146 Fun Facts About Interior Design

What term in color theory describes the lightness or darkness of a color?

Value is how light or dark a color is; strong contrasts of value are what painters call chiaroscuro, which Leonardo used to make figures look solid and Caravaggio used for sheer drama.

Which design style, popularised by Eames and Saarinen, favoured clean lines and organic shapes?

Mid-Century Modern got an early push in 1940, when Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen won a Museum of Modern Art furniture contest with a chair moulded from plywood.

Which wood is prized in high-end furniture for its durability and distinctive dark grain?

Walnut heartwood is prized for its dark colour and its toughness: it resists shock yet is easy to work, which made it a classic wood for gunstocks as well as fine furniture.

Which layer of a lighting plan provides the overall background illumination for a room?

Ambient light is the base layer of a lighting plan, the general glow that fills a room, usually from a ceiling fixture; a torchère floor lamp gives it too, by throwing its light up at the ceiling.

Which word for a living-room seat came into English from Arabic by way of Turkish?

Sofa comes via Turkish from the Arabic suffah, and in the 1620s it still meant a raised, carpeted platform in an Eastern room; the long stuffed seat only took the name about a century later.

Which interior design principle concerns the size of objects relative to each other and the space?

Scale measures things against the room and the human body: Le Corbusier sized his Modulor system on a six-foot man, a height said to be borrowed from the heroes of English detective novels.

Which 'organic architecture' pioneer designed the Fallingwater house?

Frank Lloyd Wright startled his clients at Fallingwater: the Kaufmanns expected a weekend house with a view of their favourite waterfall, and he set it directly above the falls instead.

Which natural fibre, harvested from a plant's seed bolls, is widely used in bedding?

Cotton grows as a fluffy boll around the plant's seeds; Eli Whitney's cotton gin of 1793 pulled the fibre off the seeds by machine, which made it cheap enough to become everyday cloth.

Which 1920s-30s design style features geometric patterns, streamlined shapes and materials like chrome and glass?

Art Deco takes its name from a 1925 exhibition of modern decorative arts, but the label only caught on in 1968, when historian Bevis Hillier published a book on the style.

What unit describes the color temperature of light, whether it appears warm or cool?

Kelvin runs against intuition: a low rating of 2,700 to 3,000 K means warm, yellowish light, while 5,000 K and above looks cool and bluish.

Which durable, water-resistant flooring, sold in sheets or planks, is often used in kitchens and bathrooms?

Vinyl flooring is made of PVC, and in sheet form it is completely impermeable to water, whereas standing water makes laminate planks swell and warp.

Which room of a house takes its name from a French verb meaning to sulk or pout?

Boudoir comes from the French bouder, to sulk or pout: it was literally a 'pouting room', a private space where the lady of the house could withdraw from company.

Which furniture style stresses simplicity, clean lines, neutral colours and little ornamentation?

Minimalist design has a hero in Dieter Rams, the German designer whose rule was 'less, but better'; the shelving system he designed for Vitsœ in 1960 has been made ever since.

What design principle repurposes discarded items into new products worth more than the originals?

Upcycling was taken up by the 2002 book Cradle to Cradle, which urged makers to design waste out of their products; its own pages are a synthetic made from resins, not paper.

What window treatment has adjustable slats that tilt to control light and privacy?

Blinds are made of hard slats strung on cords, so rotating them opens or shuts the gaps; shades are different, a single piece of soft material with no slats to tilt.

Which jagged two-tone check is tied to Alabama football by coach Bear Bryant's trademark hat?

Houndstooth, also called dogstooth, alternates solid checks with diagonally striped ones; coach Bear Bryant's fedoras made the pattern an unofficial emblem of the University of Alabama.

Which interior design era is known for ornate heavy furniture, dark wood and rich, often somber colours?

Victorian households thought a bare room was in poor taste, so every surface was filled with objects, and the parlour, the best room, showed off the family's finest furnishings to guests.

Which pioneering decorator made her name with the interiors of New York's Colony Club, her first commission in 1905?

Elsie de Wolfe, a former actress, swept out the dark, heavy rooms of her childhood and brought in mirrors, pale painted furniture, chintz and garden trelliswork.

What kitchen concept arranges fridge, sink and stove to minimize movement?

The work triangle grew out of motion studies by Lillian Gilbreth, the efficiency engineer and mother of twelve portrayed in Cheaper by the Dozen, who called her layout 'circular routing'.

