Personalized furnishings can add a touch of class to home decor

American Home Furnishings Alliance

This monogrammed Adam armchair from Hickory Chair reflects the trend in personalizing home furnishings.

DeHart & Company

The medallions, embroidered in a shade of cream, contrast nicely with the deep blue velvet pillows.

Home furnishings always say a lot about the people who choose them. And a favorite accent that has emerged as a hot national decorating trend is saying even more about who they are.

Monograms, usually a first, middle and last initial, are showing up on household items across the country, home furnishings experts say. The monograms, indicative of their owners' names, are adding that special personal imprint to items that might otherwise be ordinary.

Homeowners are having draperies, chair backs, headboards, lamp shades, linens and more monogrammed. Crafters are making statements by applying monograms to concrete floors and bare walls.

It is part of a larger trend toward personalizing home furnishings, says Jackie Hirschhaut, spokeswoman for the American Home Furnishings Alliance. Some are the three-initial design. Some are a single initial. And others are actually a word or two.

"I think people are looking at monograms as the ultimate in personalization that can be done in an affordable way. We are not talking about a customized paint finish. We are talking about an embroidered pillow or monograms on both the front and back of a dining chair. They are whimsical but not corny."

Hirschhaut says there is a tremendous push toward customized home furnishings, and it was obvious at the October High Point Market in North Carolina, an international home furnishings destination. They included custom finishes and custom measurements for seating and wood products as well as monograms and other trends.

At Aubergine Home Collection on East Bay, owner Grace Cribben noticed an increase in requests for monograms on shams, decorative pillows and duvets about 18 months ago. Having bed linens monogrammed is a long-standing tradition that has become a trend, she says.

While most people choose to have their three initials in script, Cribben also does what she calls "nonogram," which she describes as more of a pattern than lettering. And when it comes to color, a chocolate brown and robin-egg blue combination is a huge favorite, she says.

"They are coming back big time," Chris Fulp, a design consultant at Morris Sokol, says of monograms. "It's a neat expression and a great look."

Adding a monogram to something ordinary can give it a custom-finish look, says Fulp. He had pillow shams monogrammed with block letters to make them look more expensive. Others are having monograms added to the centers of their duvets.

David Jakubowski, assistant manager of Rogers Brothers, says monograms are classic, but homeowners are using contemporary or stylized letters to create fresh new looks. There are no dictates regarding fonts or color.

"I just got directors' chairs that are monogrammed," says Jakubowski. "They're cream with a turquoise 'DNJ.' There are burnt orange and turquoise awnings in my living room, so I used turquoise."

B. Picky on Coleman Boulevard in Mount Pleasant offers 15 fonts and 250 colors, says owner Marilyn Reeves. She estimates that they are doing 50 monograms, about one-third of her business, each day.

At the RSVP Shoppe on Broad Street in Charleston, about 95 percent of the stationery ordered is monogrammed.

One Georgia-based online store, www.monogrammecca.com, sells monogrammed candles, wine stoppers, soap dispensers, cookbook stands, mint julep cups, watch boxes and designer buckets.

Reach Wevonneda Minis at 937-5705 or wminis@postandcourier.com.