Chandra is big on modern design and also big on humans. It’s a winning combination that means not only colorful and design-intense rugs, but those of the highest quality, as Las Vegas Market.

“We’re a small family-owned and operated business…We’ve been producing rugs for probably about 40 years,” said Ravi Tiwari, co-founder and vice president of Chandra, based in Georgia.

What makes Chandra really special, he said, is that everything at Vegas and in its extensive rug collection is the work of skilled artisans.

Chandra is known for its ultra-pure New Zealand wool in artsy designs and colors that are a great hard-floor accompaniment in any room. We especially like the Inhabit line with its florals in shades like green, blue, tan, black, and gray, capitalizing on the floral trend in home décor.

“We believe in the element of producing things by hand and involving humans as opposed to machines in the process,” Tiwari told House Tipster during Day 3 of the Vegas show. “So everything you see in the showroom is handmade, which is really nice!”

Another element that makes Chandra rugs stand out is that the company creates its own yarn (with the exception of polyesters) for use in the majority of its creations.

By making its own yarn, Chandra has control over the final product, which is often not the case when rug companies buy lots of yarn from yarn manufacturers, Tiwari said.

“It helps with consistency, quality control, and it just looks finer,” he said of what happens when rugs are made of the best yarn.

The company’s mantra is: “We believe in personal relationships, engaging design, and quality craftsmanship.”

Using only the finest yarn helps keep the quality part of that mantra going strong.

Tiwari explained that rug manufacturers that don’t start with their own yarn might get stuck with shorter pieces of yarn being glued together to achieve length.

“What yarn companies will do is glue pieces together and make larger strands. It’s a bad thing,” he said.

That’s because this practice doesn’t hold up as well in everyday use, according to Tiwari.

“When you have white next to bright blue, if that bleeds, you’re done for,” he said.

By contrast, Chandra strives for the natural feel and beautiful sheen that comes through when yarn is cared for properly and not stripped of all the oils it needs to look healthy.

To make this happen Chandra has worked with generations of skilled artisans while shunning mass production by machine.

The goal of all this is to deliver to customers an authentic hand-crafted rug – something worthy of Chandra’s reputation as a company that started with founder Chandra Tiwari, a true groundbreaker in the rug industry.

These words, spoken by Thomas Andonian of House Tipster interview, are in reference to the design homerun and retail favorite, the bicycle console.

The console, which Andonian classifies under the Classic Home’s “Some of a Kind” line (meaning that every bicycle used is different while the profile of the piece remains the same for each one), can serve as a table or a bar and each individual piece is made using a repurposed bike from India. This also happens to be the No. 1 market seller and embodies the California-based company’s philosophy of staying different and attention-grabbing.

This perfect marriage of utilitarian and elegance is part of the design wave that Andonian, the company’s general manager of furniture, eloquently refers to as “Luxe Reclaimed.” The focus here is on the eclectic and different, but with a luxurious bent. Each piece is styled meticulously and made from reclaimed material, ensuring that every piece has its own individual story.

Stone, metal, and concrete are also part of the luxe story. This mixed-media approach plays well with more luxurious design tropes like pastel upholstery and creates what Andonian calls “luxurious-styled living blending with reclaimed woods.” The surprising combination of the luxurious and elegant with the rough and reclaimed has produced some of the biggest-selling pieces for Classic Home.

The pairing of the unanticipated is what makes these pieces so desirable. Tables that are made from reclaimed doors, and functional pieces born from boats and wagon wheels, are also part of this exotic, luxurious canon under the Classic Home One of a Kind and Some of a Kind lines.

The One of a Kind pieces made from reclaimed boats and wagon wheels are some of the most popular, with about 90 percent of the company’s stock already sold. These pieces are dominating the design market thanks to their distinct character and functionality. In a world of mass market produced looks that fade into the background, these pieces stand out for their beauty and rustic accessibility.

As Andonian told House Tipster during its visit to Las Vegas Market from July 30 to Aug. 3, Home Office is becoming an ever-growing category in the design world. This gives Classic Home an opportunity to shine with diverse new office designs that simply cannot be replicated.

