The Terrace

Pull up a chair, and maybe retire one word before you sit down. This week we're taking on design language fatigue: chic, elevated, curated, light and airy, and the whole overworked vocabulary of the interiors industry. It starts with toast being called chic and becomes a bigger question: is personal taste even possible right now, when the industry needs to sell at scale and the feed rewards whatev...

Architectural Digest's Open Door has been a YouTube fixture for years and now that it's landed on Netflix, more people are watching it than ever. This is our deep dive on the show that turned house tours into appointment viewing: why it's having this exact moment, what the musician episodes all seem to have in common, and a close read of two of the most talked-about apartments this year — Emma Rob...

There is a category of rooms in the home that nobody talks about when they're house shopping, nobody photographs for Instagram, nobody includes in the conversation about interior design — and that have quietly become some of the most interesting, most evolved, and most emotionally charged spaces in the modern home. The mudroom. The laundry room. The butler's pantry. The entryway. The hallway. The...

The home office barely existed in residential design fifteen years ago — then the pandemic forced everyone to improvise one overnight, and it’s only now starting to get done properly. Caitlin and Sam trace the room’s evolution from the men’s study and the kitchen bill-paying desk to the pandemic-era standing-desk boom, and confess that neither of their own ‘offices’ is purely an office — one moonl...

The bathroom has had the biggest glow-up in recent home design history — from a utility closet with plumbing to the room everyone wants to live in. Caitlin and Sam trace how the primary ensuite exploded during the '80s and '90s McMansion boom, why showers are quietly winning the tub-vs-shower war, and why the guest powder room is still the one room where anyone's allowed to have fun. They get into...

The Most Personal Room. The Longest Gap Between Reality and the Dream. You know this room. It's the one you think about constantly and somehow always leave for last. The linen duvet situation you haven't resolved. The headboard you've been meaning to change for three years. The nightstand that started as a temporary solution and has now officially outlived two relationships and a move. The bedroom...

Something is shifting. After more than a decade of homes being optimized for photography — staged for the grid, flattened into aspirational backdrops, stripped of anything too personal or too specific — there is a quiet, growing rebellion underway. Heirlooms are back on the shelf. Travel finds are on the credenza. The things that actually mean something are being put out instead of hidden. The ant...

Pull up a chair — an actual dining chair — because this week we're leaving the kitchen counter behind for the room design quietly gave up on for twenty years: the dining room. We're tracing its slow disappearing act into flex spaces, homework piles, and "we'll figure out what goes there later," and its very dramatic comeback, now armed with wallpaper, a chandelier, and zero interest in being pract...

Pull up a chair — make it one near the island, because this week we're staying in the kitchen, the room that's been performing for the camera since the day open shelving was invented. We're tracing how the kitchen went from the colorful, hidden-away, mint-and-avocado workhorse of the 60s and 70s to the resale-value-obsessed, content-optimized stage it is today — and asking who actually benefits fr...

Pull up a chair — an actual one you sit in. This week on The Terrace, we're kicking off our room by room series with the space that has gone through more identity crises than any other room in the American home. The living room. The parlor. The family room. It has a lot of names, a complicated history, and apparently some very strong feelings about your TV size. We're tracing how the living room w...

Summer hosting season is officially open. In this episode, Caitlin and Sam are pulling up every lawn chair they own to talk about how to throw the ultimate summer soirée — from color-drenched tablescapes and asymmetrical centerpieces to batched cocktails and the case for homemade party favors. They cover what's having a major moment right now (glassware as art, fruit-forward everything, Euro Medit...

Look around your home right now. Some of it is beautiful. Some of it looks exactly the same as it did in 1974 and absolutely nobody has done anything about it. This week on The Terrace, we're talking home innovation — the everyday objects that finally got their glow up, the ones still desperately waiting, and the surprisingly logical reason why some things just stay ugly forever. We're covering th...

Hot takes only. No hedging, no "it depends," no exceptions. This week on The Terrace, we're pulling up a chair (one you'll actually sit in) and finally saying the quiet parts out loud. We're taking on the design myths HGTV built and the industry rules we've been quietly breaking for years — including why barn doors are the real Chip and Joanna crime (not shiplap), why open shelving is a dust trap...

Be honest. When's the last time you actually sat in that chair? This week on The Terrace, we're getting confessional about performative decor — the art of decorating for other people — and spoiler: we are both deeply, unapologetically guilty. We're defining what performative decor actually is (hint: it's the candle you've never lit, the vinyl you never played, the crystals you bought in Sedona bec...

Ever looked at your sofa and thought... wait, where did this actually come from? This week on The Terrace, we're pulling back the curtain on how furniture actually gets made — and trust us, it's more fascinating (and complicated) than you think. We're talking the full journey: from the 18-month planning cycle that starts way before a product hits the floor, to why your handmade Indian console migh...

You know that feeling when you walk into a room and something is just... off? Or when you can't explain why you love a space, you just do? We've all been there. The problem is we spend so much time talking about how rooms look — the colors, the styling, the lighting — and almost no time talking about how they feel . Not anymore. This episode covers everything: why a room without a purpose gives yo...

The collab economy is officially running the design world — and in this episode, Caitlin and Sam are giving their most honest takes on where it all started, which ones are getting it right, and which ones are giving us secondhand embarrassment. From the OG Isaac Mizrahi for Target moment in 2003 to the cultural phenomenon that is Kelly Wearstler for H&M, they trace how designer collaborations...

There's a rule Caitlin and Sam live by: you can never cheap out on your sofa. It's the most-used piece of furniture in your home, and the foundation of every good gathering, lazy Sunday, and long conversation. But once you know where the sofa lands, the rest of your budget gets a whole lot clearer. In this episode, they're breaking down exactly where your money should — and shouldn't — go when it...

Your home is always ready to welcome people. Or at least, it could be — and that's exactly what this episode is about. This week, Caitlin and Sam are getting into everything that makes hosting feel effortless (even when it absolutely isn't). From the guest bathroom theory — why it might be the most important room in your entire house — to the candles you should always have burning, the lighting mi...

Is vintage always better, or does buying new still have its place? This week Caitlin and Sam settle the debate once and for all — and yes, they disagree on a few things. They cover what to always buy vintage (case goods, nightstands, sideboards), what to never buy vintage (upholstery, hardwired lighting, and please — not a mattress), and break down the full vintage pricing hierarchy from First Dib...

The Big Beige Breakup: Is Millennial Beige Timeless or Time-Stamped? Discover whether Millennial Beige is a timeless design choice or merely a trend. Learn about its origins, its appeal, and how to make it work in your home. Welcome to The Terrace! I'm Caitlin Henry, a former corporate buyer and furniture enthusiast, joined by my co-host Sam Brooks. Today, we’re diving deep into a design discussio...

Welcome to The Terrace - our corner of the internet for people who genuinely love their homes, or desperately want to. We're here to talk interior design, trends, beautiful things, and the real decisions you make when you're trying to build a space you actually want to live in. Think less design lecture, more wine with your most design-obsessed friends. Pull up a chair!