Which poison gave many 19th-century wallpapers their fashionable green colour?

Arsenic was the active ingredient of Scheele's green, a pigment used to colour wallpaper; in damp rooms the paper could shed toxic dust or gas.

Which paint finish has the highest sheen and is generally the most durable for high-traffic areas?

Gloss paint resists damage and stains and wipes clean, so it is the traditional choice for doors and trim; the catch is that its shine reveals every sanding mark underneath.

Which designer created the Barcelona chair and advocated 'less is more'?

Mies van der Rohe designed the Barcelona chair for the German Pavilion at Barcelona's 1929 exposition; the building was torn down within a year, while the chair has stayed in production for decades.

Which springy flooring material is the bark of a tree, stripped every decade or so without felling it?

Cork is the outer bark of a Mediterranean tree, which can be stripped every 9 to 12 years without harm; cork floor tiles are often made from what is left after wine stoppers are punched out.

Which design style features exposed brick, visible ductwork and a raw, unfinished look?

Industrial style takes its cues from old factories and warehouses that were converted into lofts, first popular with artists, whose bare brick, pipes and ducts became the look.

What colour scheme uses two colours directly opposite each other on the colour wheel?

A complementary scheme pairs two colours from opposite sides of the wheel, such as blue and orange, which combine to form grey and create strong visual contrast.

What term describes a home layout that removes the walls between the kitchen, dining and living areas?

An open concept (open plan) layout drops the walls between kitchen, dining and living space; it took off in American homes in the 1970s, though critics note it leaves kitchen clutter in view.

In interior design, what element refers to the perceived smoothness, roughness, or hardness of a surface?

Texture shapes a room's mood: rough surfaces add visual activity and depth, while smooth ones read as sleek and restful, which is why designers mix the two.

Which furniture material is an iron alloy whose chromium content makes it resistant to rust?

Stainless steel reached the market after Harry Brearley of Sheffield, hunting in 1913 for a gun-barrel alloy that would not wear away, hit on a chromium steel that refused to rust.

What decorative trim is installed where an interior wall meets the ceiling?

Crown molding does a practical job as well as a decorative one: set at an angle across the corner, it covers the joint between wall and ceiling and leaves a hidden hollow behind it.

Which design style of light colours, natural materials and cosiness is associated with 'hygge'?

Scandinavian design became a recognised brand in the 1950s with help from the Lunning Prize, which the New York agent for Danish silversmith Georg Jensen awarded to Nordic designers from 1951 to 1970.

Which light fixture takes its name from an old French word for a candlestick?

Chandelier comes from the Old French for candlestick, and at first the word meant just that; only in the 1700s did English settle that a candelabrum stands while a chandelier hangs.

Which packaging material was invented in 1957 by two engineers trying to make a new kind of wallpaper?

Bubble wrap began as a three-dimensional wallpaper that failed to sell; Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes realised their sheet of trapped air could cushion parcels instead, and founded Sealed Air on it in 1960.

Which novelist co-wrote the 1897 manual The Decoration of Houses with architect Ogden Codman?

Edith Wharton wrote the design manual long before The Age of Innocence won her a Pulitzer: it was her first major book, and its success helped launch the professional decorator.

Which textile-dyeing technique uses hot wax to keep the dye off parts of the cloth?

Batik is drawn in hot wax with a canting, a pen-like copper tool with a tiny spout; the cloth is then dyed, and removing the wax reveals the pattern in the undyed areas.

Which tidying consultant tells clients to keep only the belongings that 'spark joy'?

Marie Kondo's KonMari method tidies a home by category, not room by room: every piece of clothing is piled in one place first, and anything that fails to spark joy goes.

Which design style mixes elements from different periods, cultures and styles into a personalised look?

Eclectic comes from a Greek word meaning 'selective': it first described ancient philosophers who picked doctrines from every school instead of following just one.

What window treatment consists of soft fabric panels hanging from a rod or track, often pleated?

Curtains are climate control as well as decoration: closed while the sun is on the window, they keep much of its heat out, so the room stays cooler through the hottest part of the day.

Which Japanese aesthetic prizes imperfection, asymmetry and the patina of age in interiors?

Wabi-sabi finds beauty in the imperfect, impermanent and incomplete; the 16th-century tea master Sen no Rikyū brought it to Japan's nobility through the rustic simplicity of his teahouses.