“For us, it’s not standard office furniture, obviously. It’s more stylized,” Andonian said. “We have about 15 new desks at market.”

When it comes to accent seating, Classic Home is all about color.

“We’re bringing color back. The industry itself went very monochromatic for a long time with a lot of gray woods, and we’re bringing a lot of life back,” he explained.

Pointing out an old vendor cart from India, Andonian once again showcases the incredible outside-the-box thinking that makes his pieces stand out:

“It’s fun, it’s different. You think about the retailer…they can put this in their store and merchandise small gifts…it’s a fun way to display, not typical.”

This truly shows that the gears of fabulous and unique functionality are always turning at Classic Home. Each piece tells a story and lets the owner impart their own spin, making for an incredible decorating experience.

For your own amazing decorating experience, click around our virtual rooms and utilize our awesome 3D design tools!

If only the latest will do in your décor, follow our tour of the art industry at Las Vegas Market to see what’s new in art and wall décor.

Mixed Media

“Everything’s three-dimensional. These pieces are hand made from beginning to end,” said Alan Groch, CEO of Grander Images in Atlanta about the type of art that’s turning heads this year.

“It starts out with a sheet of brand new sheet metal and everything’s hand-hammered, hand-welded, painted, and assembled. So you get a lot of consistency but each piece is still unique because it’s being done by hand,” he said.

Walking through this showroom was an adventure where House Tipster’s Media Team encountered real cow skulls, gilded in 22-karat gold and sterling silver, for wall art. By the very nature of these skulls, this wall décor had to be one of a kind.

“These horns won’t fit on that one,” Groch pointed out. “They are all going to be uniquely different.”

Most of the products are made in China and Thailand but only after Grander Images, a wall décor and sculpture company, has journeyed the globe to discover no one else has yet, said Groch.

“We always strive to find things that our customer can’t find down the street at a neighbor’s store or at a mass merchant. It gets harder and harder every day,” he said.

Often it’s a matter of taking something recognizable and offering it in a new way.

The use of pearl, rose, and acacia wood also makes Grander Images’ designs, including sculpture, quite unique.

Say It with Color

“Landscapes are always very strong but a lot of it all boils down to vibrant or striking colors,” said Bryan Williams, executive vice president of Crestview Collection, a home-décor company based in Memphis, TN.

Even when color is neutral, the artwork drives the room’s design sense.

As Williams explained, “It’s neutral but also brings out other pieces in the assortment that makes it stand out even more.”

“It’s lots of color. It’s fun, and it’s another big category for us,” Yosemite’s David Stein told House Tipster’s Media Team.

Really color was a strong influence on all of the art showrooms we visited during the Las Vegas Market from July 30 through Aug. 3.

Power of Nature

We saw many natural settings in the art-related showrooms, and Williams said there’s definitely been a trend toward featuring more trees in artwork.

“Here are some pieces that are just a beautiful black and white of a tree,” said Groch. “For us big, and black and white, and inexpensive is a real sweet spot.”

Natural materials can also empower your designs.

“We’ve also had pieces that are wooden planks. They’ve got a lot of natural finishes to it,” he said. These lend themselves to a rustic setting but Williams sees a lot of crossover of design categories. So really there are no hard rules when it comes to wall art.

Tempered Glass

With a shimmering effect like mosaic art, tempered glass can bring excitement to any wall. For Crestview Collection, tempered glass is one of the best sellers, Williams said. But tempered glass was a constant in all the showrooms as we discovered on our search for what’s new.

“It’s a fresh clean look and will even support images that are old and rustic and vintage,” said Groch.

Stein considers glass art a very distinctive look and one that’s often inspired by social media.

“What’s driving this is social media. What people like to see on Instagram they like to see on wall art too,” he said.

Bigger is Better

Large-scale wall décor is what’s making a statement in the trendiest homes this year, and Crestview Collection can attest to its popularity.

Yosemite’s 3D art products can also fit in this category. As an alternative to flat paintings, 3D art has strong potential as a focal point for most any room, and Yosemite considers it a best seller.

