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Name: Gretchen Raguse Location: SE Portland, Oregon Size: 615 square feet Type of Home: One-bedroom Apartment Years Lived In: 3 years, renting
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“I fell in love with my apartment the second I saw it,” admits Gretchen Raguse, who’s been renting this 615-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment in Southeast Portland for three years. “Growing up in Portland, I feel the most connected with the character of the Eastside. I stumbled upon this spot during my daily Craigslist scroll and realized it was exactly where I wanted to be in the city. It checked all my boxes; it’s walking distance to my favorite park, close to great places to eat and shop, and it had the charm I was looking for.”
Gretchen says she loves the architectural details like hardwood floors, arches, and the 1920s-era elements, but the apartment’s layout and large amounts of storage were also big selling points. “It has its quirks, but I enjoy making the most of the ‘landlord special’ and I’ve been grateful to give this blank canvas my personal touch,” describes Gretchen. Some of those changes have been small DIYs like renter-friendly fabric wallpaper accent walls, to significant add-ons to the small kitchen to make it much more functional.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: Eclectic, Curated, Repurposed, Functional, Maximalist
Favorite Element: I love using vintage fabric as wallpaper. I came across this idea on Apartment Therapy a few years ago, and knew I needed to try it out in my own space. For me, the application is much easier and more affordable than that of traditional wallpaper or peel and stick. The added texture of the fabric feels high-end, contemporary, and gives the space a unique personality.
I started with an accent wall in my kitchen, meant to visually divide the area for my office. Repurposing a dress my mom made in the ’70s, I cut and pasted the fabric together to form a repeating pattern. I only had enough to cover a small section, so I added trim and beadboard to fill out the wall. Fabric as wallpaper quickly became an obsession of mine and made its way through my apartment. After the accent wall, I added it to my hallway ceiling and bedroom. Even my friend’s place got a fabric makeover!
Biggest Challenge: Incorporating my ugly 1950s brown, beat-up, floor-to-ceiling wall heater was definitely my biggest challenge. As soon as I moved in, I knew I needed to get creative with how I would conceal this eyesore. I contracted a friend of mine to build a custom heater cover, complete with three raw-edge walnut shelves. I envisioned this design to resemble a mantel, providing space for decor and other seasonal tchotchkes, while still factoring in the functionality of the heater behind it. Once the cover was built, I painted the main structure to blend in with my apartment walls. I’m very pleased with how it turned out and it’s been a wonderful solution to an unsightly problem.
Proudest DIY: The kitchen was lackluster to begin with. The original cupboards and countertops only lined one side of the room, leaving just a stove and a small set of recessed shelves on the opposite wall. I wanted the stove to feel more integrated and needed more storage in general, so I built a series of freestanding kitchen cabinets and counters using mostly secondhand materials.
I rehabilitated a discarded lower cabinet to function as my coffee bar, food prep area, and home for my microwave. This floor unit is tucked into the right side corner and gives the stove a built-in feel.
On the left side of the stove, I sourced an old dining room buffet, which I purchased at an estate sale. By turning this piece sideways, and aligning it to the recessed wall shelves, I created a small kitchen peninsula. This added counter space and divided the kitchen into a cooking area on the right and a small office area on the left. Unfortunately, this orientation exposed the buffet’s unfinished backside near the stove and required extensive cosmetic work. When finished, this gave me a convenient place to hang my cutting boards.
The front side of the buffet has two doors giving me easy access to ample storage for office supplies. With a little more effort, I also replaced the top and added lift-up hinges to create an optional standing desk.
To complete the kitchen design, I repurposed an old bathroom storage cupboard, salvaged from a remodel, and secured it to the wall directly above the stove. It was shallow enough to allow room for cooking to happen underneath, and its extra height mimicked the original built-ins. I then used a variety of open air shelving to fill out the remaining wall space. With all of these upgrades, my kitchen now shines and the space feels functional, dual-purpose, and complete.
Budget: I’m a frugal girl, so budget is always a priority when decorating. I’m also a thrifting expert and pride myself on finding killer deals. For instance, I found the round, blue corner chair in my living room online for just $20. This same chair is often listed at upwards of $2k. Finding deals like this is part of my process and it’s how I furnished my apartment while keeping my budget incredibly low.
