by Furnishly | Jan 18, 2022 | Design Inspiration, Style
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Name: Jaclyn Isaac and Anthony Frasciello and two dogs, Doni and Daisy. (We are both born and raised in New Jersey and this is our first beach house renovation.)
Location: Located on the Jersey Shore in the coastal community of Lake Como, New Jersey
Size: 1500 square feet
Type of Home: Two family-style beach bungalow home built in 1925
Years lived in: 2 years, owned
I’m a beach girl at heart so I’ve always wanted to own a bungalow within walking distance to the beach. My husband and I just renovated and sold a 1899 colonial in Northern New Jersey, so this beach bungalow at the Jersey Shore became our next renovation project. The home is only a 5-minute walk to the beach, and is located right near Lake Como, New Jersey. We enjoy entertaining family and friends during the summer at our beach bungalow.
The bungalow is a good example of high/low style, vintage/antiques mixed with West Elm, and some luxury brands. Originally a two-family home built in 1925, it underwent a major renovation, including: a remodeled first floor bathroom, new lighting added, the entire place painted, all windows replaced, new countertops added, and the wood floors polished. On the second floor, we did a kitchen remodel with custom backsplash inspired by the sharp angle of the home’s roof line, refinished floors, painted all the rooms, and added new lighting.
Some design details that make this project pop include the raffia lighting over the kitchen table looks like a little straw beach hat, and wild jungle chairs in the living room. The mosaic Tilebar “Phantasm” backsplash in the upstairs kitchen was a complex, custom, day-long install and plays off the sharp angle of the roof line. And the porch walls and ceiling were painted in one color (Benjamin Moore’s “Etiquette”) to unify the space and add depth — the color even matches the surfboard in the kitchen.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: My decor style is a mix of classic elegance meets vintage meets young, fresh, funky, and fun. The interior vibe can be described as a mix of mid-century modern, vintage, and bungalow chic. The interior color palette combines warm woods like oak and walnut, mid-century olive and orange, with a clean cream base and a dash of a vintage ocean spray blue.
Inspiration: I’m inspired by travel and makers. Almost always Italian and Art Deco. Antique and salvage yards are definitely big sources of inspiration, too. The beach bungalow is a good example of high/low style, vintage/antiques mixed with some high end brands.
Favorite Element: My favorite room is the sun-drenched porch where I created a cozy nook for morning tea time. I consider myself a tea connoisseur and wanted a quiet relaxing space to reenergize for the day ahead.
Biggest Challenge: The mosaic Tilebar “Phantasm” backsplash in the upstairs kitchen was a complex custom week-long install and plays off the sharp angle of the roof line. It was difficult to plan and design around the angled roofline in this 150-square-foot tiny kitchen space.
Proudest DIY: We salvaged and reglazed a super heavy cast iron tub.
Biggest Indulgence: The “Phantasm” mosaic kitchen backsplash tile was our biggest indulgence both in time spent planning and executing as well as the cost. It was totally worthwhile since we now have a “design moment” or focal point in an otherwise small and simple space.
Is there something unique about your home or the way you use it? We turned a portion of the living room into a bar for additional entertaining space.
What are your favorite products you have bought for your home and why? Raffia lighting over the kitchen table looks like a straw beach hat and is a perfect fit for the fun beach vibe. Wild vintage jungle chairs in the living room and leopard print chairs on the porch are an extension of my inner ’70s bohemian sense of style.
Please describe any helpful, inspiring, brilliant, or just plain useful small space maximizing and/or organizing tips you have: Maximize storage space with furniture pieces that offer multi functional benefits, such as built-in cabinets, multi-level tables, and ottomans and banquettes with hidden storage features.
Finally, what’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? Choose one color to unify a small space while still adding depth.
This house tour’s responses were edited for length and clarity.
by Furnishly | Jan 3, 2022 | Design Inspiration, Style
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Name: Sara Amrhein, husband Luigi Valerio, with 15-year-old cat Michelangelo and newest addition, 3-month-old kitten, Rosallina
Location: Florence, Italy
Size: 592 square feet
Type of Home: Apartment
Years lived in: 2 years, owned
Artist and jewelry designer Sara Amrhein is originally from Southern California, but now calls the beautiful and historic Florence, Italy, home. “I moved here after coming to Italy on a study abroad trip where I met Luigi and simultaneously fell in love with him and the city of Florence in all of its Renaissance glory,” Sara explains.
