Sarah Van Arsdale - The watchword in real estate has always been: location, location, location. Anything else about a home can be changed: a bedroom can be added, a kitchen renovated, a garage torn down to make room for a garden. But you can do precisely nothing about the number of miles from the nearest grocery store or blocks to the library. And the surrounding neighborhood will make the value of the house plunge or skyrocket, regardless of the square footage.

This year, the watchword in home design seems to be: the economy, the economy, the economy. We're all feeling the percussive echoes of the crash of two years ago, no matter what field we're working in. And the tighter times are affecting not only how much we're spending on decorating and designing our homes, but also the choices we make about how we're decorating—everything from color to furnishings.

To get a sense of the design forecast for 2011 in three different areas of the United States, we talked with three design companies, one each in Georgia, Nevada, and Washington, DC