-in-the-sky idea, though, until the rise of the computer and the internet. Telecommuting began to permeate the national conversation in 1990 with Clean Air Act amendments, which required certain employers to cut worker commute times, and the Federal Flexible Workplace Pilot Project, an assessment that found many benefits to allowing government employees to work off-site. The hunt for a workspace at home was on.
This dedicated office, in a San Francisco Bay Area house designed by Ruth Livingston Studio, gets down to business. Clean lines, soothing colors and uncluttered surfaces make for a Zen-like space that minimizes distractions. An old L-shaped wooden desk with a new lacquer finish matches the upper cabinetry, which balances closed storage and open display space. Below, a quartz counter covers floating file cabinets faced with a reconstituted walnut veneer. Flexible track lighting and an ergonomic Aeron chair complete the picture.
Shop for track lighting on Houzz
The term telecommuting was coined by former NASA engineer Jack Nilles during the 1970s oil crisis as he looked for a solution to traffic, sprawl and dependence on finite resources. It was a pie-in-the-sky idea, though, until the rise of the computer and the internet. Telecommuting began to permeate the national conversation in 1990 with Clean Air Act amendments, which required certain employers to cut worker commute times, and the Federal Flexible Workplace Pilot Project, an assessment that found many benefits to allowing government employees to work off-site. The hunt for a workspace at home was on.
This dedicated office, in a San Francisco Bay Area house designed by Ruth Livingston Studio, gets down to business. Clean lines, soothing colors and uncluttered surfaces make for a Zen-like space that minimizes distractions. An old L-shaped wooden desk with a new lacquer finish matches the upper cabinetry, which balances closed storage and open display space. Below, a quartz counter covers floating file cabinets faced with a reconstituted walnut veneer. Flexible track lighting and an ergonomic Aeron chair complete the picture.
Shop for track lighting on Houzz
Aeron Chair
Arguably nothing symbolized the dot-com bubble more than the Aeron chair. Launched by Michigan office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller in 1994, it ballooned in popularity among status-conscious tech startups despite its $1,000-plus price tag, and won a Design of the Decade award from Business Week and the Industrial Designers Society of America in 1999. Then, as companies collapsed in 2000, it sat empty.
Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick didn’t set out to design an office chair. Instead, they wanted to invent an elderly-friendly alternative to the La-Z-Boy recliner for a rapidly aging population. Their Sarah chair had a foldout footrest, easy-to-operate pneumatic controls and body-conforming foam cushions supported by a plastic frame and bedsore-preventing mesh. But no one could figure out how or where to sell such an odd-looking chair to its target audience.
The designers eventually refocused their efforts on computer users of all shapes and sizes. They made the chair customizable and, with an eye to the environment and the cost, did away with the foam in favor of a membrane of improved breathable mesh stretched over the frame. Now the chair’s futuristic look worked to its advantage since it appealed to companies wanting to appear on the cutting edge.
Profits from the Aeron chair sustained Herman Miller through the bust. A few years ago, the company asked Chadwick, who survived Stumpf, to reengineer the Aeron based on new research and technology. Chadwick retained the Aeron’s iconic appearance but updated the chair with a more responsive tilt mechanism and a more supportive, varied-tension membrane.
This Aeron chair, in the cozy white-and-wood office of a new home on New York’s Long Island by Foley Fiore Architecture, has a water view. It occupies a 4-foot kneehole in a custom heart-pine-topped desk that’s 6 feet, 10 inches long and sports leather cup pulls. Fourteen-inch-deep shelves on both sides keep books handy.
Shop for the Aeron chair
Arguably nothing symbolized the dot-com bubble more than the Aeron chair. Launched by Michigan office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller in 1994, it ballooned in popularity among status-conscious tech startups despite its $1,000-plus price tag, and won a Design of the Decade award from Business Week and the Industrial Designers Society of America in 1999. Then, as companies collapsed in 2000, it sat empty.
Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick didn’t set out to design an office chair. Instead, they wanted to invent an elderly-friendly alternative to the La-Z-Boy recliner for a rapidly aging population. Their Sarah chair had a foldout footrest, easy-to-operate pneumatic controls and body-conforming foam cushions supported by a plastic frame and bedsore-preventing mesh. But no one could figure out how or where to sell such an odd-looking chair to its target audience.
The designers eventually refocused their efforts on computer users of all shapes and sizes. They made the chair customizable and, with an eye to the environment and the cost, did away with the foam in favor of a membrane of improved breathable mesh stretched over the frame. Now the chair’s futuristic look worked to its advantage since it appealed to companies wanting to appear on the cutting edge.