“After months of searching we found our apartment online. We had been scouring the internet everyday so we saw the listing as soon as it went up and called right away. We almost missed the appointment because it was located in an area of the city that we weren’t as familiar with and we were about 15 minutes late trying to find it. When we got here the agent was closing up the windows and just about to leave thinking that we were a no-show. We apologized profusely and she agreed to give us the tour. We were the first ones to see it but she had another viewing lined up that afternoon, luckily we made an offer immediately and it was accepted by the owners,” writes Sara.
“We really love everything about it but especially the light; we had lived in ground floor apartments up until now and in a city, that means that usually means they are pretty dark. We were thrilled to walk in and see the big windows and that it was up one flight of stairs,” Sara describes of the apartment when they first saw it. Still featuring lots of natural light, the apartment looks much different two years later thanks to the full-gut renovation the couple completed. “We don’t know for sure, but we believe that the last updates were done somewhere around the 1950s,” Sara admits! “There was no heating system and we had to redo all the electric to code. It was a big job to say the least!”
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: Cozy and traditional with an artistic flair
Inspiration: Color is always my inspiration but I also wanted to make sure that we honored the era of the architecture, too. The building was constructed in the 1930s so I was inspired by the vintage aspects and wanted to keep those elements in the design.
Favorite Element: It’s so hard to choose because I really love it all, but I would probably say the bedroom. I love the way the sun comes in in the morning, giving off the perfect light, and the view out the window with the tree-lined street and the small stream that attracts the most beautiful birds, including ducks, and these beautiful green parrots with bright red beaks. No one knows how they got here but there are loads of them!
Biggest Challenge: The biggest challenge by far was the amount of time it took us to actually obtain ownership. Because it is a historical building and this was the first time the apartment had ever been sold since the original owners, the cultural association of Florence had to approve its sale and declare that they were not interested in purchasing it for historical purposes. Essentially it was a protected property. We waited a full year from when we put in the original offer to when we officially signed the papers. It took a lot of patience and essentially there wasn’t anything we could do except wait. We had been looking for the perfect place for months that was within our budget and when we first viewed this property, we knew it was the one so we decided to stick it out and wait for the approval. It was a very long, drawn-out process but in the end it was worth it.
Proudest DIY: The entire apartment was actually a DIY; my husband used to work construction and in fact he and his brothers owned a construction company many years ago, so that enabled us to do all the work ourselves. But if I had to choose one, I would say the additional bathroom! The only bathroom in the apartment when we bought it was a tiny toilet and sink with a shower on the enclosed veranda. Since the bedroom was a bit larger, we were able to put up a wall and install a whole new bathroom from scratch! I love the vintage feel of that bathroom with the black and white floor tiles, the white subway tiles on the walls, and the charcoal grey paint — I added the vintage bird prints and it all came together perfectly and looks like it has been here all along.
Biggest Indulgence: The kitchen! And even through it is still small by some standards, it’s actually the biggest kitchen we’ve ever had! Our previous two apartments were even smaller than this place and the kitchens were smaller still. We went for the highest end of our budget and upgraded the appliances and we FINALLY have a dishwasher! This is the first time in our city-living life that we actually have one.
The other indulgence is the backsplash above the stove. The tiles are handmade in Mexico and I bought them in Old Town San Diego on one of my trips back home to California and put them in my carry-on luggage to get them here but they are so perfect and they give the space that pop of color it needed along with an artisanal touch that is so important to us.
Is there something unique about your home or the way you use it? During the height of the pandemic, I decided it was in the best interest of my business to close my brick and mortar store in the center of Florence and move my workshop home. There isn’t a ton of room, but we moved some things around and now, I use the enclosed veranda — which is also our laundry room — as my studio space. Sure, I share it with the washer and dryer but it has big windows that allow for beautiful natural light all day long. I have set up a table and added some shelving and now this is where I work all day! I hope to have a store again one day soon, but for now, this is working out quite well for me!
What are your favorite products you have bought for your home and why? I love our IKEA Ivar bookshelves and Rast dressers. They come in raw wood so we were able to paint them — we decided to go with the same color as the walls to make them look like they are built-ins and they work perfectly for the living space. We can display all of our favorite objects on the shelves and hide away anything we don’t want out in plain sight inside the dresser drawers.
Please describe any helpful, inspiring, brilliant, or just plain useful small space maximizing and/or organizing tips you have: Luckily we have high ceilings so I like to use the vertical space whenever possible. In the kitchen we added a second set of cabinets to the top of the standard height for additional storage and in the bedroom — since in Italy the rooms don’t have built-in closets — the armoire we purchased is also tall and I added decorative boxes to the top for our out-of-season wardrobe.