In design, what term refers to arranging elements so visual weight is equally distributed, formally or informally?

Balance comes in two moods: a symmetrical arrangement, each half a mirror of the other, conveys stability, while an asymmetrical one suggests movement.

Which trailing houseplant is nicknamed devil's ivy because it is so hard to kill?

Pothos earned the nickname devil's ivy because it is so hardy that it stays green even when kept in the dark; the catch is that its leaves are toxic to cats and dogs that chew them.

Which design style of around 1900 features curved lines, organic forms and natural motifs?

Art Nouveau owes its name to a shop: the Maison de l'Art Nouveau, a gallery the dealer Siegfried Bing opened in 1895 to show the new style, its interior designed by Henry van de Velde.

What are the translucent paper-and-wood sliding panels that partition traditional Japanese rooms called?

Shoji do two jobs at once: their paper keeps out the wind and softens daylight to a glow, yet still lets air pass through, so a closed room stays ventilated.

Despite its natural-sounding name, which popular countertop material is manufactured from ground mineral and resin?

Quartz countertops are factory-made: ground quartz is mixed with resin and pressed into slabs, which leaves them non-porous and better at taking a knock than slabs cut straight from a quarry.

What is light called when it is bounced off the ceiling or walls to give a soft, glare-free glow?

Indirect light hides the lamp and lets the room's surfaces do the work: cove lighting, tucked into a ledge high on the wall, throws its light up so the ceiling glows without glare.

What is the small table placed beside an armchair or couch to hold a lamp or a drink called?

An end table is named for its usual spot at either end of a couch, where it keeps a lamp or a glass within arm's reach; the low coffee table sits in front instead.

Which movement, home to Piet Mondrian's grids, limited itself to primary colours and straight horizontal and vertical lines?

De Stijl, Dutch for 'The Style', kept to straight lines and primary colours; Mondrian's split from co-founder Theo van Doesburg is usually put down to Doesburg's embrace of the diagonal.

Which member of Netflix's original Queer Eye 'Fab Five' was the show's interior design expert?

Bobby Berk made over the heroes' homes for the show's first eight seasons; when he left, designer Jeremiah Brent joined the Fab Five in his place for season nine.

In design, what element refers to an object's three-dimensional outline or shape in space?

Form in design refers to the three-dimensional aspect of an object, encompassing its shape, volume, and depth.

Which ornate, dramatic period of art and architecture is exemplified by Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles?

Baroque Versailles has a dark origin story: weeks after a dazzling 1661 party at his finance minister's château, Louis XIV had the host arrested, then recruited the same architect, painter and gardener.

What woven plant-fiber material is commonly used for lightweight outdoor or conservatory furniture?

Wicker refers to a technique of weaving natural or synthetic fibers to create furniture, often associated with lightweight, durable pieces for outdoor or casual indoor settings.

Eileen Gray's modernist villa E-1027 overlooks the sea beside Monaco, on the coast of which country?

France: E-1027 stands at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, between Monaco and Menton; Le Corbusier painted murals on its walls in 1938-39 while a guest there, and Gray regarded them as vandalism.

What veneer covered the plywood shells of the original Eames Lounge Chair from 1956?

Brazilian rosewood veneer covered the chair's plywood shells from 1956 until the early 1990s; the tree is endangered, and trade in its timber has been restricted since 1992.

Marcel Breuer's tubular-steel Wassily chair was inspired by the frame of what?

A bicycle Breuer bought in 1925 impressed him with its light tubular steel frame; despite the name, the chair was not designed for the painter Wassily Kandinsky, who simply admired it and was given a copy.

Eero Saarinen said his Tulip chair was meant to clear up the 'slum of' what?

Saarinen wanted to 'clear up the slum of legs' under chairs and tables; he hoped the 1955-56 Tulip chair could be one piece of fibreglass, but the stem had to be cast aluminium, finished to match.

Verner Panton's S-shaped 1960s chair was the first chair moulded in one piece of what?

The Panton Chair was the first chair moulded from a single piece of plastic; its cantilevered S-curve is said to have been inspired by a neat stack of buckets.

William Morris said to have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be what?

Beautiful completes what Morris called 'a golden rule that will fit everybody' in an 1880 lecture in Birmingham; his target was the 'troublesome superfluities' cluttering people's houses.

