by Furnishly | Aug 25, 2021 | Design Inspiration, Style
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Name: Ginger Taylor, and Toast and Cocopops, my chihuahuas
Location: Thornbury, Australia
Type of Home: Two-bedroom apartment
Years lived in: 1 year, renting
Full-time freelance illustrator and mural artist Ginger Taylor made the move to the Melbourne area from Sydney at the beginning of 2020. “I had a breakup and basically packed my car moved overnight,” Ginger explains. “It was a weird time to do so because it was the beginning of Covid and I left all my friends and family behind in Sydney. I thought ‘I have a lot of friends in Melbourne it’ll be great,’ but little did I know we were to go into lockdown for seven months. I have never lived alone so I was nervous of how it would go. Thankfully I LOVE it.”
Ginger says her job — where she creates digital and analog design skills to graphic design, typography, logos, custom illustrations, products, murals, and more — is her favorite part of her life. Three times a week her assistant and shop manager, Georgia, comes to work in the apartment. But she shares her two-bedroom apartment full time with two very cute chihuahuas, Toast and Cocopops. “Toast is the spawn of Satan and also the sweetest baby you’ll ever meet. Cocopops is a little old man Chi with a giant heart of gold,” Ginger says. “I adopted Toast shortly after I moved in. We had a great time in lockdown. He loved having me around and I stayed busy by painting, decorating, cleaning, drawing, sculpting, playing dress up, cooking, etc. I never got bored; I actually found it incredible to be on my own and have a minute to create without the normal pressures of everyday life.”
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: I would say my style would be sit somewhere in-between 1960s-1970s with a dash of Americana, country music, neon signage, and old motels.
Inspiration: Old Hollywood and Palm Springs architecture, Jayne Mansfield’s house, the Playboy mansion, 1970s decor, log cabins, and old motels. Particularly American ones.
Favorite Element: My Roy Rogers’ guitar, neon pink rabbit lamp, and my tiny things collection.
Proudest DIY: I love the gold fringe wall in my studio. I ordered party photo backdrops off Amazon and layered them — it’s perfect for renting because they just have an adhesive strip on the back. I wanted to have a wall that stood out for taking merch photos of my products. And now I want to do it to every wall!
Biggest Indulgence: I bought a [countertop] dishwasher cause I HATE doing the dishes. It’s a bit more expensive to live alone so that would be my biggest indulgence. But I’ve had a fair share of roommate horror stories so I am happy to pay more haha.
Is there something unique about your home or the way you use it? I have my studio in the bigger bedroom instead of my bed. I just spend way more time in the studio and there’s alotttttt of stationery/stock that goes behind my job. I also have my easel in my lounge room because I like to separate admin from painting. If I painted in my studio I would get distracted by emails, etc. With it in my lounge I can listen to TV, music, or a podcast and make endless cups of tea cause it’s right next to the kitchen.
What are your favorite products you have bought for your home and why? My Google Home is my favorite — as someone with ADHD my mind is always pretty cluttered so having Google Home is incredible because I can research, play music, check the time, appointments, dates, etc. without having to get my phone out (which can create a WORLD of distractions.) I have a speaker in each room, too, so I can play music throughout the house and if I’m listening to a podcast I don’t have to pause it every time I leave a room. Plus you can make it make goat noises, which is always entertaining. That and my cordless vacuum. ADHD chore-helpers, I call them.
Please describe any helpful, inspiring, brilliant, or just plain useful small space maximizing and/or organizing tips you have: Build up! I stack shelves on top of each other all the way to the roof so I can create a display without having to take up too much floor space. I also like thinking outside the box like hanging all my sunnies on a piece of string. My home might seem manic and overwhelming but if you look closely everything is VERY organized! I always know where everything is.
Finally, what’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice?
