This week in the industry, designing around a personal collection or niche hobby can bring added character to a home—especially when that special interest is a chameleon named Skittles. Stay in the know with our weekly roundup of headlines, launches, events, recommended reading and more.

Business News

President Trump secured several major trade deals over the past week, including a preliminary agreement with the European Union that will include a 15 percent tariff on most E.U. goods, The New York Times reports. The deal will see both sides eliminate duties on aircraft, semiconductor equipment, certain chemicals and pharmaceuticals and some agricultural products, though the U.S.’s 50 percent universal tariff on steel and aluminum will remain in effect on European imports. Prior to the E.U. deal, the president also announced a trade deal with Japan last week, landing on a 15 percent duty. Though the deals remain preliminary, they represent some progress in reducing the steep tariffs set to take effect on August 1. —That’s the next date to look out for, when a slate of higher reciprocal levies (including a 35 percent tariff on Canada, a 30 percent tariff on Mexico, and a 25 percent tariff on South Korea) are scheduled to go into effect if agreements with those countries aren’t reached in time. Meanwhile, President Trump has also floated the possibility of a higher universal tariff rate, “somewhere in the 15 to 20 percent range,” CBS News reports.

Luxury upholstery and case goods manufacturer EJ Victor has announced that it will not resume operations nearly a year after Hurricane Helene caused extensive damage to the company’s operations in Morganton, North Carolina. As Home News Now reports, the news was shared in a letter to customers from company president and CEO Richard Oliver, who disclosed that EJ Victor’s shareholders decided to begin the liquidation process after it took the company nine months to settle its insurance claim following the hurricane last September. In the time that’s elapsed, Oliver wrote, “most of [EJ Victor’s] designers and retail customers have had to seek alternative sources to continue their businesses.” Resuming operations would also include the added hurdles of rehiring some of the 120 workers the company laid off last November and making extensive repairs to its manufacturing plant. Instead, the liquidation process is expected to begin by the end of 2026.

OpenAI is working on adding a payment checkout system within ChatGPT, The Financial Times reports. Sources familiar with the plans told FT that the company’s goal is to enable users to make transactions through its chatbot and require merchants who utilize the platform to make sales to pay a commission to OpenAI. While the platform currently earns revenue through subscriptions to premium services, the new feature would allow it to profit from free AI services.

Christie’s International Real Estate—one of the nation’s largest luxury brokerages—has created a division dedicated to assisting buyers who want to purchase real estate with cryptocurrency, The New York Times reports. The new division, which debuted last week, will include a dedicated team of lawyers, analysts and experts in digital currency, who will aid buyers and sellers in transactions that exclusively involve digital payments. In the broader housing market, cryptocurrency is becoming increasingly commonplace: In June, the Trump administration’s housing director instructed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the nation’s largest mortgage finance firms) to consider home buyers’ crypto investments when assessing their mortgage eligibility. Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll revealed that roughly 14 percent of American adults now own some form of cryptocurrency.

In recent weeks, the hosts of several fan-favorite HGTV shows have announced their series’ cancellations on social media, a sign of a programming shake-up at the home renovation network, People reports. Six programs in total—including Christina on the Coast, The Flipping El Moussas, Bargain Block, Married to Real Estate, Farmhouse Fixer and Izzy Does It—will allegedly not be returning for another season. The sudden reduction of HGTV’s offerings comes less than two months after the news that Warner Bros. Discovery will split itself into two stand-alone companies—one comprising its HBO Max streaming service, movie studio and TV production business; and the other home to cable networks like CNN, TNT, TBS and HGTV.

U.S. home prices continue to hit record highs, reaching a median of $435,300 in June, the 24th straight month of year-over-year price growth in the country, according to the National Association of Realtors. As The New York Times reports, June typically serves as the busiest time of year for real estate transactions, but this year sales of existing homes fell 2.7 percent compared to May. Meanwhile, Redfin reported that 15 percent of deals fell apart in June, the highest level for that month on record. The lack of affordability in the market continues to keep many prospective buyers from making home purchases, with a recent report from Redfin revealing that luxury homes (defined as those in the top 5 percent of the market by sale price) now cost more than $1 million in all but seven of the largest U.S. metro areas.

Launches and Collaborations

Houston retailer Star Furniture (a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway) has partnered with local homebuilder Royal Texan Homes to develop a new program that introduces QR code–enabled furniture shopping into model homes. Launching in the High Meadow West community of Magnolia, Texas, the collaboration will see Star Furniture showcase a curated selection of furniture in each home—with pieces chosen to complement the building’s architectural style—and allow prospective buyers to bookmark or order items during their tours.