Is there something unique about your home or the way you use it? Apart from an office in the kitchen, I’ve carved out a number of dual-purpose spots in my home by utilizing a strategic layout and every inch of storage available. I worked hard to maximize my square footage through creating intentional and inventive solutions to make my space multifunctional.
I have a makeshift yoga studio stored in my living room credenza. When the motivation strikes, I can easily grab what I need to work out and set up in front of the mirror I installed on the back of my bathroom door. In my main closet, I have a fold-down ironing board and drying rack attached to the inside of each door. When they’re open, my laundry station is ready to go. In my front doorway I added an eye hook to hang a hammock chair on nice days. It captures the feeling of having a sunroom and extends my living space into a shared courtyard. All of this easily tucks away, but gives me options, and makes my small home more enjoyable!
Please describe any helpful, inspiring, brilliant, or just plain useful small space maximizing and/or organizing tips you have: Buy a label maker and get obsessed with it! It’s my favorite way to create order in the home. Other than that, the rest comes with a lot of trial and error. I have moved the dishes in my kitchen from one cabinet to another, too many times to count. I keep going until I have a system in place that functions smoothly with my lifestyle and makes the most sense spatially.
Finally, what’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? ABT. Always Be Thrifting. Most everything can be sourced secondhand or made yourself. Thrift often and think outside the box. Check out resale and secondhand shops, online marketplaces, estate sales, and friends’ throwaways. Then take your time making the space feel good for you. Start with the things you love, and see what develops. Don’t be constrained to a certain style or design, because sometimes the best solutions are discovered in the process. The worth becomes what you create from what you find. Best of all, you save a lot of money!
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Name: Gemma Askham, husband Jordi, and Diego the dog Location: Trocadéro, 16th arrondissement — Paris, France Size: 1,345 square feet Years lived in: 1 year, 10 months, renting
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“Our story with Paris actually began back in 2013 when, newly dating, Jordi and I came for a ‘romantic’ weekend,” begins Gemma. “I say this with quotes because it was anything but romantic. Imagine a picture perfect scene from ‘Emily in Paris’… BUT with buckets of non-stop rain, freezing temperatures, feeling hangry, and having too high expectations that never delivered. We have a running joke that no matter how bad something in life gets, at least it’s not Paris!” Gemma explains. “So, of course, when my husband found a fantastic new job at the end of 2020, it had to be in Paris.” Giving Paris a chance to redeem itself, Gemma and Jordi kept an open mind.
Gemma and Jordi had recently redone their apartment in Barcelona, where they were previously living, when the new job presented itself. “If we were going to make the move, my main aspiration was to find an apartment where when you walked in, you instantly knew you were in Paris. It had to have immediate French charm,” she explains. “I had this mental dream-list of wooden herringbone floors, a marble fireplace, beautiful ceiling cornices, and a balcony.”
“Because it was the middle of the pandemic, not many people were looking for city-center housing, so we had good rental options, something that is normally unheard of in Paris. After discovering that dogs aren’t allowed in many parks in Paris, we based our entire relocation around Diego, our dog! We looked at four apartments, until we finally found ‘the one’ in the 16th arrondissment near a huge wood — Bois de Boulogne — that would suit his need to explore freely just perfectly.”
“When I first saw the open living-dining area in this apartment — which was basically my checklist covered in one room — I remember sitting on the sofa, exhausted, thinking, please, please, let this become ours, and it did!” Although the apartment came pre-furnished, they made sure to sprinkle in their unique touches throughout by adding color and lots of plants. The apartment consists of two bedrooms, one office/storage space, two and a half bathrooms, and all the Parisian charm one could dream of. “And the fact that I can turn the corner at the end of the street and see the Eiffel Tower right there is always exciting,” says Gemma.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: We lived in Barcelona for three and a half years before moving to Paris, and my spirit style is definitely Mediterranean — warm, sunrise colors, big leafy plants, earthy textures. In truth, my style isn’t very Parisian! That said, I was obsessed with the original features. So, my aim was to let those features take centre stage, doing their chic French thing, but with an atmosphere that was cozy and full of nature rather than something serious, traditional or stiff.