This house tour’s responses were edited for length and clarity.
by Furnishly | Jul 27, 2021 | Design Inspiration, Style
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Name: Kate Pearce, husband Billy, kids 3-year-old Josie, 8-year-old Eva, and rescue dogs Figs and Ripley
Location: Long Island, New York
Size: 1800 square feet
Type of Home: House
Years lived in: 4 years, owned
Kate Pearce is so good at designing a home with gorgeous vintage finds, she was able to use her home — like this large Long Island house she and her husband have owned for four years — to launch her business, Kate Pearce Vintage. “I work with home decor and design brands to promote their products on my blog and social channels. I occasionally take on design consultations, as well as social media consultations, and am always talking design and old home reno on my blog,” Kate explains. This isn’t the first time Kate’s home has been featured on Apartment Therapy (we toured it when they first moved in, and have shown a few sneak peeks earlier this year). But for this month (which is Color Month on Apartment Therapy), I wanted to feature the house’s current, most recent iteration. It’s the perfect mix of color and neutrals that may inspire your own home’s color palette.
Kate and her husband, Billy, actually bought this house while awaiting the arrival of their second daughter, 3-year-old Josie. “Our previous home was a small beach bungalow that we lived in with our first daughter and our two dogs, but we knew we needed more space,” Kate begins. “The problem was, our budget wasn’t any larger. When we found our home, we knew immediately it was the one. It checked all the boxes: 1. Larger footprint 2. Old (our home was built in 1910 and I have always wanted to live in an older home). 3. Fixer upper (which meant the price was right, but we could also put our own imprint on the home).”
“We bought our home four years ago almost to the day, and we’ve been working on it ever since. Billy does all the electric, plumbing, and nearly all the construction. I am the painter, the designer, and occasionally I’ll throw down some tiles and bang a hammer. It’s been a collaborative effort, but our home is finally looking like how we imagined it would when we moved in.” You can see more of Kate’s home by following on her on Instagram, @katepearcevintage, as well as TikTok and her website.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: My style is eclectic and what I like to describe as a “restrained maximalism” that is rooted in vintage and art. I love being surrounded by my estate sale and thrift store finds, so I embrace a lot of open shelving. That said, I am constantly editing my spaces to make sure they feel interesting without feeling cluttered.
Inspiration: I take inspiration from everywhere; nature, art, and other designers such as Justina Blakeney, Sarah Sherman Samuel, and many others. But the place I find the most inspiration is from my vintage finds. More often than not, an entire room is spawned from an unexpected estate sale or thrift store find.
Favorite Element: Ironically, my favorite thing about my home is one of the only things that has remained unchanged since we bought it: the large Japanese Maple on our front lawn. I’ve designed all the rooms that look out onto the tree with the tree in mind, culminating with our attic bathroom. When we renovated the attic I placed a large picture window looking out onto the Japanese Maple tree top and placed the clawfoot tub directly in front of it. By far, my favorite spot to be in my home is in that tub, looking out to that tree.
Biggest Challenge: Our biggest challenge was our kitchen renovation. We had to take down walls, FOUR layers of old flooring, and we even had to take down the ceiling. It was our first major renovation and we tackled it all on our own, so it was a huge learning curve. We worked on it with every free minute we had for four and a half months. It was hell. But in the end, it was worth it!
Proudest DIY: I think our proudest DIY is one we are just finishing up now. We are in the midst of completing a speakeasy space in our previously unfinished basement and we created a custom banquette from scratch. We did channeled upholstery on the entire thing, and we had never upholstered before!
I come up with the DIY ideas, and Billy is the one to implement them. I think one of my favorite ideas was when we took a vintage library card catalog and turned it into the sink in our primary bathroom. Billy was able to make it a floating console and I love how it came out!
Biggest Indulgence: Our biggest indulgence was our attic renovation. It was a completely unfinished space and we transformed it into our primary bedroom and bath. We worked with a lot of brands to get sponsored content, and did all of the labor on our own, but even WITH those things offsetting the cost, it was still more than we probably should have spent on an attic space. I also don’t think we were fully prepared for that cost heading into it. That said, it was TOTALLY worth it. It’s one of the most used spaces in our home, and by far my favorite. And having our own bathroom and not sharing a bath with two young girls has been absolutely life-giving.