Metallic

Yet another way to energize your walls is with artwork made in metallic.

“We have a full line of abstract artwork in metallic and colors of silver, platinum, and gold,” said Stein, Yosemite’s vice president of wholesale sales.

Even the shapes of artwork can add design interest to your rooms, with both vertical and horizontal styles available from Yosemite.

Americana & Iconic

It works well with a colonial home, but really the Americana theme can be embraced in homes of many styles. We saw a lot of Americana at the Las Vegas Market along with iconic buildings and structures like George Washington Bridge, which also make strong topics for wall art.

So if you’re ready for a style change, think big, think colorful, and think one of a kind, and you’ll likely be following the latest design trends, while taking your walls from dull to dynamic.

Each year Las Vegas Market, where thousands of vendors come together with their lines of home décor, furniture, and gifts.

This summer, the Kismet Collection was without a doubt that hot-seller for Karastan Rugs, which is owned by Mohawk Industries, the world’s largest flooring company.

Just why is the Kismet Collection making waves in the rug and carpet market?

Well, Kent Wilkins, regional vice president in Arizona for House Tipster it’s largely due to how these beautiful rugs are made.

“For the first time we’ve mixed New Zealand wool with our proprietary fiber called SmartStrand, which is made from a corn oil. So it’s a very renewable grain story with the entire rug,” said Wilkins. “And everything we do at Karastan Rugs is 100 percent made in the USA. We don’t do any importing of our rugs.”

Karastan’s vice president of design, Tracy Pruitt, said that it’s a merger of the two most coveted fibers – New Zealand wool and SmartStrand Silk.

The Kismet Collection is really about drawing from the best of the best. New Zealand Wool is considered legendary in rug circles, and the SmartStrand Silk is a proprietary synthetic performance fiber that revolutionized the carpet and rug industry in 2005. As an alternative to traditional carpet, SmartStrand has been embraced by customers for its durability and built-in stain resistance.

“It was fate that the two should come together in one beautiful rug collection, so I called it Kismet,” said Pruitt in a Karastan company blog. “I’m always looking at ways to innovate, not only in color and pattern, but also in construction,” he said.

He added that pairing these fibers together – wool with its elegant matte finish and SmartStrand with its sheen – give the surface an interesting contrast.

As the company’s design expert, Pruitt has a reputation for staying on top of trends and fashion. According to Wilkins, the Kismet Collection is an example of how this design sense is revving up sales for Karastan Rugs, the finest in power-loomed rugs.

“We’ve had tremendous response to this new collection, and I think it will be another great collection for us,” Wilkins told House Tipster.

What our Media Team immediately noticed about the rugs on display at Market, besides their attractive designs and patterns, was their grand size.

It’s no illusion – the rugs are getting bigger, he said. Today’s rugs are at least 8 by 12 feet in size, said Wilkins.

Wilkins attributed this new trend in rugs to the way that hard floors are taking over modern home design.

“Everybody puts in hard floors and then needs rugs to cover it up to get the warm feel of home again,” he said.

“With everyone having hard flooring in the house they need bigger rugs,” he said, “which again is driving the rug business extremely well, and we’ll continue to expand on it.”

Drawing patterns from old and new, the Kismet Collection reflects the popularity of neutrals, cream, and gray as foundation colors today.

Although Karastan Rugs has long been known for its traditional designs, today the company is also enjoying success with its transitional designs, Wilkins said.

In fact, Karastan’s sophisticated rug styles include contemporary motifs, and all of the designs work to elegantly complement the décor of today’s home, home office, or business space.

Finding something new to wow audiences at Las Vegas Market is not an easy task, but Wilkins left the market thrilled with the response the Kismet Collection had generated.

“We’re excited for the second half of 2017,” said Wilkins.

Karastan Rugs are available from major furniture retailers like Macy’s.

Imagine some of the world’s finest artisans dreaming up new products for your home’s décor – how that would make an impression on friends and neighbors.