Who designed the Red and Blue Chair and, in 1924, Utrecht's Schröder House?

Gerrit Rietveld made the first version in plain beech; despite its name, the chair only got its red, blue, yellow and black paint some years later, around 1923.

Which US furniture maker introduced the glass-topped Noguchi table in 1947?

Herman Miller introduced the Noguchi table in 1947; its maker, a sculptor who held that 'everything is sculpture', built the base from just two identical curved pieces of wood under a heavy glass top.

Hans Wegner's Round Chair was chosen as seating for which televised event in 1960?

Wegner's 1949 Round Chair, nicknamed 'The Chair', seated Nixon and Kennedy in their first televised debate in 1960 after US magazine Interiors had called it the world's most beautiful chair.

Decorator Syrie Maugham popularised 1920s-30s rooms done entirely in which colour?

White made Syrie Maugham's name, yet many of her rooms had strong colour: Cecil Beaton remembered leaf-emerald wallpaper, magenta cushions and Schiaparelli pink.

Which first lady hired the society decorator Sister Parish to help redecorate the White House's private quarters?

Jacqueline Kennedy brought in Parish on her first day in residence; the $50,000 set aside for the work was used up almost at once, and decorator Stéphane Boudin soon took charge.

The Milan-based Memphis design group took its name from a song by which musician?

Bob Dylan's 'Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again' kept playing at the group's first meeting in December 1980, and Ettore Sottsass's designers took their name from it.

In which German city was the Bauhaus school founded in 1919?

Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919; it moved to Dessau in 1925 and Berlin in 1932, and closed in 1933 under Nazi pressure.

William Morris's Red House, designed with Philip Webb in 1859, is an early landmark of which movement?

Arts and Crafts ideals run through Red House, which Morris called 'very medieval in spirit'; his painter friends helped him decorate it, yet he sold it after only five years.

Which US religious community built a business in the 1860s selling its plain ladder-back chairs?

The Shakers of Mount Lebanon, New York, marketed their chairs so successfully from the Civil War era on that several furniture companies brought out their own 'Shaker' versions.

Which German city gave its name to the 1926 forerunner of the modern fitted kitchen?

Frankfurt's kitchen was designed by Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky for the city's new social housing; some 10,000 were built, each laid out to cut the steps a cook had to take.

Which retailer's fourth employee, Gillis Lundgren, designed its Billy bookcase in 1979?

IKEA's Billy takes its name from advertising manager Billy Liljedahl, who had asked for 'a proper bookcase just for books'; Lundgren drew his first sketches of it on the back of a napkin.

Which fold-away bed was reputedly invented so its maker could host an opera singer in his one-room flat?

The Murphy bed is named for William Murphy of San Francisco; as the legend has it, a woman could not properly visit a man's bedroom, so he made the bed vanish into a closet.

Terrazzo, stone chips set in a binder, descends from a pavement style of which city?

Venice lent terrazzo its ancestor, the 18th-century 'pavimento alla veneziana'; in the modern floor the chips are set in cement or resin, and the cured surface is ground and polished smooth.

Japanese rooms are traditionally sized by how many of which standard mats they hold?

Tatami began as a luxury: nobles sat and slept on single mats laid on a wooden floor, and only centuries later were they spread wall to wall, typically six or eight to a room in a home.

Glazed floral chintz fabric takes its name from a word in which language?

Chintz is a Hindi word; the printed Indian cloth sold so well that Britain's Parliament, shielding its own weavers, banned it around 1720 from clothes and from beds, chairs and cushions.

The pastoral-scene fabric toile de Jouy is named for a town just outside which city?

Paris lies just north-east of Jouy-en-Josas, where Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf's printing works did so well that in 1783 the king named it a royal manufactory.

Linoleum takes its name from Latin words for oil and which plant?

Linoleum comes from Latin linum (flax) and oleum (oil), for the linseed oil pressed from flax seed; Englishman Frederick Walton got the idea in 1855 from the rubbery skin of solidified linseed oil on a paint can.

Which company has named a 'Color of the Year' every year since choosing Cerulean for 2000?

Pantone settles its choice at a secret meeting it hosts twice a year in a European capital, where colour experts from several countries present and argue for two days.

Which novelty light grew out of a homemade egg timer Edward Craven Walker saw in a pub?

The lava lamp began as a pub regular's egg timer, two liquids heating in a cocktail shaker on the stove; Craven Walker's firm launched his version in 1963 as the Astro lamp.