Inspiration: I’m loath to call the pandemic a muse, but being unable to go to anywhere mind-enriching (restaurants, cafés, museums, anywhere) for the first five months definitely made me crave color and life. I think I lasted all of 72 hours before I unleashed my credit card on the French online plant store, Bergamotte, and started getting the jungle party going. When Paris’ retail scene did finally reopen, OMG, what a treat. The homeware shops are impeccable — beautifully laid out, carefully curated, with a focus on mixing new pieces by artisans or small brands with vintage treasures (my favorites: Merci, AXS Design, La Tresorérie, Debongout). I also fell in love with the Instagram account @girlzpop_. The creators, Alice and Anaïs [who’ve been featured on AT], were the first people I’d seen do Parisian style packed with bold color.
Favorite Element: The herringbone floor in the living room is the wooden floor of my dreams. I still catch myself staring at it, admiringly (creepily?). I know I will never live anywhere again with such precious stained-glass windows (which, incidentally, do not show dirt at all. Amazing). The balcony “garden” kept me hopeful, even when 167 snails set up home there, too, and started treating it like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Biggest Challenge: Embracing what I call the apartment’s “Frenchness.” Every country has its quirks — British houses are often damp; Spanish electrics frequently exist on a scale from questionable to ambulance-inducing. In Paris, it’s the plumbing. We have one toilet that is liquids-only. There’s a polite-but-firm notice on the wall, and the real estate agent was extremely clear when handing us the keys that you ignore this at your peril! The main toilet is connected to a more resilient waste system that can handle, err, solids, but you will never use quilted toilet paper again unless you want to see it for the next 12 flushes.
Another curiosity is the lack of ceiling lights. There are spotlights in the hallway and bathroom, but most other rooms only have lamps. It creates a soft light that’s really warm and flattering, but it’s challenging in the kitchen, where I find myself relying on the extractor-fan light or even reaching for my phone flashlight.
Proudest DIY: Nothing groundbreaking, but we knew that the beautiful light-gray sofa that came with the apartment was not going to be compatible with a hairy dog who spends his lunchtimes digging mud. To protect it, I bought two rainbow-colored throws from Zara Home to fling over. It wasn’t my intention at all to create a design feature, but the rainbow sofa instantly became one of the most striking elements of the room. Proof that functional can be creative.
Budget: My biggest splurge was a giant antique mirror. I became fixated with these elaborate gold mirrors, and thought it would be a wonderful piece of Paris that we could take with us wherever we lived next. It’s fair to say that I did not appreciate the weight of the thing until it arrived and didn’t fit in the elevator. I still love it, even if my arm muscles wept. It’s from the Napoleon III era and cost €2500 via vintage e-tailer, Selency.
Is there something unique about your home or the way you use it? There’s a sauna (!) in the en suite bathroom that we use to store all the bulky things that you never know where to put, such as moving boxes and a ladder. Hilariously, I was talking to a local friend and her neighbor also has a sauna that she uses as a storage cupboard! There must have been a Parisian fad for installing saunas at some point in the past.
Please describe any helpful, inspiring, brilliant, or just plain useful small space maximizing and/or organizing tips you have: Getting a decent-sized shoe rack (ours has space for 10 pairs) is the best thing I’ve ever done for my entryway and my sanity.
Finally, what’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? Always check the dimensions of an item before you buy it online. And, in the case of antique mirrors, the weight!
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Name:Emma Chasen (@phillyfunhouse on Tiktok) with fiancée Carolyn Chernous and our two cats, Winx and Scout Location: Manayunk — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Size: 1403 square feet Type of Home: Victorian row home Years Lived In: 1 year, owned
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“Our home is a 100+ year old Victorian row home in the Roxborough-Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia,” begins Emma Chasen, a grad student with a love for bold style and a first-time homeowner. “The character of the home immediately stood out. In this neighborhood and many other neighborhoods of Philly, there are a lot of shoddy flips. The new construction is flashy on the surface but can’t really be trusted.”
But Emma says this 1403-square-foot house wasn’t one of those shoddy flips, and that’s part of what attracted her and fiancée, Carolyn Chernous, to it in the first place. “It had been with the same family since the ’80s and had such a quirky character about it,” Emma continues. “Plus, the house is literally solid as a rock — the walls are made of stone and it has been impeccably cared for by the previous owners. It has some really good bones. The house is also on a corner lot, so it was only attached to one other home at the back of the house. This is such a rare find for a Philly rowhome and allows for so much natural light in the space, which is incredibly important to me.”