Finally, what’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? Make sure not to hang art or wall decor too high! It really makes a difference in the way it pulls the room all together. When it’s too high it can make the elements feel disconnected from each other. I’m also a firm believer in ‘if you love it, buy it.’ Don’t worry so much about making everything match perfectly; it’s those little details that are different from the others that will make your space unique.
This house tour’s responses were edited for length and clarity.
Adrienne Breaux
House Tour Editor
Adrienne loves architecture, design, cats, science fiction and watching Star Trek. In the past 10 years she’s called home: a van, a former downtown store in small town Texas and a studio apartment rumored to have once been owned by Willie Nelson.
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by Furnishly | Dec 17, 2021 | Design Inspiration, Style
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Designer’s Name: Esther Dormer of Esther Dormer Design
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Size: 675 square feet
Type of Home: It is a stand alone one-bedroom home
When I found this 675-square-foot home online, I immediately saw its potential despite its unlivable condition. With its close proximity to downtown Pittsburgh and gorgeous city views, I knew I could make it into a charming one-bedroom bungalow. The spacious backyard is a rarity in cities so I added a deck to make the most of the outdoor space. High-vaulted ceilings are hard to come by and it makes the home feel that much more grand.
My goal was to create a luxurious home in a small space. Living in a small space is far more environmentally conscious but that does not mean you have to sacrifice quality of living. To create that luxurious atmosphere, I made sure to include features that would be in much larger homes, such as ample bathroom storage, a sizable kitchen, and big windows.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: I like to describe my style as modern with a bohemian rustic vibe.
Inspiration: I am constantly being inspired by both nature and the city.
Favorite Element: My favorite element is the view from the kitchen. I wanted to take advantage of the city views so I added glass doors and a large window.
Biggest Challenge: The biggest challenge was definitely making this 675-square-foot home feel spacious. I completely reconfigured the entire floor plan. The kitchen was originally in the basement and the original bathroom became the kitchen. We ended up having to replumb the entire house which was no easy task.
Proudest DIY: I actually did a lot of the work myself and am proud of the entire DIY process. However, the stand-out project was using shipping pallets for an accent wall. It was a lot of work cutting up and refinishing the wood but it was worth it because I am so proud of the outcome of that accent wall. It brings some nature inside — which I try to do in all of my projects — and adds more character than a plain painted wall. I found this particularly important for this place because of its city location; I wanted to make sure this home had that warm and inviting feeling.
It is much more sustainable to use old wood and it becomes that much more authentic. Even though it was a lot more work, I think it was worth it because we did not contribute to cutting down more trees for the sake of this project. I also think the wood is beautiful in its worn state with all its imperfections.
Biggest Indulgence: The biggest cost was the natural wood throughout but I am so glad I carved space in my budget for this because it truly makes the atmosphere of the home what it is.
Is there something unique about the home or the way it is used? Definitely! I changed up the whole floor plan to make the most of the space. I tried something new with this home and decided to add closets in front of some of the bedroom windows. I used transparent closet doors to create a beautiful layered look with the light still shining through.
What are your favorite products you have bought for your home and why? All the lighting and artwork are my favorite because they added that finishing touch.
Please describe any helpful, inspiring, brilliant, or just plain useful small space maximizing and/or organizing tips you have: I used windows and a clear glass door to open up the old bathroom and turned it into the kitchen and I used an old closet for a cool half bathroom.
Finally, what’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? My decorating tip is to always have fun with the design elements. Don’t be afraid to go bold like I did with the mirrored tiles in the kitchen.
This house tour’s responses were edited for length and clarity.
by Furnishly | Nov 5, 2021 | Design Inspiration, Style
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission.
November is Family Month on Apartment Therapy! We’re sharing stories all month about families — whether that’s partners, kids, roommates, parents, pets, or plants — from improving your daily relationships or going home for the holidays. Head over here to see them all!
Name: David and Katrina Peralta, Olivia (daughter), Great Aunt Sylvia, Jonathan (David’s brother who rents from us)
Location: Bed-Stuy (Bedford Stuyvesant), Brooklyn, New York
Size: 3,400 square feet
Type of Home: Brownstone / Row House
Years lived in: 1 year, owned
Since moving to Brooklyn in 2013, we pretty much decided then that our ultimate life goal would be to own a brownstone and renovate it to be our dream home. We wanted something with character that we could play off of and embrace, livable from day one (ish), but also not something that has already been given a heavy renovation. In early 2020 we started looking, but then Covid really kicked our search into high gear to get our family into somewhere with more space. Our sights were set on the Bed-Stuy neighborhood in Brooklyn and when we came across this house, we knew right away that it was THE ONE. The street is lined with full lush trees and very picturesque of a Brooklyn brownstone neighborhood, often times with neighbors sitting out on their stoops saying hi as you walk by.