The 1912 Westinghouse laminate got its trade name as a substitute 'for' which mineral?

Formica was invented at Westinghouse in 1912 as an electrical insulator to stand in 'for mica'; the word was already the name of a genus of ants, and the wipe-clean kitchen laminate came later.

Chip and Joanna Gaines's HGTV show Fixer Upper was set in which Texas city?

Fixer Upper (2013-18) renovated homes around Waco, Texas, and turned the couple's Magnolia Market at the Silos into a Waco tourist draw.

Which glamorous style of lacquer, chrome and mirrored finishes is typified by the work of decorator Billy Haines?

Hollywood Regency is typified by Billy Haines, an MGM star until Louis B. Mayer fired him for refusing to give up his partner Jimmie Shields; he then decorated for friends such as Joan Crawford.

Who founded the Planning Unit that brought modernism to American office interiors?

Florence Schust, practically adopted as a teenager by Eliel and Loja Saarinen, set up the Knoll Planning Unit in the 1940s; she married Hans Knoll in 1946 and became Florence Knoll.

Le Corbusier's LC4 chaise longue was designed in his studio with which woman designer?

Charlotte Perriand was first turned away by Le Corbusier with the words 'We don't embroider cushions here'; her Bar sous le Toit, a bar under the roof shown at the Salon d'Automne, soon changed his mind.

Alvar Aalto's bent-plywood Paimio chair was designed for patients with which disease?

Tuberculosis patients at the Paimio sanatorium sat in the chair for long hours each day, and Aalto argued that the angle of its back was the one at which they could breathe most easily.

The S-curved cabriole leg comes from a French verb for leaping like which animal?

Goat: the French cabriole meant a caper, 'a leap like a goat', and goes back to the Latin caper, a he-goat; the leg was named for its likeness to the foreleg of a capering animal.

Parquet de Versailles replaced which floor in 1684 because washing it rotted the joists?

Marble floors at Versailles needed constant washing, and the water rotted the joists beneath; the wooden squares laid in their place took the name parquet, an old French word for a small enclosure.

Thonet's 1859 No. 14 café chair, an early triumph of mass production, is made of wood shaped how?

Steam-bent wood let the No. 14 be built from just six pieces, ten screws and two nuts, and shipped in parts to save space; some 50 million had been sold by 1930.

Gustav Stickley promoted his furniture and house plans through which magazine, launched in 1901?

The Craftsman ran from October 1901 until December 1916 and lent its name to a whole style of American house; Stickley himself despised the label 'Mission' that the public gave his furniture.

Which Glasgow architect designed Helensburgh's Hill House for publisher Walter Blackie?

Charles Rennie Mackintosh planned Hill House from the inside out: as Blackie recalled, no drawings of the elevations appeared until the family had settled the arrangement of the rooms.

Adolf Loos's 1910 lecture attacking decoration was titled 'Ornament and' what?

Crime was Loos's word for wasting a worker's effort on ornament; his bare Looshaus, finished in 1912 opposite Vienna's Hofburg, reportedly so offended Emperor Franz Joseph that he had the palace windows facing it kept covered.

Terence Conran is credited with bringing which bedding to Britain via Habitat in 1964?

The duvet struck Conran in Sweden as an escape from the British chore of making a bed with a top sheet and blankets; Habitat sold it from 1964, and it was at first known as a continental quilt.

The painted illusion known as trompe-l'œil translates from French as what?

Deceive the eye is the literal French; in the classic tale Zeuxis painted grapes so real that birds pecked at them, then lost to Parrhasius, whose painted drape he tried to pull aside.

Pre-1970s popcorn ceilings fell out of favour because they often contained what?

Asbestos fibres went into early popcorn ceilings; when the US banned it from ceiling treatments, existing stocks were exempt, so ceilings applied as late as the 1980s can still contain it.

Which carpet style took its look from rya rugs and Greek flokati?

Shag carpet, the craze of the 1960s and 70s, borrowed the long wool pile of rya and flokati rugs and remade it in the newly developed synthetic fibres of the day, nylon and acrylic.

Which traditional rug of Turkey and Iran is woven flat like a tapestry, so its coloured wefts alone form the pattern?

A kilim has no knotted pile, which makes it less hard-wearing than a pile carpet; most are slit-woven, leaving a tiny gap where two colours meet that keeps the geometry sharp.