Profits from the Aeron chair sustained Herman Miller through the bust. A few years ago, the company asked Chadwick, who survived Stumpf, to reengineer the Aeron based on new research and technology. Chadwick retained the Aeron’s iconic appearance but updated the chair with a more responsive tilt mechanism and a more supportive, varied-tension membrane.
This Aeron chair, in the cozy white-and-wood office of a new home on New York’s Long Island by Foley Fiore Architecture, has a water view. It occupies a 4-foot kneehole in a custom heart-pine-topped desk that’s 6 feet, 10 inches long and sports leather cup pulls. Fourteen-inch-deep shelves on both sides keep books handy.
Shop for the Aeron chair
The U.S. surgeon general’s first report on physical activity and health, in 1996, drew attention to the negative consequences of a sedentary lifestyle. People began to wonder if the Aeron chair’s fabled comfort, which enables sitting for long periods, could in fact be doing them a disservice. Today, people are exploring alternatives such as standing-height desks, treadmill desks and active chairs.
CM Natural Designs converted a dining room in this San Diego-area house into an industrial-style office for a 6-foot-8 sports photographer. He can vary his position by standing at the tall computer desk attached to the back wall or by sitting at the rolling desk, which contains his cameras.
Find out how to get a home office that works for you
CM Natural Designs converted a dining room in this San Diego-area house into an industrial-style office for a 6-foot-8 sports photographer. He can vary his position by standing at the tall computer desk attached to the back wall or by sitting at the rolling desk, which contains his cameras.
Find out how to get a home office that works for you
Zettel’z Chandelier
Interior designer Julia Buckingham found a lovely spot for a family workspace in the entry of her clients’ Chicago home. The angles of the built-in desk follow the bay window. Supplementing the natural light is a Zettel’z chandelier.
German lighting designer Ingo Maurer created this interactive fixture in 1997, and it remains one of his best-known works. It encourages creativity: The steel wires can be spaced wide and loose or narrow and dense; the clips can hold the included multilingual love notes printed on translucent Japanese paper, or other heat-resistant ephemera. The newlyweds in this home personalized the fixture with their wedding invitation RSVPs. A current limited-edition version — fun for a child’s room — features colorful illustrations from the 1960 alphabet book by Italian artist Bruno Munari.
Read more about this project
Interior designer Julia Buckingham found a lovely spot for a family workspace in the entry of her clients’ Chicago home. The angles of the built-in desk follow the bay window. Supplementing the natural light is a Zettel’z chandelier.
German lighting designer Ingo Maurer created this interactive fixture in 1997, and it remains one of his best-known works. It encourages creativity: The steel wires can be spaced wide and loose or narrow and dense; the clips can hold the included multilingual love notes printed on translucent Japanese paper, or other heat-resistant ephemera. The newlyweds in this home personalized the fixture with their wedding invitation RSVPs. A current limited-edition version — fun for a child’s room — features colorful illustrations from the 1960 alphabet book by Italian artist Bruno Munari.
Read more about this project
Lucellino Sconce
Maurer wittily combined soft goose feather wings and a hard bare bulb in his 1992 Lucellino sconce, shown here in a bedroom of a Belgian home renovated by Mabella Artisans. The name joins the Italian words luce (light) and uccellino (little bird). The fixture also comes as a double sconce and a table lamp with halogen or LED bulbs. In each case, a bendable brass wire connecting the bulb to the base allows the bird’s flight path to be altered as desired.
Maurer originally trained as a typographer and graphic designer but became fascinated by the lightbulb — what he calls “the perfect union of technology and poetry.” In perhaps his most overt homage to its inventor, he created the Wo Bist Du, Edison? (Where Are You, Edison?) pendant lamp in 1997. When it’s switched on, a light source in a socket shaped like Thomas Edison’s profile produces a vibrant hologram of a traditional incandescent bulb that illuminates an acrylic lampshade.
Shop for sconces
Maurer wittily combined soft goose feather wings and a hard bare bulb in his 1992 Lucellino sconce, shown here in a bedroom of a Belgian home renovated by Mabella Artisans. The name joins the Italian words luce (light) and uccellino (little bird). The fixture also comes as a double sconce and a table lamp with halogen or LED bulbs. In each case, a bendable brass wire connecting the bulb to the base allows the bird’s flight path to be altered as desired.
