Dwellings on Madison owner Grace Jones predicts a growing desire for uplifting design
When Grace Jones opened her showroom of home accessories about 10 years ago, she wanted to create an elegant atmosphere for browsing a collection of local and internationally sourced objects. Drink in hand, you’d stroll through the store, listening to the stories of each item told by Jones herself or a member of her design team.
The store, called Dwellings on Madison, is located at 2003 Madison Road in historic O’Bryonville and is home to a showroom and interior design services. The showroom is updated often with new wonders, including ones she predicts will grow in popularity as the pandemic recedes.
“One of the things COVID has done is lock people in their house for a year. We’ve all taken a good look at our places and realized we need to do more to be comfortable,” Jones says. “This psychological and emotional need has created some huge trends in what we want to surround ourselves with and what qualities we appreciate.”
One of those trends is a return to natural and organic materials and colors. “Our love of the great outdoors, stoked by our confinement, has led to the need to bring the natural world inside,” she says. “This is reflected in capturing our outdoor spaces as part of our living room but also in choosing living colors, materials and textures for our furnishings.”
Another trend is incorporating human faces and animals. “We’re seeing many new fabrics and wallpaper patterns with faces and scenes of living beings. Since we’ve been separated from contact, there is a desire to have representations of the life we miss,” says Jones.
Jones says she’s also seeing increased appreciation of sustainable furniture and handmade furnishings. “I see many people … want to make an investment in real wood, stone and other organic materials for their homes. Handmade and hand-painted tiles from Spain or Italy are replacing the sterile white subway tile in kitchens, baths and floors,” she says.
In addition, Jones says people are looking to find escape within their existing homes. “People are asking me to give their master bedroom the feel of a luxurious hotel suite. Being unable to travel and feeling cooped up with each other, the retreat to the haven of a cool, soft bedroom is newly important,” she adds.