The 1994 Aeron office chair broke with tradition by replacing upholstery with what?

Fabric mesh, which its makers called 'pellicle', came from the Sarah chair that Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick had designed for the elderly, where a breathable seat was meant to prevent bedsores.

The term wainscot originally referred to high-quality riven boards of which wood?

Oak for wainscot was imported from the Baltic: slow-grown forest trees gave knot-free, stable boards, so joiners in the Netherlands and Britain preferred it to home-grown timber for panelling.

Which London institution bought the 1539-40 Ardabil Carpet on William Morris's advice?

The Victoria and Albert Museum bought the Ardabil Carpet in 1893 for £2,000 after Morris, its art referee, called it 'of singular perfection'; a second carpet, cannibalised to repair it, is in Los Angeles.

The side 'wings' of a wingback armchair were originally meant to shield the sitter from what?

Drafts were the enemy: the wings wrapped round the sitter's head to keep out cold air and trap the heat of the fire, which is why wing chairs traditionally stood beside the fireplace.

Charles and Ray Eames, the duo behind a famous 1956 lounge chair, were related in what way?

A married couple from 1941, they met at Michigan's Cranbrook Academy of Art, where Ray had arrived after training as an abstract painter. Their own home in Pacific Palisades became Case Study House 8.

The Sacco, launched by three Italian designers in 1968, was the original version of what?

Bean bag chair history starts with Gatti, Paolini and Teodoro, who filled a pear-shaped sack of leather or fabric with polystyrene pellets. Their design later turned up in Peanuts comic strips.

Potpourri, the bowl of dried petals set out to scent a room, has a name that literally means what?

Rotten pot suits the old recipe: 17th-century herbs and petals were layered with sea salt and left all summer, often fermenting or going mouldy before spices rescued the scent.

'Grandfather clock' comes from an 1876 song in which the clock does what when its owner dies?

Stops for good is the twist: in Henry Clay Work's 'My Grandfather's Clock' it 'stopp'd short, never to go again' after ninety years. The Oxford English Dictionary credits the hit with renaming the longcase clock.

Memory foam, a mattress staple, was developed in 1966 under contract to which organisation?

NASA wanted safer aircraft cushions, and its Ames Research Center contract produced a slow-recovering 'temper foam'. It reached bedrooms only after the agency released it to the public domain in the early 1980s.

Southern US porch ceilings are painted 'haint blue', a Gullah custom first meant to keep what away?

Ghosts, or haints, were meant to be fooled by a ceiling that looked like sky or water, which spirits by tradition could not cross. The custom began with the Gullah of Georgia and South Carolina.

The Resolute desk, used by many presidents in the Oval Office, was built from the timbers of what?

A British ship, HMS Resolute, was abandoned in Arctic ice in 1854, found by an American whaler and sent home as a goodwill gesture. Britain's queen sent the desk to President Hayes in 1880.

Empire style furniture, heavy with eagles, bees and laurel wreaths, took its name from whose rule?

Napoleon had his architects Percier and Fontaine devise the look to glorify his rule, borrowing from ancient Rome and from his campaign in Egypt. His initial N was usually framed by a laurel crown.

The Jacuzzi whirlpool bath grew out of a water pump first built to treat a relative's what?

Arthritis in the family turned a firm founded by seven Italian immigrant brothers, makers of propellers and farm pumps, toward the bathtub. The pump stayed a medical niche until a 1968 hot tub.

Which TLC show about neighbours redecorating each other's rooms was adapted from Changing Rooms?

Trading Spaces gave each pair two days, a designer and a budget of $1,000. One of its original carpenters, Ty Pennington, went on to front Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Property Brothers hosts Drew and Jonathan Scott, HGTV's renovating twins, come from which country?

Canada raised the twins, born four minutes apart in Vancouver. The W Network there ordered the first season after HGTV initially passed, and the American channel only signed up once the show was a hit.

On Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which shout from host Ty Pennington revealed the finished house?

"Move that bus!" sent away the coach parked to block the family's view of their new home. In the first season the call was the less catchy "Bus driver, hit it!"

Japanese tidying consultant Marie Kondo tells followers to keep only the belongings that do what?

Spark joy is the test she applies after having clients pile up everything they own, one category at a time. As a schoolgirl she tidied the classroom shelves while her classmates were at physical education.