Furnitureland South, the nation’s largest furniture store,— has debuted an in-store restaurant called The Gathering Table. The Jamestown, North Carolina–based retailer’s new eatery will feature a menu inspired by the building’s showrooms, with meals made from locally-sourced ingredients.

Resource Furniture has teamed up with Humanscale to debut a curated assortment of home office pieces. The Humanscale Living collection features an array of pieces—including lounge chairs, tables and desks—all available in Resource Furniture’s showrooms and online.

Maison Venu has entered the bedding category with the debut of a new collection of semi-custom quilts. Accessible only to the trade, the new offerings are handmade in India and are available in any of the brand’s fabric-by-the-yard patterns and colorways, along with custom colorways.

Showhouses

The 2025 Real Simple Home will debut in a reimagined penthouse suite and two-bedroom apartment in a newly constructed building in New York’s Financial District. The cohort of designers chosen to remake the space for the showhouse’s eighth annual edition includes Alvin Wayne, Mandy Cheng, Noz Nozawa—and actress, TV host and design enthusiast Drew Barrymore, who will unveil a wellness space within the property. The showhouse will open its doors in September and will be featured in the magazine’s October 2025 issue.

Recommended Reading

For many design enthusiasts, the beauty of a brand-new space is the potential it holds to undergo a complete transformation. But according to some design professionals, that doesn’t mean the makeover should start on day one. For The New York Times, Rachel del Valle explores the argument for a slow approach to home design, in which residents take time to learn their space and how they’d like to live in it before undergoing extensive renovations or enlisting the help of a designer.

When it comes to the appliances on the market today, the general consensus in recent years has been that current offerings can’t hold a candle to the stripped-down dishwashers, stoves, washing machines and dryers available in years past, which many believe were more reliable and functional than what’s available today. For Wirecutter, Rachel Wharton consults a trove of research to dispel some misconceptions around the state of modern appliances (spoiler alert: the “mythical 30-year-old fridge in Grandma’s basement” may have been the exception rather than the rule), along with outlining a strategy for selecting models that will stand the test of time.

For The Wall Street Journal last week, Katherine Brindley documented her efforts to infuse her rental apartment with the aesthetics she admires in luxury homes curated by professional interior designers, in part by conducting research on images found online to inform her own sourcing. The piece provoked a passionate response on social media thanks to a post from designer Chloe Redmond Warner, who shared the counterpoint that the hunt for inspiration alone is only “the first small step” in the design process. “The magic, my friends, is in the edit,” she wrote, “it’s in the thoughtful work of studying combinations of color and light and function, it’s in the tedious work of measuring things, it’s in the absolutely insane follow-through required to get the items in the house.”

Cue the Applause

The American Society of Interior Designers Foundation has announced the recipients of its annual scholarships and awards, which recognize academic excellence, research innovation and design with a purpose. This year’s winners include Analiese Narum for the David Barrett Memorial Scholarship, Lindsey Walker for the Joel Polsky Academic Achievement Award, Tamie Glass for the Joel Polsky Prize, Pariya Sheykhmaleki for the Legacy Scholarship for Graduate Students, P. Gia Kieu for the Legacy Undergraduate Scholarship—and honorable mentions to Fatemah Dianet for the Joel Polsky Academic Achievement Award and Na Lyu for the Legacy Scholarship for Graduate Students.

In Memoriam

Interior designer John Saladino passed away at the age of 86 on Saturday, The New York Times reports. A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Saladino earned his undergraduate education at the University of Notre Dame and his master’s at Yale University, where he studied under Bauhaus legend Josef Albers. He spent several years at a small interior design firm in New York, before embarking on a transformative period in Rome, where his surroundings helped to develop the sensual aesthetics that would come to define his style. An appreciation for the Italian city’s ruins, for example, translated to the use of intricate plasterwork in his future projects. Upon his return to New York in 1969, he established his own firm, now known as Saladino Group Inc. The years to follow would see Saladino embark on a number of ambitious projects—taking on not only the interior design, but also the architecture and sometimes even landscape design of a space. He also created furniture lines for several major companies, including his own brand. His passing has produced an outpouring of grief from the design industry, with generations of designers counting Saladino among their chief influences and dutifully adopting his philosophies, such as one the designer wrote in his 2000 book, Style by Saladino: “If you walk into a room and it does not move you, then the room has failed.”