Trendy furniture types: The furniture season 2019

To say it straight away: there have been no fundamental changes from the furniture season 2018 – on the contrary. The trends of “livability” and “cosiness” are reinforced further by the new product offerings and the trends revolving around colours and material. The reason: home is becoming increasingly important, and is even being expanded upon as a home, place of retreat, protective space and place for meeting with friends & family.

The Scandinavian living style is currently so well-received because it very closely approximates the dream of a livable home with its many colours, natural materials and tasteful deco ideas, despite its modern forms. Parallel with this, however, there is a new desire for poppy colours and forms, as well as a longing for an atmosphere that is appreciative of art and sedate, which no longer so entirely harmonises with the nature image of the Scandinavian living style.

When we meet with friends more often at home, the interior should be furnished accordingly. Chairs are therefore very popular. The dining room is coming back in fashion: with four or six chairs at a big table or in combination with a narrow but comfortable bench. However, the table is multi-functional here: homework is done, games are played, e-mails answered, family discussions carried out, people eat here and food prepared with friends is eaten here.

We need a favourite place in the home - at the fireplace, in the small, private library or at the panorama window with a view of the lake. The armrest chair is booming and is the perfect supplement to the still greatly popular sets of side tables. As a simple armrest chair with wooden rests, as a velvety lounge chair with gold applications or as a luxuriously upholstered chair with a lot of fabric: the solitary piece of furniture is one of the eye-catchers in a modern furnished apartment.

The comeback of the sideboard was already happening in 2018. However, many manufacturers stepped things up a notch in 2019: a lot of things can disappear behind the currently often patterned sliding and roller doors of elegant wood – and suddenly the living room looks quite tidy. The sideboard also provides surfaces for deco & more. In the course of this development, display cases or modern kitchen cabinets with glass inserts are making an appearance: we can display our favourite pieces and cult objects there to special advantage. The shelf is losing a little of its significance – books and music are increasingly being consumed in digital form. Shelving manufacturers offer doors, boxes and drawers – we nonetheless increasingly like to have things tidy at home.

Classic forms are also popular with seating furniture. Representative and classic forms are once again finding their place. Grandma's good "sofa set" suddenly looks both sedate and fresh when luxuriously upholstered and modernly quilted, in modern velvet and wool fabrics. In terms of their design, couches and lounge chairs are reminiscent of the elegant furniture of the early twentieth century, as well as of the cocktail forms of the 50s to 60s, or the boxy or pumped up bubble gum volume of the 70s and 80s. Sofas are increasingly "lower" in stylish homes, or built "higher" for more comfort and for older people. Never before has seating been available in so many styles and with so many individual possibilities for configuration. The modular seating landscape is also coming back in some individual cases. Their advantage is the ability to combine or the flexibility offered by different elements – resulting in living landscapes for individual needs. Table elements are combined here with high or low seating surfaces.

Functionality is still an issue. But just as important today are individual upholstery fabrics and upholstery qualities for the outer and inner values. This is especially true for the protagonist in the bedroom: the bed. Already at the imm cologne 2019 it is clear that the bedroom has the potential to become a super star. It will shine in future not only as an attractively designed sleeping area with integrated storage space solutions and indirect lighting of wardrobe, display case and headboard. The boundary with the living area is gradually dissolving without any walls having to fall. Instead, the bedroom as an intimate living area could have a great future as a quite place, a yoga temple, reading room, creative workplace or other individual place of retreat used in some other way.

When a trend, like the current one of livability, is very dominant, one often finds a counter-trend somewhere else: it is becoming more minimalistic in our homes again. That means that if we want to follow this trend, we will have to clear away all of the decorative objects and objects of daily life. We need more room for this. And because we nonetheless also want to have it "nice" at home, this minimalism is then not as consistent as representatives of Bauhaus would have wished after all. The growing complexity of our everyday lives is intensifying the desire for clarity and order in our homes. Simplification is strived for by reducing household and consumer goods (keywords are happy cleaning and degrowth). Light grey tones and natural materials (such as marble) combined with the classic Bauhaus style, complemented with an antique piece of furniture that belonged to grandma and household textiles that feel good to the touch: that is what makes cosy minimalism – with its clean-desk look of matt surfaces and warm colours – a convincing alternative. Cool and cosy: a highly promising duo.