Which tropical houseplant, whose leaves develop natural holes, is nicknamed the Swiss cheese plant?

Monstera takes its name from the Latin for 'monstrous', a nod to those odd leaves. Young plants start with whole leaves and only grow the famous holes and lobes later.

Which Chinese practice of siting buildings and rooms to suit qi has a name meaning 'wind-water'?

Feng shui was taken so seriously that the Ming and Qing courts employed its specialists in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, alongside astronomers and calendar-makers.

Which teardrop motif, known in Asia as the boteh, takes its English name from a Scottish town?

Paisley weavers used Jacquard looms to copy the costly Kashmir shawls arriving from India, and their town's name stuck to the pattern.

Which scientist drew the first colour wheel, bending the spectrum into a circle in his book Opticks?

Isaac Newton cut his circle into slices of unequal size, tying the width of each colour to an interval in music. His diagram showed only the pure hues of the spectrum.

Which Welsh designer's floral empire began with headscarves printed in a London attic flat in 1953?

Laura Ashley got the idea from a Women's Institute display of traditional handicrafts, and her husband Bernard designed the printing machine himself.

Which low cushioned seat reached the rest of Europe from Turkey in the late 1700s?

Ottoman seating began as a low platform piled with cushions that wrapped round three walls of a Turkish room. Thomas Jefferson noted paying for one in 1789.

The 'wings' of a fireside wingback armchair were first meant to shield the sitter from what?

Draughts were the enemy: the wings blocked cold air and trapped the fire's warmth around the sitter. The chairs appeared in England in the 1600s but only became popular in the 1720s.

Arne Jacobsen designed his Swan chair in 1958 to furnish which kind of building in Copenhagen?

A hotel, the SAS Royal, was Jacobsen's own building, and it has been called the world's first designer hotel. He later reused the chair at Denmark's national bank.

The Anglepoise lamp of 1932 was invented by George Carwardine, a consultant specialising in what?

Car suspension work led Carwardine to a spring mechanism that holds any position without being clamped. His first four-spring lamp was aimed at workshops and at doctors' and dentists' surgeries.

Which reversible patterned fabric is named after a Syrian city that was a hub of the Silk Road?

Damask carries the name of Damascus. The term began with silks and widened over time to any woven fabric whose pattern can be read from either side.

Rattan, the cane made into chairs and baskets across Southeast Asia, comes from which kind of plant?

A climbing palm, or rather some 600 species of them, supplies rattan. Stripped stems look much like bamboo but, unlike bamboo, they are not hollow.

Terracotta, the fired clay of flower pots and roof tiles, has an Italian name meaning what?

Baked earth is the literal sense, from the Latin terra cocta. Fired at relatively low temperatures, the clay is not watertight on its own, though a glaze makes it less porous.

A boudoir, historically a lady's private sitting room, is named from a verb meaning to do what?

To sulk, or pout, is the root meaning: the boudoir began as a room to withdraw to. It was the female counterpart of the gentleman's cabinet.

The bidet, probably devised by 17th-century furniture makers, takes its name from which animal?

Pony is the meaning, because the user sits astride the low bowl much as a rider straddles a small horse.

Which fashionable feature of 1950s to 1970s homes was the centrepiece of Indiana's Miller House?

Conversation pit fame began with the house Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard created for the Miller family. Saarinen then sank a red one into the TWA Flight Center in New York.

Which window that projects from a sloping roof takes its name from an old word for a sleeping room?

Dormer windows lit the attic bedrooms that gave them their name. François Mansart made them fashionable in the 17th century on the mansard roofs he designed.

Which building approach, using a term E. O. Wilson popularised, brings plants and daylight indoors?

Biophilic design rests on Wilson's 1984 idea that people have an innate pull toward living things. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm had earlier used 'biophilia' to mean a 'passionate love of life'.

IKEA names its sofas after places in Sweden, but its beds take their names from places in which country?

Norway supplies the bed names. Real places can end up attached to humble objects: Sweden's Lake Bolmen shares its name with a toilet brush, and Lake Toftan with a bathroom bin.

Which designer created Alessi's Juicy Salif lemon squeezer and Kartell's famous transparent chair?

Philippe Starck was chosen in 1983 to refurbish the president's private apartments at the Élysée Palace. He has worked with manufacturers across Europe, among them Driade, Vitra and Disform.

Which Scottish architect designed neoclassical rooms down to the doorknobs in a style named for him?