Maurer originally trained as a typographer and graphic designer but became fascinated by the lightbulb — what he calls “the perfect union of technology and poetry.” In perhaps his most overt homage to its inventor, he created the Wo Bist Du, Edison? (Where Are You, Edison?) pendant lamp in 1997. When it’s switched on, a light source in a socket shaped like Thomas Edison’s profile produces a vibrant hologram of a traditional incandescent bulb that illuminates an acrylic lampshade.
Shop for sconces
85 Lamps Chandelier
This hanging light cluster, created in 1993 by Rody Graumans for upstart Dutch conceptual design collective Droog, 85-upped the solo Lucellino. Graumans stripped the fixture to its essentials — incandescent bulbs, wires and connectors gathered in a knot — but used a lot of them to convey opulence. Droog calls this an example of its “less and more” philosophy.
Responding to environmental concerns, Droog in 2012 updated 85 Lamps with LED bulbs, which it says reduces the chandelier’s energy consumption by about 83%.
Design firm 3north refreshed the interiors of a book-loving family’s row house in a historic Richmond, Virginia, neighborhood with modern touches. This 85 Lamps chandelier hangs over a round four-top, while a Zettel’z chandelier hovers over a rectangular table for eight.
This hanging light cluster, created in 1993 by Rody Graumans for upstart Dutch conceptual design collective Droog, 85-upped the solo Lucellino. Graumans stripped the fixture to its essentials — incandescent bulbs, wires and connectors gathered in a knot — but used a lot of them to convey opulence. Droog calls this an example of its “less and more” philosophy.
Responding to environmental concerns, Droog in 2012 updated 85 Lamps with LED bulbs, which it says reduces the chandelier’s energy consumption by about 83%.
Design firm 3north refreshed the interiors of a book-loving family’s row house in a historic Richmond, Virginia, neighborhood with modern touches. This 85 Lamps chandelier hangs over a round four-top, while a Zettel’z chandelier hovers over a rectangular table for eight.
Light Shade Shade
Another enduring light fixture from Droog is the Light Shade Shade, designed by Jurgen Bey in 1999. Composed of an originally salvaged chandelier suspended within a sleeve of translucent mirror film, it playfully presents something old as something new. Light Shade Shade reflects its surroundings when turned off, only to reveal the surprise inside when turned on.
The largest-size Light Shade Shade balances the range hood in this eat-in kitchen of a 1970s home that Brett Sugerman and Giselle Loor of B+G Design in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, remodeled for themselves and their two boys. Calacatta Gold marble from Opustone covers the window wall.
Another enduring light fixture from Droog is the Light Shade Shade, designed by Jurgen Bey in 1999. Composed of an originally salvaged chandelier suspended within a sleeve of translucent mirror film, it playfully presents something old as something new. Light Shade Shade reflects its surroundings when turned off, only to reveal the surprise inside when turned on.
The largest-size Light Shade Shade balances the range hood in this eat-in kitchen of a 1970s home that Brett Sugerman and Giselle Loor of B+G Design in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, remodeled for themselves and their two boys. Calacatta Gold marble from Opustone covers the window wall.
Knotted Chair
Droog designer Marcel Wanders’ Knotted chair made a splash in 1996 for the way it melded art and technology, fragility and strength. Wanders referenced macramé by hand-knotting carbon rope overbraided with aramid (a strong and lightweight synthetic fiber), soaking the structure in epoxy resin and hanging it in a wooden frame to dry and harden. He made a few prototypes himself before Italian furniture brand Cappellini took over production.
This red Knotted chair coordinates with the artwork in the living room of a New York City loft designed by Thom Filicia, a star of the first incarnation of the Queer Eye reality TV series.
Droog designer Marcel Wanders’ Knotted chair made a splash in 1996 for the way it melded art and technology, fragility and strength. Wanders referenced macramé by hand-knotting carbon rope overbraided with aramid (a strong and lightweight synthetic fiber), soaking the structure in epoxy resin and hanging it in a wooden frame to dry and harden. He made a few prototypes himself before Italian furniture brand Cappellini took over production.
This red Knotted chair coordinates with the artwork in the living room of a New York City loft designed by Thom Filicia, a star of the first incarnation of the Queer Eye reality TV series.