When we moved in, the house was generally livable, (the former owner raised her son here for almost 18 years) and it was decently maintained. We knew we wanted to eventually do a gut renovation and make it the home of our dreams, but for the time being, the goal was to get our family out of our apartment and into the house. Still, we wanted to make it more to our style and aesthetic, and took about four weeks doing a light refresh to the home.
Underneath the existing carpet was hardwood flooring throughout the house. We were able to sand the wood, refinish it with new stain, and add a fresh coat of paint to the walls throughout the home, efforts which totally transformed the house from the start. We did all of this work ourselves. David and his brother did most all of the flooring work while I focused on cleaning all the nooks and crannies from the dust kicked up as well as painting throughout. We were able to get the family moved in and worked on a few other projects throughout the past year that were a bit more time consuming and work intensive. Our Brownstone is a true testament that you don’t have to have a really fancy renovation to make a somewhat shabby home great, as most AT readers already know. There are smaller high impact things you can execute on that really transform a space from blah to “okay, I really want to hang out here.” This will buy us some time to get to know what works best for us in this home, and create plans for our larger scale full-blown floor by floor gut renovation.
The house is admittedly rather large, but we use a lot of it up as a family. There is a studio apartment on the garden level, and instead of renting it out to a stranger, it’s rented to David’s brother. The kitchen is where we gather around for family meals most often. On the parlor floor (living room and dining) we hang out, have nicer meals, entertain friends, and enjoy movie nights. The third floor is home to our bedroom and another room being renovated to a home office/workout space that can also function as a guest room. The top floor works out so fittingly for our family, and is where we have our 3-year-old’s bedroom, a playroom, and a bedroom for our Great Aunt Sylvia who helps take care of our kiddo. It’s so perfect because it also has a bathroom and kitchenette up there, great for lunch and snack time for them so they aren’t fumbling down three flights of stairs to our main kitchen. The backyard was a huge effort to overhaul and so worth it, too. It’s such a great space for us adults to hang out and BBQ, enjoying a cocktail while our kiddo runs around and plays in her playhouse.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: Timeless and classic overall feel, paired with modern touches, particularly items you touch and feel (faucets, hardware) with a dash of Deco and Glam (think ribbed and fluted finishes, mixed metals, brass).
Inspiration: We are continuously inspired by the serendipity of the house, historical items and details in the home, and honoring the past while incorporating modern conveniences, good craftsmanship honoring the Victorian age but bringing it into the modern age with materials and modern construction practices.
Favorite Element: The parlor floor is easily the most grand space in our home and is easily our favorite element! From the bay window with a view overlooking the neighborhood, with original stained glass detail that lets light flood in, to the tall ceilings and towering mantel mirror, this room is quintessential Brooklyn brownstone vibes.
Biggest Challenge: Our biggest challenge has been planning and coordinating which rooms to address first and trying to work in the home while living in it. We had to prioritize the top floor for our toddler and great aunt Sylvia to live in because we wanted… needed… a finished space for them. Once that was complete we were then able to move onto the lower floors. We had to move furniture from room to room in order to refinish the flooring and paint, so for about three – four months the house was pretty upside down. Our sofa probably was moved to about four different rooms throughout the light renovation. We did our kitchen overhaul two weeks before hosting Thanksgiving so we would have a hard cut off of not letting it drag on and our family being without a kitchen.
Proudest DIY: Our proudest DIY has to be our backyard overhaul. We never intended to do such an overhaul our first year, but the more work we did, the more we used the space, which pushed us to keep doing more. When we moved in, the backyard was so overgrown that you couldn’t step five feet out the back of the house without feeling like you were in a jungle. My dad loves doing yard work and flew in from Miami for a week to help us. Even still, it took us about five days (and 40+ trash bags) to clear out the backyard landscaping debris. We discovered the concrete was cracked everywhere and we had huge pile of bricks we didn’t know what to do with as well as lots of extra dirt. David had the great idea to make a low retaining wall with the numerous bricks and then fill the space with all of the dirt we had on hand. This ended up making a very cute elevated space for our daughter’s playhouse.