Robert Adam often had carpets woven to echo the pattern of the ceiling above, and gave sconces, mirrors and doorknobs custom designs that repeated the motifs of the room.

Which American painter covered a London shipping magnate's dining room in gold peacocks?

James Whistler quarrelled so violently with his patron over payment that he painted two fighting peacocks into the room, one standing for the artist and one for the man with the money.

Which English seaside city has the Royal Pavilion, a domed palace built for the future George IV?

Brighton bought the Pavilion in 1850, after the monarch of the day chose Osborne House as the royal seaside retreat. John Nash had given it Mughal-inspired domes and minarets from 1815.

Which North Carolina city hosts the world's largest furniture trade show twice a year?

High Point calls itself 'North Carolina's International City' because its market draws exhibitors and buyers from around the world. Its first furniture factory opened in 1889.

Marcel Breuer's Cesca chair, a 1928 design in tubular steel and cane, was named in tribute to whom?

His daughter Francesca, adopted and nicknamed Cesca, gave the chair its name. It was the first tubular-steel chair with a caned seat to be mass-produced.

Which 'Eighth Wonder of the World' vanished from Russia's Catherine Palace during World War II?

The Amber Room, a gift from Prussia's king to Peter the Great in 1716, held over six tonnes of amber. German forces carried it off to Königsberg, where the trail goes cold in 1944.

Which sideboard shares its name with an old custom of having servants taste food for poison?

Credenza meant belief or trust in Italian, and the 16th-century 'act of credenza' reassured a pope or cardinal that dinner was safe. The name may then have passed to the room and on to the furniture.

Which Japanese bedding, folded away in a closet by day, caught on in North America in the 1970s?

Futon sets are traditionally laid straight onto tatami mats at night. The Western version, typically a low wooden couch that converts to a bed, differs considerably from the original.

Which knotting craft, long practised by sailors, came back in the 1970s for making plant hangers?

Macramé let sailors dress up knife handles, bottles and parts of their ships with ornamental knots. Its staple is the square knot, known at sea as the reef knot.

Tabriz, Kashan and Isfahan, names prized by rug collectors, are weaving cities in which country?

Iran is the home of the Persian carpet. Pieces from the 16th-century court workshops of Isfahan are treasured in museums, and UNESCO lists Kashan's weaving skills as intangible heritage.

The hexagon carpet made famous by The Shining is a 1960s design by which British decorator?

David Hicks began designing carpets and fabrics because he found none on the market good enough. He also made carpets for Windsor Castle, and his father-in-law was Earl Mountbatten.

Which writer rebuilt his Twickenham villa, Strawberry Hill, as a forerunner of the Gothic Revival?

Horace Walpole wanted what he called 'gloomth' indoors, a setting for his collection of antiquarian objects. He added towers and battlements in stages from 1749.

Which American architect coined 'Less is a bore' as a postmodern reply to a famous modernist slogan?

Robert Venturi made the case in a 1966 book he called a 'gentle manifesto'. He won the Pritzker Prize alone in 1991, despite a request to include his partner, Denise Scott Brown.

Which cabinetmaker, linked with shield-back chairs, won fame through a book his widow published?

George Hepplewhite died in 1786, and no furniture made by him or his firm is known to survive. His widow Alice's 1788 book of about 300 designs fixed his name to a light, elegant style.

Which central European furniture style is named after a fictional poet in a Munich magazine?

Biedermeier taste grew between 1815 and 1848 from a rising middle class that prized home life, moderation and modesty. The poet, a mediocrity called Gottlieb Biedermaier, appeared in Fliegende Blätter.

Which textile technique, whose name means 'to bind', dyes the yarns before the cloth is woven?

Ikat patterns are planned on the loose yarn: bundles are tightly wrapped, dyed, rewrapped and dyed again, and only then woven. The method spread with Austronesian peoples as far as Madagascar.

Which wooden board, long used as siding on barns and sheds, gives indoor walls a rustic look?

Shiplap boards have a rabbet cut along each edge so that neighbours overlap and seal tightly, which made them a siding for buildings that must withstand cold and aggressive climates.

Which recliner brand began in Monroe, Michigan, with a porch chair two cousins built in the 1920s?

La-Z-Boy was the winning entry in a contest that Edward Knabusch and Edwin Shoemaker held to name their chair, which they had mocked up from orange crates.