Vermelha Chair
Believing that every room should have a fabulous piece of furniture, Tracy Murdock of Beverly Hills, California, punched up a dramatically dark bedroom for a teenage boy with a Vermelha (Red) chair, consisting of more than 500 yards of cotton-and-acrylic cord piled like spaghetti on an epoxy-lacquered steel frame. Brazilian brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana, masters of the unconventional-materials challenge, created the chair in 1993 after spying a bunch of rope at a São Paulo street stall and bringing it back to their studio to play with. Italian furniture brand Edra put it in production.
Believing that every room should have a fabulous piece of furniture, Tracy Murdock of Beverly Hills, California, punched up a dramatically dark bedroom for a teenage boy with a Vermelha (Red) chair, consisting of more than 500 yards of cotton-and-acrylic cord piled like spaghetti on an epoxy-lacquered steel frame. Brazilian brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana, masters of the unconventional-materials challenge, created the chair in 1993 after spying a bunch of rope at a São Paulo street stall and bringing it back to their studio to play with. Italian furniture brand Edra put it in production.
Favela Chair
The Campanas’ wooden Favela chair of 1991 takes inspiration from the resourcefulness of the Brazilians who built the shantytowns for which it’s named. Low-tech materials — lumber scraps, nails and glue — come together through high craft in furniture rooted in local culture. It’s available from Edra in pine or teak.
Discover some of Brazil’s midcentury modern chairs
The Campanas’ wooden Favela chair of 1991 takes inspiration from the resourcefulness of the Brazilians who built the shantytowns for which it’s named. Low-tech materials — lumber scraps, nails and glue — come together through high craft in furniture rooted in local culture. It’s available from Edra in pine or teak.
Discover some of Brazil’s midcentury modern chairs
Felt Chair
About the same time, Australian designer Marc Newson resolved to make a chair that looked like a folded piece of felt. He stitched two thick layers of the fabric around a core of molded fiberglass and propped it up on a metal leg. The felt version has fallen by the wayside, but Japan’s Idée makes one in woven rattan, and Cappellini makes one in fiberglass.
Washington, D.C., interior designer Raji Radhakrishnan put a white fiberglass Felt chair in her living area: “You have to have seating and lighting, so why not make your choices the most interesting possible?” she says. It’s next to a console she created by placing a mirror behind a piece of ironwork from a French balcony. Above the console is a lithograph by American abstract expressionist Al Held.
Read more about this home and see its floor-to-ceiling murals
About the same time, Australian designer Marc Newson resolved to make a chair that looked like a folded piece of felt. He stitched two thick layers of the fabric around a core of molded fiberglass and propped it up on a metal leg. The felt version has fallen by the wayside, but Japan’s Idée makes one in woven rattan, and Cappellini makes one in fiberglass.
Washington, D.C., interior designer Raji Radhakrishnan put a white fiberglass Felt chair in her living area: “You have to have seating and lighting, so why not make your choices the most interesting possible?” she says. It’s next to a console she created by placing a mirror behind a piece of ironwork from a French balcony. Above the console is a lithograph by American abstract expressionist Al Held.
Read more about this home and see its floor-to-ceiling murals
Wood Chair
In the main living space of a Houston loft by Content Architecture and Robert Sanders Homes, Newson’s steam-bent Wood chair acts as both seating and sculpture. A custom wall unit houses the owner’s book collection and a TV mounted on a swivel behind sliding panels of tempered glass in a satin finish. The upper part of the unit is painted; the lower part is walnut.
Newson leapt onto the world design stage in the 1980s with his welded aluminum Lockheed lounge chair, which in 2015 set an auction sales record for the most expensive design object by a living designer, and he has since designed furniture, lighting, interiors, housewares, vehicles and clothing. In 2014, Newson became the designer for special projects at Apple, where he had a big hand in the Apple Watch. Now he and Apple’s chief design officer, Jonathan Ive, are on to their next chapter: They’re leaving the tech company this year to form an independent design firm.
Read more about this renovated loft
In the main living space of a Houston loft by Content Architecture and Robert Sanders Homes, Newson’s steam-bent Wood chair acts as both seating and sculpture. A custom wall unit houses the owner’s book collection and a TV mounted on a swivel behind sliding panels of tempered glass in a satin finish. The upper part of the unit is painted; the lower part is walnut.
Newson leapt onto the world design stage in the 1980s with his welded aluminum Lockheed lounge chair, which in 2015 set an auction sales record for the most expensive design object by a living designer, and he has since designed furniture, lighting, interiors, housewares, vehicles and clothing. In 2014, Newson became the designer for special projects at Apple, where he had a big hand in the Apple Watch. Now he and Apple’s chief design officer, Jonathan Ive, are on to their next chapter: They’re leaving the tech company this year to form an independent design firm.