That’s what we found at Las Vegas Market when we toured the CODARUS showroom and discovered the new Handley Drive home-furnishings product line, along with the work of several other high-end artsy vendors in everything from abstract art to gem-embedded pillows.

After spending days scouring the market beginning on July 29 for the best in furniture and décor, the House Tipster Media Team was happy to stop the running and enjoy the many quality retailers that CODARUS had assembled all in one place at Las Vegas Market.

Handley Drive is the creation of Rick Janecek and Shelia Butler, who combined 50-plus years in the home-furnishings industry to start their own company. Individually, both Butler and Janecek had helped to create some giants in the industry and then decided to branch out with Handley Drive.

“They just launched in January so it’s brand new to the market,” said Elizabeth Maricich of CODARUS, a sales management group with showrooms to highlight their very interesting partners in home furnishings. Besides Vegas, CODARUS has showrooms in Dallas, High Point, Atlanta, and soon Laguna, she said.

The influence of these artisans on home products, ranging from linen to lighting, was a big part of why Handley Drive is not to be overlooked.

“You can see amazing details to each of these things,” Maricich said. “Creative Rick Janecek really has his hand in the design of every piece.”

Handley Drive products are exclusively designed furniture, wall décor, textiles, lighting, and accessories. Styles vary from casual to urban and modern to traditional, and the goal is to add quality to everyday life. Working with natural materials and innovative techniques, Handley Drive aims for stylish, not trendy.

Soicher Marin

Also in the showroom, we encountered it, based in Bradenton, Florida, a company known for the quality of its framing and matting. We liked their abstract take on original pieces of art, and how the company’s Finn & Ivy collection is geared at the new art collector with slightly more affordable prices.

“You’re really catering to younger people,” Maricich said of the Finn & Ivy collection, which includes surreal and abstract artwork.

Square Feathers Home

Then it was time for our Media Team to move on to pillow collections –  well, really the artistic expressions of Square Feathers Home, a company founded by Ron McIntyre in his Austin, Texas garage around 10 years ago.

The inspiration McIntyre found in his travels led to crafts-decorated pillows, furniture, art, and home accessories – all made in the USA. Products are unconventional yet elegant and always an expression of McIntyre’s sense of design.

“Now he’s expanded to an entire lifestyle line,” said Maricich, noting the popularity of Square Feathers’ occasional and cocktail tables.

Barbara Cosgrove Lamps

Then we moved on to Barbara Cosgrove Lamps, out of Kansas City, which, like Square Feathers, also emerged from a love for art.

“Barbara is an artist. Her love for form and function come together to create this line of lamps and accessories. It’s really beautifully-crafted pieces,” Maricich told House Tipster.

For the homeowner or designer committed to details, we liked that these products are designed so any parchment shade can be painted in any Benjamin Moore color.

Lili Alessandra

Livable luxury is the aim of San Antonio-based Lili an award-winning company known for many fine linens that are machine washable. Lili Alessandra works with highly skilled artisans, and the result is beautiful velvets, silk, and embroidered linen. Some pillows are even adorned with semi-precious stones, which we considered the ultimate in luxury.

Moss Studio

Moss Studio, a family business founded in 1989 in Burbank, California, was keeping it all made in the USA with its line of furniture and accessories. Its goal is to design only the freshest furniture to appeal to contemporary aesthetics.

Pom Pom At Home

Also in the showroom we discovered Pom Pom At Home, which originated with designer and CEO Hilde Leiaghat. A native of Belgium, perhaps the linen capital of the world, Leiaghat has a passion for everything linen. And the Los Angeles-based company uses 100-percent natural linen as the primary fiber in its luxurious bedding designed for living.

Annie Selke

Massachusetts-based Annie Selke was another hit with the many acclaimed textile companies under its umbrella. Those we took note of at the show were the Pine Cone Hill bed collection and Dash & Albert rug collection.

With designs that have been featured in hundreds of magazines, Annie Selke has made it its mission to create enthusiasm through timely and timeless lifestyle products, along with a commitment to people and products.

Looking for something that’s unique for your home décor? Explore these companies’ websites to see what artsy products would add character to your own house.