“When we first toured our home, my fiancée got this gut feeling that we belonged here. She describes it as the same gut feeling she got when we met. And after viewing 13 houses before this one, I agreed — this home was special and there was so much opportunity to put our stamp on it,” Emma explains.
“I try to embody a sense of playfulness and experimentation with my style, finding so much joy in the creative process of doing whatever the F I want. It has been so much fun documenting my mural creation and home decor on my TikTok: @phillyfunhouse.”
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: A mix of eclectic, maximalist, Art Deco, and retro-inspired
Inspiration: ’90s cartoons, French Victorian greenhouses, immersive art installations
Favorite Element: My favorite room is the dining room. It is a perfect representation of my style and the central gathering place in our home. Coming from an Italian family, we often eat large family dinners and spend hours at the table talking and laughing. So the dining room is, in ways, a sacred space. My dining room has such a beautiful mix of playfulness (a mushroom painted on the wall, a drippy paint cabinet come to life with eyeball knobs, a wavy mirror DIY, a mini heat map mural around the thermostat), plus heritage (heirloom cherry wood dining table from my fiancée’s mom and an antique workbench as our sideboard) plus art plus a large deep-set window with plants. It is also the only room that doesn’t have a ceiling fan — the house came with a different ceiling fan in every room and I was adamant that at least the dining room ceiling fan had to go in favor of a light fixture.
Biggest Challenge: We are definitely working with a small budget, really a non-existent budget. And I’m an incredibly impatient person with a lot of things I want to do at once. Our kitchen has been the toughest space to work within. I love to cook and when we moved in, it wasn’t at all set up to do so as it is a very small galley with hardly any storage or counter space. We don’t have the money for a kitchen reno, so we turned to DIY. We used our small budget to buy an IKEA butcher block island and then made shelves with some old barn wood and painted our cabinets. It’s transformed the space and has allowed us to actually use the kitchen.
Proudest DIY: I love all of my murals but if I have to pick the one I’m proudest of it is probably the rainbow ribbon in my second and third floor hallway. It took so much work because I wanted it to be really precise and I am in love with the way it turned out.
Budget: We pay just under $1700 per month for our mortgage. We feel so privileged to own a home. When we bought our house we moved across the country and didn’t bring any furniture with us. So we were starting from scratch. We saved about $5,000 to completely furnish and decorate our house. We’ve saved a lot of money by decorating with paint and reusing paint from one project on other projects. Paint makes such a big impact without too big of an expense.
Is there something unique about your home or the way you use it? We transformed one of the bedrooms into a dressing room for my fiancée complete with a green velvet couch. It’s really the only room in our house with closet space and my fiancée gets up super early for work so she has all of her clothes and gets dressed in her dressing room so she doesn’t wake me up.
Please describe any helpful, inspiring, brilliant, or just plain useful small space maximizing and/or organizing tips you have: I’ve taken to displaying otherwise mundane items as decor. For example, I put all of my unrefrigerated produce in bowls on my side board and I love the way it looks. On a similar line of thinking, I utilize open shelving in my space and display items I like and free up more closed storage for things that are a bit uglier.
Finally, what’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? If you’re unsure about a design or a style, just try it out! Experimenting with colors and shapes has allowed me to make mistakes that have aided to a final product that I love. Also, decorating is a marathon not a sprint. Be on the lookout for thrifted pieces you love and let your style evolve as you evolve.
Shopping local and secondhand: I love to scour local shops such as Philly Aids Thrift and Philly Vintage Bazaar for vintage home goods and treasured thrift finds. My favorite thrift find to date has been the mid century mod lamp that sits next to my cow chair (found at Philly Aids Thrift!) – it is such a treasure. All art in my home has been gifted to me or sourced from small, independent artists that I’ve found through local flea markets or seen through the power of the internet.