Read more about this renovated loft
Bookworm Shelving
A fun display of favorite reads like this is enough to make you give up your e-books and go back to printed versions. Tel Aviv-born Ron Arad designed his Bookworm shelving as a one-off sprung-steel piece and unveiled it at the 1993 Milan Furniture Fair. Italian manufacturer Kartell picked it up and mass-produced it in injection-molded plastic.
Available in three lengths and eight colors, the curvy Bookworm can assume a multitude of poses based on the position of its brackets. In this bedroom of a Northern California ranch house by interior designer Suzanne Childress, walls painted in Benjamin Moore’s Urban Nature beautifully set off the Bookworm’s sculptural quality.
Shop for Bookworm shelving
A fun display of favorite reads like this is enough to make you give up your e-books and go back to printed versions. Tel Aviv-born Ron Arad designed his Bookworm shelving as a one-off sprung-steel piece and unveiled it at the 1993 Milan Furniture Fair. Italian manufacturer Kartell picked it up and mass-produced it in injection-molded plastic.
Available in three lengths and eight colors, the curvy Bookworm can assume a multitude of poses based on the position of its brackets. In this bedroom of a Northern California ranch house by interior designer Suzanne Childress, walls painted in Benjamin Moore’s Urban Nature beautifully set off the Bookworm’s sculptural quality.
Shop for Bookworm shelving
Tom Vac Chair
Arad’s Tom Vac chair actually started out as sculpture. Eager to try his hand at vacuum forming aluminum, he took on a 1997 Milan Design Week challenge from Domus magazine “to explore both novelty and memory in design, art and architecture” and came up with a tower of 100 chairs called Totem. Swiss furniture manufacturer Vitra was so thrilled with the individual component of the sculpture that it asked Arad for permission to produce it in plastic.
The ripples in the black or white polypropylene shell are not only stylish, but they also create strength, Arad says. The hole allows for stacking — but only five high, not 100.
The chair’s tubular steel legs are chrome-plated or powder-coated. The latter can be used in outdoor settings, such as on this deck of a beachfront house by Indonesian architecture firm Seriously Designed. Although additives retard fading, limited exposure to sunlight is recommended.
Today the Tom Vac chair is an Instagram favorite, Arad says, sometimes to the chagrin of its namesake. Let it be known that the chair was named after his photographer friend, not the other way around!
Arad’s Tom Vac chair actually started out as sculpture. Eager to try his hand at vacuum forming aluminum, he took on a 1997 Milan Design Week challenge from Domus magazine “to explore both novelty and memory in design, art and architecture” and came up with a tower of 100 chairs called Totem. Swiss furniture manufacturer Vitra was so thrilled with the individual component of the sculpture that it asked Arad for permission to produce it in plastic.
The ripples in the black or white polypropylene shell are not only stylish, but they also create strength, Arad says. The hole allows for stacking — but only five high, not 100.
The chair’s tubular steel legs are chrome-plated or powder-coated. The latter can be used in outdoor settings, such as on this deck of a beachfront house by Indonesian architecture firm Seriously Designed. Although additives retard fading, limited exposure to sunlight is recommended.
Today the Tom Vac chair is an Instagram favorite, Arad says, sometimes to the chagrin of its namesake. Let it be known that the chair was named after his photographer friend, not the other way around!
Globus Chair
The Globus is another 1990s stacking chair with a sexy cutout in the back. It’s the creation of Jesús Gasca, founder of Spanish contemporary furniture company STUA, an acronym for solo tengo un amor (I have only one love). The seat and backrest are made of plywood in five finishes or, for the outdoor model, polypropylene in six colors. The indoor frame is matte or shiny chrome or white or black lacquer. The outdoor frame is matte stainless steel.
Here, eight walnut-veneer Globus chairs gather around an oval table in the casual dining area of Jill and Steve McKenzie’s home outside Atlanta. Before starting their own design studio and home decor business, the couple refreshed the house with the help of Kerry Howard, a onetime contestant on the Bravo reality TV show Top Design.
The Globus is another 1990s stacking chair with a sexy cutout in the back. It’s the creation of Jesús Gasca, founder of Spanish contemporary furniture company STUA, an acronym for solo tengo un amor (I have only one love). The seat and backrest are made of plywood in five finishes or, for the outdoor model, polypropylene in six colors. The indoor frame is matte or shiny chrome or white or black lacquer. The outdoor frame is matte stainless steel.
