The Interior Design Show 2012 opens at the Metro Convention Centre this Saturday, January 28, so if you’re going (go!), prepare to both drool at the incredible mix of contemporary pieces and dream of redecorating your house, condo, or basement apartment (it won’t matter where you live, you’ll want to redesign it).

The Interior Design Show is Canada’s largest contemporary design fair, attracting more than 500,000 design professionals, consumers and media since it began in 1999. It features incredible exhibits and keynote speakers and designers come from all over the world to participate. It’s a great way to spend a weekend afternoon collecting ideas and fantasizing about your dream home. Don’t be surprised, however, if you find yourself walking out with some kind of hanging ball light fixture thingie or Rubik’s cube ceramic tiles under your arm. You’ve been warned. 

Things You Can’t Miss (because they’re notable, yes, but also because they’re huge and you just literally can’t miss them)

Design GenNext: 10,000 square feet of experimental installations by the design students from Canada’s top schools.

StripTease: the massive grand entrance installation made out of more than 3700 pounds of felt, conceived by RAW, one of Toronto’s most prominent architecture studios. 

Design Icons: Azure Magazine reinvents five classic designs as larger-than-life ice sculptures. 

Design Docs: A festival of design documentaries on subjects like mid-century architecture in Palm Springs and the modernism of Julius Schulman.

~ Lindsay Tapscott