Where Home Design Ideas Really Come From
- Elisa Cool Murphy
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 11 hours ago
Would You Like to Know Where Home Design Ideas Really Come From?
Here’s what most people miss — design trends don’t start in showrooms. They start long before that: on fashion runways, in textile mills, and at finish fairs where creative directors and color theorists quietly decide what the rest of us will crave a year later.
By the time a paint company releases its “Color of the Year,” the real color story has already been written — by fabric, fashion, and a few brave homeowners who aren’t afraid to take a risk.
RUNWAY FIRST, WALLS SECOND
It always starts with color.
This year, that meant coral, palm green, terracotta, citron, and clay pink. The same palette that caught our eye while touring Palm Beach’s designer homes turned out to be the same one showing up on the runways at Bottega Veneta and Carolina Herrera — soft, warm, sculptural, and unmistakably joyful.
[see below 6400 Cartier Living Room compared to this season's apparel at Bottega Veneta].
Everywhere we looked: woven textures, matte finishes, rounded silhouettes, and an ease that said, “You can have style and still have fun.”
That became our cue for our listing at 6400 Cartier. The walls didn’t need to shout; they just needed to glow.
THE TEXTILE TELL
Once fashion sets the tone, textiles follow. Fabrics get dyed, reimagined, and softened into versions that belong on your couch instead of a catwalk.
Forecasting firms like WGSN and Momentum Textiles call this move toward “earthy optimism” — comfort, but not beige comfort. It’s boucle instead of velvet, plaster instead of gloss, linen instead of lacquer.
These finishes invite you to touch, to linger, to see texture as a story, not a surface.
That’s what we wanted Cartier to feel like: a place you could fall for in 10 seconds but stay in for 10 years.
VALIDATION, BY WAY OF LUST HOME
Of course, when we decided to paint coral clay and raspberry together, our stager, Anne, gave me that look.“Elisa… that’s a lot.”
And she wasn’t wrong. But I had a feeling.
Because every time I stood in that space, it felt like a risk that worked. The right kind of tension — the kind that makes people stop and think, Why does this work? And why can’t I stop thinking about this house?
Then, right on cue, Lust Home’s September newsletter hit my inbox:
“The bright combo of orange and pink is no longer just for the runway — it’s officially the colour crush of the year.”
It was the perfect validation. We’d already put the brushes down before the email went out — and suddenly, our “risk” was the color story of the season.
Don’t judge us — I know, I’m a realtor, not a trend forecaster. But I don’t mind when we accidentally set one.
THE PALM BEACH PROVING GROUND
It’s not Paris or Milan dictating the next home mood anymore — it’s the Florida coastlines where bold color and heritage architecture coexist. Architectural Digest calls Palm Beach “a proving ground for the nation’s next interiors,” and they’re right.
Why? Well, the leader of the free world currently lives and, more importantly, politics aside, entertains there. That means everyone from other literary world leaders and tastemakers, and trend leaders is influenced. Shocking right? [Side bar - Palm Beach had a moment in the 60s too, when another President and his style icon wife called it home in the 60s].
This could explain why the Kips Bay Palm Beach Show House has become the domestic runway for what’s next. Coral and citron may start on the catwalk, but they find their soul here — through tile, plaster, and sunlight.
That’s why we trust the cues coming out of that market. Not to copy them, but to interpret them through the lens of how people live here, in New Orleans.
THE MCM MOMENT, REALIZED
When we started work at 6400 Cartier, we weren’t trying to be bold for the sake of it. We were listening.
To the terrazzo floors.To the vaulted brick fireplace.To the light that hits the pool wall at 3:00 p.m.
The house told us what it wanted to be — we just translated. Clay where the light dances. Palm leaf green (SW 7735) where the garden peeks in. Shoji White for calm. A whisper of chartreuse for play.
Every room glows now. It feels intentional, confident, and a little bit mischievous. Exactly what mid-century should.
THE TAKEAWAY
Design is cyclical — but courage is contagious.
From runway → to textile → to show house → to home. That’s how ideas move.
We just happened to catch this one early.
If you’ve been following along this month, you’ve seen it happen in real time. The ideas we’ve been researching, testing, and teasing finally have a place to live.
And now? You can see it for yourself.
👉 Visit www.6400Cartier.com for the full gallery.
And if you’re ready to sell (or buy) a home with a story worth sharing —📞 Call Cool Murphy Real Estate.
Whether it’s mid-century, Palm Beach, or Creole cottage — when you need to list or find a home makes people say I can’t stop thinking about it — that’s where we come in.
Celebrated for her next-level creative approach to real estate, Elisa Cool Murphy is an award-winning, top-performing real estate broker in New Orleans, a mother, and the founder of Cool Murphy Real Estate.
Voted Neighborhood Favorite by Nextdoor three years in a row, Cool Murphy Real Estate is a top-producing, licensed real estate team based in New Orleans, brokered by Cool Murphy, LLC.
Contact Her -
email: cool@coolmurphy.com
Facebook: @homeinneworleans
IG: @coolmurphynola
YouTube: @coolmurphynola
phone: 504-321-3194
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