Here, eight walnut-veneer Globus chairs gather around an oval table in the casual dining area of Jill and Steve McKenzie’s home outside Atlanta. Before starting their own design studio and home decor business, the couple refreshed the house with the help of Kerry Howard, a onetime contestant on the Bravo reality TV show Top Design.
Adler Ceramics
The McKenzies’ library, pictured, was designed specifically to hold Steve’s collection of art books and Jonathan Adler pottery. Steve, an artist and the former CEO of custom frame manufacturer Larson-Juhl, says it’s his favorite room in the house. In the family room, a vibrant modern Adler rug mixes happily with traditional wing chairs, enlivening the neutral color scheme.
Before New Jersey-born Adler became an internationally known designer of a wide range of chic furnishings — and the homes, hotels and restaurants they inhabit — he was a tween summer camper learning to shape clay. He begged his parents for a pottery wheel and kiln, and spent his adolescence throwing pots. He spent his college years doing that too, at the Rhode Island School of Design, when he was supposed to be studying semiotics and art history at nearby Brown University. His professor told him that he had no talent. So he went to work for a talent agency.
The McKenzies’ library, pictured, was designed specifically to hold Steve’s collection of art books and Jonathan Adler pottery. Steve, an artist and the former CEO of custom frame manufacturer Larson-Juhl, says it’s his favorite room in the house. In the family room, a vibrant modern Adler rug mixes happily with traditional wing chairs, enlivening the neutral color scheme.
Before New Jersey-born Adler became an internationally known designer of a wide range of chic furnishings — and the homes, hotels and restaurants they inhabit — he was a tween summer camper learning to shape clay. He begged his parents for a pottery wheel and kiln, and spent his adolescence throwing pots. He spent his college years doing that too, at the Rhode Island School of Design, when he was supposed to be studying semiotics and art history at nearby Brown University. His professor told him that he had no talent. So he went to work for a talent agency.
After three miserable years in the entertainment industry, Adler founded his eponymous company in 1993 and got orders from interior designer Bill Sofield and Barneys department store. There was no looking back. He designed furniture to display his pottery and lighting to showcase it. He opened his first store, in New York City, in 1998.
Adler is particularly fond of his Dora Maar bowl for the way it looks unearthed rather than designed. It’s part of his Muse porcelain collection, in which surrealist body parts stand in for the usual geometric relief patterns. The pieces in this photo include the Dora Maar faces vase and urn, named after the French photographer, poet, painter and lover of Pablo Picasso’s; the Gala lips vase, named after the Russian wife of Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí; and the Georgia breasts orb, named after American artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
Shop for Jonathan Adler products
Adler is particularly fond of his Dora Maar bowl for the way it looks unearthed rather than designed. It’s part of his Muse porcelain collection, in which surrealist body parts stand in for the usual geometric relief patterns. The pieces in this photo include the Dora Maar faces vase and urn, named after the French photographer, poet, painter and lover of Pablo Picasso’s; the Gala lips vase, named after the Russian wife of Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí; and the Georgia breasts orb, named after American artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
Shop for Jonathan Adler products
Wearstler Interiors
In a somewhat surreal career mashup, Adler became a judge on Top Design, serving alongside interior designer Kelly Wearstler.
A South Carolina native and daughter of an antiques dealer, Wearstler moved to Los Angeles to work as a set decorator but, like Adler, grew disillusioned with the entertainment industry. In 1995, she started her eponymous company with money she had earned modeling for Playboy. She met hotelier and future husband Brad Korzen, designed his home and, before the decade was out, made over the Avalon in Beverly Hills, the first in a string of boutique hotel projects. An array of furnishings also carry her name.
Wearstler’s aesthetic combines the Hollywood Regency glamour of Dorothy Draper, the surrealism of Piero Fornasetti and the brashness of the Memphis Group — to which she brings an inimitable fearlessness for mixing vivid colors, patterns, textures and eras. A multilayered, stimulating sensory experience is always at the heart of her ever-evolving approach, she says.
Wearstler’s 2012 design of a home on Washington’s Mercer Island includes this double-height library. Brass insets in the wall of white-veined black marble from Spain pick up the tones of the custom brass staircase, left. A massive custom desk partners with midcentury French armchairs. Behind them, the reception room’s bold turquoise wallcovering peeks out on both sides.
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In a somewhat surreal career mashup, Adler became a judge on Top Design, serving alongside interior designer Kelly Wearstler.
