7 Trends We Love from the BHG 100 Event
Our hundredth anniversary celebration featured tons of home, food, and garden inspiration—check out our favorite trend predictions from the event.
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Better Homes & Gardens turns 100 years old in 2022, and we’ve been celebrating all year long. We’ve rung in our centennial through special reflections on the last 100 years, our exclusive Harry Styles cover, and a whole new look for our website and magazine, just to name a few special projects—and at the end of September, we hosted our annual Stylemaker event with a special birthday spin and called it BHG 100.
The BHG 100 event on September 29 featured a slate of panels and conversations with top voices in the home, food, and garden space, including Carla Hall, Katie Lee Biegel, Dave and Jenny Marrs, Carmeon Hamilton, Jonathan Adler, Simon Doonan, and many more.
On one panel, Carmeon Hamilton of Nubi Interiors (and winner of HGTV’s first season of Design Star: Next Gen), Christiane Lemieux of Lemieux et Cie, Hawa Hassan of BasBaas Somali Foods and In Bibi’s Kitchen, and Nick Cutsumpas of Netflix’s Instant Dream Home discussed how they turned their passions for food, design, and plants into their jobs. On another, design and decor experts Benjamin Reynaert of Interior Define, Anna Brockway of Chairish, Pinterest’s Jeremy Jankowski, and global trend ambassador Patti Carpenter talked all things trends.
The entire event was packed with inspiration for creating a better life and home, and we’re already feeling our creative energies flowing, thanks to the smart ideas and trends we saw and heard about at BHG 100. Read on for top trends to look out for now, as predicted by our BHG 100 experts.
1. Color Is Coming
In the BHG 100 trends panel, Reynaert, Brockway, Jankowski, and Carpenter showcased plenty of varied trends, but one theme carried through nearly all of them: Color is going to become even more important in our homes. As many 2023 Color of the Year predictions demonstrate, design is continuing to move in a more colorful direction. Color is a simple way to express yourself in any space, at any scale—you can incorporate something as small as colorful throw pillows into your home or go as big as painting an entire room your favorite shade of blue. If you haven’t yet ditched all-white walls in your home, now’s as good a time as any to pick up a paint brush and get to work.
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2. Sustainability Is Essential
It was most strongly emphasized by Cutsumpas, but plenty of other experts agreed: Sustainable gardening, decorating, and cooking is only going to continue to become more popular—and more important. If you haven’t gone all-in on organic materials and sustainably made products in all areas of your life yet, now is absolutely the time.
3. Bowls Beat Plates
It was nearly unanimous: Bowls are replacing plates as our preferred dishware for meals of all types. Just look at the Better Homes & Gardens fall collaboration with Dave and Jenny Marrs. The gorgeous dishware in the collection leans heavily into wide, flat bowls that are perfect for rice bowls, noodle dishes, and meat-and-veggie meals alike. Plenty of our panelists agreed that bowls beat plates for most meals—if you haven’t yet invested in a broader set of bowls with wide bases and shallower basins, consider this your sign.
4. Outside Goes In
Whether you incorporate outdoor elements into your space through organic details such as wood or stone, you’ve stocked up on houseplants, or you’re all about biophilic design, expect to see even more traditionally outdoor decor inside. During our BHG 100 trends panel, Carpenter even highlighted a specific application of this trend: taking large planters that have typically lived outdoors and bringing them inside to give those beloved houseplants a more eye-grabbing home.
5. Hospitality Spaces Are Bursting with Inspiration
As interior design has become more popular (and more publicly showcased on social media), expert and amateur home decorators have taken note—but so have decorators working in the hospitality space. Whether you’re looking at boutique hotels, local bed and breakfasts, or Airbnbs, the decor in these spaces has become something worth studying. (In her panel, Hamilton even noted that hospitality spaces are one of her top sources of inspiration.) The next time you’re not sure what your next home project should be, you can look to these spaces for inspiration and even copy less specific elements of hotel design, such as celebrating local craftspeople and highlighting natural surroundings, in your own home.
6. Oversized Seating
Call it the comfiest trend from the BHG 100 event. In our trends panel, Reynaert said that comfy, extra-large seating—think giant, plush sectionals and conversation pits—is taking center stage. Whether you just love the comfort of sinking into an oversized sofa or appreciate the versatility of a plush couch that doubles as a guest bed, this is a cozy trend we can all appreciate.
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7. Marble, Original Art, and Personal or Meaningful Items Aren’t Going Anywhere
Our trend panelists shared plenty of upcoming trends anyone can try at home, but they also emphasized that some trends are truly timeless. Namely, marble accents, original art that speaks to you, and personal or meaningful items should always have a place in your home, regardless of what other, more fleeting trends you take part in.
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