Casper also likes hardware choices that mix metals, like gold, matte black, polished nickel and silver. She says where gold finishes were the rage, combining them is back in the mix. She incorporates them variously into pulls, doorknobs, faucets, shower heads and other hardware, with particular appreciation for how fingerprints disappear on matte black.
If you sport a beard, wear a plaid flannel shirt or skirt, or don aviator sunglasses, you understand how fashion can enjoy a dead-cat bounce long after its heyday. Likewise for home fashion, where “granny chic” is making a comeback, says Realtor and interior designer Ashley Acra. Traditional styles from Charleston’s past are increasingly popular, giving rise to heirloom pieces, custom millwork, and neo-classical sophistication. “Folks are done with the cold, stark, modern minimalistic feel and are embracing a soft, warm, sophisticated feeling that makes it feel like a hug in the room,” she said.
Technology has brought back other popular design elements, like the ever-controversial wallpaper. Hundreds of years old, it’s back in vogue, particularly with the peel-and-stick versions that require no glue and come in quirky designs like geometric shapes and hand-painted scenes. Designers who eschewed wallpaper for decades are embracing it now.
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Ditto for marble countertops. Beloved as a natural stone, marble is porous, difficult to maintain and fell out of favor around the time Al Gore was inventing the Internet. Buyers soon soured on its replacement, manufactured quartz, which lacked the authenticity of the original. Today, kitchens are eating their cake and having it too, with manufactured countertops that resist the elements like quartz but mimic marble more faithfully.
Irrespective of what’s hot at any given moment, Casper says her designs start and end with the client. “I listen to what the client’s style is and what will make them comfortable in their own home.”