A South Carolina native and daughter of an antiques dealer, Wearstler moved to Los Angeles to work as a set decorator but, like Adler, grew disillusioned with the entertainment industry. In 1995, she started her eponymous company with money she had earned modeling for Playboy. She met hotelier and future husband Brad Korzen, designed his home and, before the decade was out, made over the Avalon in Beverly Hills, the first in a string of boutique hotel projects. An array of furnishings also carry her name.
Wearstler’s aesthetic combines the Hollywood Regency glamour of Dorothy Draper, the surrealism of Piero Fornasetti and the brashness of the Memphis Group — to which she brings an inimitable fearlessness for mixing vivid colors, patterns, textures and eras. A multilayered, stimulating sensory experience is always at the heart of her ever-evolving approach, she says.
Wearstler’s 2012 design of a home on Washington’s Mercer Island includes this double-height library. Brass insets in the wall of white-veined black marble from Spain pick up the tones of the custom brass staircase, left. A massive custom desk partners with midcentury French armchairs. Behind them, the reception room’s bold turquoise wallcovering peeks out on both sides.
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Mirrored Walls
Mirrored walls (and closet doors) were popular in the 1990s and still work wonders. This dining room Wearstler designed for a Los Angeles residence has a wall paneled in antiqued mirror. A black lacquer Howard Werner table pairs with bronze Paul Evans chairs upholstered in gold-flecked cowhide.
Find out how to make reflective walls work
Mirrored walls (and closet doors) were popular in the 1990s and still work wonders. This dining room Wearstler designed for a Los Angeles residence has a wall paneled in antiqued mirror. A black lacquer Howard Werner table pairs with bronze Paul Evans chairs upholstered in gold-flecked cowhide.
Find out how to make reflective walls work
Globetrotters Kendall and Laci Horner developed an appreciation for the daring design found in boutique hotels like Wearstler’s. They brought in CM Natural Designs to convey that look and their love of travel in their San Diego loft.
In the bedroom, the team built a mirrored wall to create a closet behind the bed. Its reflectiveness helps keep the room from feeling hemmed in. Dramatic floor-to-ceiling curtains in purple velvet soften the industrial elements and block out the sun when desired. A Victorian-style chandelier adds an old-world touch.
Read more about this hotel-inspired makeover and see before-and-after photos
In the bedroom, the team built a mirrored wall to create a closet behind the bed. Its reflectiveness helps keep the room from feeling hemmed in. Dramatic floor-to-ceiling curtains in purple velvet soften the industrial elements and block out the sun when desired. A Victorian-style chandelier adds an old-world touch.
Read more about this hotel-inspired makeover and see before-and-after photos
Shabby Chic
Like Wearstler, Rachel Ashwell grew up visiting flea markets — her mother restored antique dolls and teddy bears, and her father dealt in rare books — and she styled sets after moving to Southern California. But the British-born designer’s charming cottagey aesthetic, which she honed in her own home as a divorced mother of two and later trademarked as Shabby Chic, couldn’t be more different.
Ashwell put child- and pet-friendly slipcovers of supposedly unwashable fabrics on scavenged seating pieces. She embraced characterful marks of time (or deliberate distressing) on painted wooden furniture. She honored faded vintage textiles and simulated their look with tea staining. She kept things calm, simple, natural and textured. She opened her first furniture store, in Santa Monica, in 1989 and became one of buzziest designers of the ’90s, with books, a TV show and an Oprah stamp of approval on her T-shirt bedsheets.
Ashwell’s many celebrity projects include a Malibu home for actress Pamela Anderson. The romantic living room, pictured, features seating slipcovered in white linen, billowy linen curtains functioning as a room divider, and softly colored flowers. Contributing to the space’s restful feel are cabinets behind reclaimed-wood doors that keep Anderson’s book collection organized but out of view.
Shop for slipcovered sofas
Like Wearstler, Rachel Ashwell grew up visiting flea markets — her mother restored antique dolls and teddy bears, and her father dealt in rare books — and she styled sets after moving to Southern California. But the British-born designer’s charming cottagey aesthetic, which she honed in her own home as a divorced mother of two and later trademarked as Shabby Chic, couldn’t be more different.
Ashwell put child- and pet-friendly slipcovers of supposedly unwashable fabrics on scavenged seating pieces. She embraced characterful marks of time (or deliberate distressing) on painted wooden furniture. She honored faded vintage textiles and simulated their look with tea staining. She kept things calm, simple, natural and textured. She opened her first furniture store, in Santa Monica, in 1989 and became one of buzziest designers of the ’90s, with books, a TV show and an Oprah stamp of approval on her T-shirt bedsheets.