Our family sat around the fire pit throughout fall and even in the winter, we played in the snow and made mini sledding hills, and just enjoyed it so much we started planning a larger overhaul in spring. In order to erect a new fence, we had to remove a decades old cherry tree that was the culprit of our cracked concrete, and sat on our property line. We asked the tree cutting company to only cut the tree down, not remove it, and they were very skeptical, fully expecting us to call them back a week later to haul it out. Instead David took a chainsaw to the tree, cutting it up for firewood this fall (and likely years to come). Building the fence was a family affair, with David enlisting his brother and dad to help with the execution. It really brought the backyard together… the broken concrete looked less drab with the clean and modern fence and landscaping added warmth and coziness to the dark fence. You can even spot the firewood lined up nicely behind the sofa.
Biggest Indulgence: We certainly indulged and splurged on our appliances. These are items we plan to use for years to come and wanted the best on the market so that they aren’t outdated a few years in.
What’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? If you want to try something fun and outside of your comfort zone, paint is a great go-to tool. If you find you don’t like it, or you get tired, bored, etc, you can paint back over it and it’s one of the easiest and cheapest ways to make a huge impact on a space. For more large ticket items, timeless and more neutral pieces are often a great bet; they will play nicely with aforementioned paint experiments and are easier to style and pair with more of-the-moment trends and colorways.
This submission’s responses and photos were edited for length/size and clarity.
by Furnishly | Nov 2, 2021 | Design Inspiration, Style
Name: Josua Kärnbo
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Type of home: Condo
Size: 463 square feet + 65-square-foot balcony
Years lived in: 2 years, owned
Tell us a little (or a lot) about your home and the people who live there: I’m a construction engineer, and about two years ago I was able to purchase my first own condo (with the help of private loans from family). Due to monetary restrictions but also because I really enjoy architecture and interior design, my parents and I knew from the start that it was going to be a complete DIY overhaul of the whole place from top to bottom wherever possible. Aside from some required professionally executed electrical work, this is also exactly how things turned out.
It’d be near impossible to list exactly everything we did, but this is a condensed version of sorts: New floors, walls and ceilings, new dividing walls for layout and rooms, entirely new kitchen, new technology, cables, internet, lighting, appliances, storage, furniture, equipment. There’s also a new hallway and a simple overhaul in the bathroom (but very effective considering how cheap it was). All in all we completely transformed the apartment from top to bottom in literally every area imaginable. It was originally a 463-square-foot studio, which now is converted into a well-distributed and efficient one-bedroom as suitable for one person as for a couple. We also did all this for only around $16k in total.
I’ve always had a knack for engineering and math so from an early age I just always figured I’d become an engineer or similar and that’s the way my life went with studies and school. I have, however, always had a creative side as well with an interest in fashion, architecture, interior design, photography, graphic work, etc., so my plan was always to be able to do something creative on the side of my “real” job. Actually working in the engineering industry, as well as doing this apartment of my own, made me realize just how much I enjoy and crave being able to create and design stuff of my own rather than manage the work of others, so I’m actually taking a year long break from work to study art and craftsmanship to further develop this side of myself.
As for the apartment itself, I really enjoy vintage style, both in architecture and clothing, especially from around the ’60s to ’80s, so I always knew that I didn’t want a generic white modern minimalistic living space, but rather something more colorful and inviting.
Describe your home’s style in 5 words or less: Efficient, inviting, colorful, unique, DIY
What is your favorite room and why? Well it’s a kind of small apartment, so since the “office,” “living room,” and kitchen/dining area is all just one big room I’d have to say that is my favorite. For one, just figuring out the initial floor plan took a lot of work and I probably went through a good 20+ variations before I found what really worked, but with how well I think it turned out it was definitely worth it. But aside from that it feels segmented and separated in a very nice way despite the lack of dividing walls, and the overall flow and distribution of each area just “makes sense.”
What’s the last thing you bought (or found!) for your home? I think that was a simple shelf I bought for my bathroom. Unlike the rest of the apartment, doing a complete overhaul in the bathroom would’ve been nearly as much as the rest of the apartment combined, so we instead opted for a simpler route working with what was already in place and introducing new colors, materials, and accessories to lift the overall feeling. There was originally a very ugly mirror cabinet over the toilet where the shelf now is, so while we originally just wanted to get rid of that, we realized at a later point that the space felt kind of empty without anything there. So a more modern-looking open shelf was a good way to both provide some extra storage as well as balance out the visual interest of the room.
Any advice for creating a home you love? Don’t be afraid to fail, just go for it and if you’re doing things yourself, worst case you just start over and try again. Learning some kind of 3D software to help visualize the whole project is also immensely useful, whether that is something simple and specific like IKEA’s 3D kitchen tool, something intermediate like floorplanner.com for the whole apartment, or something more advanced like Sketchup for actual renders and color/material decisions.
This submission’s responses and photos were edited for length/size and clarity.
