Furnishings 101: Making a House a Home - Millennials

Furnishings 101: Making a House a Home - Millennials

Welcome to Harley Butler Trading Company, and to the first installment in our blog series, “Furnishings 101: Making a House a Home.”

What does “Making a House a Home” mean? It is a very broad statement, and for each reader, will conjure a different image or feeling of comfort, nesting, or just where you park it. Some will look around their “home” and see a collection of fine furniture, pieces added over a lifetime of changing styles, markers of their increasing wealth and sophistication of tastes. Others may look around and see the pieces that used to be their parents’, and were handed down as their parents added to their own furniture collection. And yet others will look around and say it was what was on sale and fit a need at the time.

Your Style

No one style is right. No one style is wrong. However, the style should be yours. And in all likelihood, it will change over time as styles and trends change, and as you yourself change.

A “home” is not just the two-story colonial in the suburbs with the white picket fence. It is the loft, the apartment amongst a sea of apartments. It may also be the college dorm, the retirement community, or the tiny home on wheels.

So, where do we start? What style do we pick to write about first, without turning off the interest of the other readers? Tough question. Let’s start with Millennials. Either we are in that group, or our children, or our grandchildren. At some point, their influence on furniture trends will touch almost all of us.

Elegantly Simple

Millennials, those in the 18-34 year-old range, are now the largest living generation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, overtaking the Baby Boomers. And as with every generation before, Millennials are defining their own style, throwing out, or recycling, the hand-me down furniture from their parents. Or grandparents.

Their trend is minimalism. Calming, uncluttered, modern, comfortable. It is clean lines, made from sustainable and eco-friendly materials, multi-functional, affordable. It is theirs. And it is now.

Minimalism does not have to mean sparse, uninspired, boring. Rather, Live-edge wood dining or coffee tables on wrought-iron frames can be both simple and elegant. Several furniture lines have pieces incorporating wood, metal and other materials, such as light-weight concrete table tops. Dovetail Furniture has several pieces with the clean, modern look, yet comfortable and functional. Blend in some rich-tone all-wood furniture for color and contrast in materials and you have a look that warms and adds interest to the space.

Bramble has headboards, bathroom vanities and cabinets with a reclaimed, distressed look that complements the industrial feel, and which fit very nicely in many other settings.

Influencing Trends

Through their numbers and purchasing power, Millennials are able to influence trends. Consequently, we are seeing more in the modern, contemporary, industrial-look direction. They definitely have a style of their own. But then, the Baby Boomers did, and do, as well.  Who knows, parents, and grandparents, may want their Millennial children and grandchildren to “hand-me-up” some of these pieces as they continue to transition through life themselves.

We hope we have helped spark an inspiration for your style. Look through our online store for more ideas. If you don’t see something that strikes your fancy (Baby-Boomers know that expression….), email Sales@HarleyButler.com or call us at (469)629-8014. Our designers will be very pleased to help you refine your ideas and locate those furnishings to complete your vision.

Harley Butler Trading Company, LLC

Furnishings for home, work and life