Ashwell’s many celebrity projects include a Malibu home for actress Pamela Anderson. The romantic living room, pictured, features seating slipcovered in white linen, billowy linen curtains functioning as a room divider, and softly colored flowers. Contributing to the space’s restful feel are cabinets behind reclaimed-wood doors that keep Anderson’s book collection organized but out of view.
Shop for slipcovered sofas
Not So Big House
Ashwell, whose business expanded rapidly before collapsing into bankruptcy soon after the 2008 financial crisis, has owned homes with 3,000-plus square feet in the most exclusive enclaves of L.A. But a move to a Malibu beach bungalow about half that size helped her realize that she wasn’t a big-house person.
Fellow British transplant Sarah Susanka has been fighting the bigger-is-better mentality in residential architecture since writing her 1998 bestseller, The Not So Big House. One key, she says, is to banish spaces you don’t use every day and make the rest worthy of spending time in. Another is to keep living spaces open but cozy via varied ceiling heights and other devices. For example, this living room in a Susanka-designed house near Chicago is open to the central stairwell and to the reading nook on the left, yet it’s differentiated from them by a slatted wall and a raised ceiling.
Read more about this house and see the floor plan
Ashwell, whose business expanded rapidly before collapsing into bankruptcy soon after the 2008 financial crisis, has owned homes with 3,000-plus square feet in the most exclusive enclaves of L.A. But a move to a Malibu beach bungalow about half that size helped her realize that she wasn’t a big-house person.
Fellow British transplant Sarah Susanka has been fighting the bigger-is-better mentality in residential architecture since writing her 1998 bestseller, The Not So Big House. One key, she says, is to banish spaces you don’t use every day and make the rest worthy of spending time in. Another is to keep living spaces open but cozy via varied ceiling heights and other devices. For example, this living room in a Susanka-designed house near Chicago is open to the central stairwell and to the reading nook on the left, yet it’s differentiated from them by a slatted wall and a raised ceiling.
Read more about this house and see the floor plan
Tiny House
As a teen, Jay Shafer lived for a time in a 4,000-square-foot Iowan manse, which he and his sister had to clean. The upkeep left an impression. In 1999, he built his first tiny house, also in Iowa; at 110 square feet, it was 27% smaller than Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond. In founding the Tumbleweed Tiny House Co., Shafer jump-started a movement.
After he married and had a child, Shafer moved up to a 500-square-foot house in Northern California and built this tiny house next door to use as a model and office. A sleeping loft nestles in the gable above the 6-by-8-foot great room, which fits a little fireplace, lots of hidden storage, two comfy chairs, a desk and a streamlined computer.
Read more about this tiny house
Share: What designs from the 1990s would you highlight? What are the standouts of the 2000s? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments.
More on Houzz
21st-Century Looks for Shabby Chic Fans
Houzz TV: A Tiny-House Family’s Big Adventure
Find a pro for your home project
Shop for home products
As a teen, Jay Shafer lived for a time in a 4,000-square-foot Iowan manse, which he and his sister had to clean. The upkeep left an impression. In 1999, he built his first tiny house, also in Iowa; at 110 square feet, it was 27% smaller than Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond. In founding the Tumbleweed Tiny House Co., Shafer jump-started a movement.
After he married and had a child, Shafer moved up to a 500-square-foot house in Northern California and built this tiny house next door to use as a model and office. A sleeping loft nestles in the gable above the 6-by-8-foot great room, which fits a little fireplace, lots of hidden storage, two comfy chairs, a desk and a streamlined computer.
Read more about this tiny house
Share: What designs from the 1990s would you highlight? What are the standouts of the 2000s? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments.
More on Houzz
21st-Century Looks for Shabby Chic Fans
Houzz TV: A Tiny-House Family’s Big Adventure
Find a pro for your home project
Shop for home products
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I have a Herman Miller Mirra 2 Chair for my computer office desk. Best dang office chair I ever purchased. It's like 5-6 years old and rarely did my other office chairs ever last that long. I have a feeling it's a keeper! LOL
The giant media cabinets to hide the tv and laser disc player! That was the 90’s I remember
What about those giant projection TV's? Then, after, they were replaced with flat screens that took much less depth and we were left with empty space to fill!!