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Name:Hill Stark and pup, Romeo Location: Denver, Colorado Size: 830 square feet Years lived in: Less than a year, owned
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“This home is a lesson in being nice to your neighbors, especially during a hot real estate market,” begins Hill Stark. “I rented a townhome next door and through the neighborhood grape vine, the owner of this property reached out to me asking if I’d like to purchase it when he was selling last year. A literal handshake-in-the-kitchen deal, which is absolutely unheard of in Denver.”
Hill jokingly says she’s in “data by day, design by night.” I absolutely love my day job. I work in analytics alongside a really great team in the tech startup world that helps to make the internet a safer place (spectrumlabsai.com). In my off time, my creative outlet includes working with my hands, who knew learning how to lay tile or install hardwood floors would be so satisfying. Occasionally I post a good before and after on Instagram.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: Laid-back fancy: let’s pair marble countertops with consignment store finds. I like designing spaces where someone wants to stay over longer than originally intended.
Favorite Element: The primary bedroom. I love a dark bedroom where you feel swathed in deep, rich colors. It’s better for my sleep, and I love this surprise of color in an all-white space.
Biggest Challenge: The kitchen was a challenge. It’s not a large room and I was bound and determined to have an island for a clean workspace along with full-sized appliances. It really is the workhorse of this cozy home, housing the laundry, too. Opening up the wall between the kitchen and the living room to make a more conversational layout dramatically helped the 140-square-foot kitchen to not feel quite so small and enclosed.
Proudest DIY: I can proudly say I only hired out one small electrical task in this entire renovation; I wanted to dig a little deeper into developing my reno skillset. The entire kitchen felt like a true labor of love. With the help of my dad, we took the kitchen down to the studs, ripped up five layers of old flooring, rewired the electrical, tore down walls, and rebuilt new ones. The kitchen floors, which I sanded by hand, felt like the item that was needed to really tie the two rooms together to feel like one cohesive space.
Budget: Just under $20,000 for renovating the kitchen and modernizing the rest of the home. As this is my fourth renovation in the last seven years, I’ve learned a few things that make budgeting feel less daunting. First you have to make a budget because it will allow you to feel comfortable spending the money you’ve set aside — you’ve allotted an amount and then you can finesse individual items as you purchase them, if you can get an item on sale then the difference saved can go to another future item to be purchased. Be incredibly detailed in your expected costs; create both a high and low amount for each item so that you know what the minimum is that you could probably expect to pay versus your maximum, and learn to love spreadsheets.
I also recommend taking out a credit card that’s only used for this one project; you can pay it off as you’ve already budgeted for this work, and it helps to keep all of your expenses in one place for accountability and staying on-track. It’s also nice to know that if you lose a receipt, stores can usually look up your previous purchases using the card. Try to repurpose items that are well-made and if you’re going to invest in a splurge, stick to the items that are timeless. I reused the existing wooden shaker cabinets and was able to allot the amount I’d originally set aside for new cabinetry to instead go towards more high-end appliances and Carrera marble countertops. The backsplash tile is reminiscent of a glazed Zellige but ceramic, and as the tile felt a bit more trendy than the other surfaces selected I opted to spend less on it since the likelihood is greater that I’ll want to swap that out sooner than anything else in the future.
If really trying to stick to a budget without much wiggle room, be flexible on brands — I saved significantly on all of my appliances by being willing to purchase items that were floor models and being sold at a discount at the end of the season to make room for the newer models. And if you do hire out tasks that require skilled labor, get more than one quote and ask for an itemized list of services as part of the quote.
Please describe any helpful, inspiring, brilliant, or just plain useful small space maximizing and/or organizing tips you have: Purchase bedframes that give you at least 14” of space underneath; you can store tote bins and out of season items that are easily within reach.
Finally, what’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? For an instant gallery wall, repurpose a calendar you like. 12 images that are all the same size and within the same theme, voila. And carry a list of the dimensions of your rooms on your phone/ in your email for easy reference — you never know when you’ll find a steal of a deal and need to purchase something on the spot.
Framed art — Personal collection, Robert Quill Johnson
Originally from California, but turned New Yorker since 2000, I’ve been shooting my entire life and am still inspired and excited about it. Lately I have been putting my energies into my Fine Art, which can be seen on my website and on Saatchi Art. Being infatuated with interior design doesn’t hurt either, which mixes well with my love of photographing interiors.