Is there something unique about your home or the way you use it? We are mere days from finishing our most recent project — a basement speakeasy/brewery space. Billy loves brewing his own beer, but never had enough space in this house to set up all his equipment. Our basement was entirely unfinished, cold, damp, full of bugs — basically the stuff of nightmares. We decided to carve out an area of the basement to build walls, add plumbing, electric, heat… all the things, and build the brewery from a space that previously felt unusable. We’re very excited about how it’s coming along, and this space may even eclipse the attic as our favorite yet!
What are your favorite products you have bought for your home and why? Anything vintage! I love buying vintage pieces because not only are they the best way to make your home unique, it’s also a win for the planet. It’s really an all-around win: lower prices, saving pieces from landfills, and creating a home that is personal and unique. Just be sure to shop directly from the thrift or estate sales for the lowest prices. Facebook Marketplace is another favorite.
Please describe any helpful, inspiring, brilliant, or just plain useful small space maximizing and/or organizing tips you have: Pare down your belongings and buy less is a big one. When we renovated our kitchen I was set on having open shelving, but that meant less cabinets to hide things in. I ended up bringing about half of what was in my kitchen to the thrift store, and storing another ¼ in our basement and only keeping the things we use at least once/week in our kitchen. Another small space tip is to buy furniture with built-in storage. For example, our sectional sofa has storage in the chaise and we have a couple of storage ottomans.
What most people get wrong about using color in their home: I think most people think you need to be all in or all out when it comes to color. When I peruse Instagram I always feel like a bit of a misfit. Most other design accounts I follow are entirely neutral, or very colorful. I like to think that my designs show that you can have some fun with color, while still maintaining a feeling of sophistication. But also to be mindful that color often demands more attention than neutral pieces, and you don’t need much of it to make a big statement.
What are the biggest tricks/secrets to using color in decor? The first thing I’d say is to maintain consistency with what types of color you want to use in a space. It’s OK to use different colors, but keep them in the same family. For example, make a room all pastels, or all jewel tones, etc. The next trick is to use the same color at eye level, below eye level, and above eye level. It helps carry your eye around the room and makes pops of color feel more intentional. The last tip I’d give is to be mindful that your room is your canvas. This is simply my own opinion, but I think color is most effective when it complements neutrals. Most of my spaces have about ¾ neutrals and ¼ color, but many people still strongly associate my spaces with color.
What’s your favorite wall paint color of all time: Graham & Brown’s Highcliffe Rock — it’s a light blue that reads as a neutral, but with just enough saturation to make it stand out. I love it in a matte finish. It’s both calming and versatile.
Finally, what’s your absolute best home secret or decorating advice? You can make a room look twice as good for half the cost by buying secondhand. Instead of spending hundreds on a framed print for wall art, check out your local estate sales and thrift stores to score some original art for the same price or less. Instead of dropping $80 on a coffee table book at a retail store, keep your eye out at garage sales to score the same book for just a dollar or two. I’d say about 85 percent of the decor in my home is secondhand, and I think it is the sole reason I can afford to make my house look the way it does, but also the reason why my home feels like it represents me as an individual.
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 | Jun 22, 2021 | Design Inspiration, Style
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission.
Name: Mackenzie Schieck with cats Franklin and Louisa
Location: Seattle, Washington
Size: 1,000 square feet
Years lived in: 1 year, renting
The trouble with being someone who loves to decorate is that you are never really done. But want to know the best part of being someone who loves to decorate? You’re never really done—yay! Let’s keep decorating until forever and live happily ever after! But, when you also happen to be an Apartment Therapy House Tour writer, it poses a legit issue: When will I be done enough to do a tour of my own place? So, saaayyy you moved in August of 2017. Maybe you’d be ready by November-ish? Yeah, November. (Or not.) Okay, maybe after the first of the year? That should work. (That didn’t work.) March? (Again, no.)
Well, it got to the point where I needed to commit myself to it. Okay, June. This is happening. I have a deadline, so it is happening. And aside from some bathroom sprucing and things to wrap up in the bedroom, I was in pretty good shape. My TV room came together first, and pretty easily, last fall. I opted to skip the formal dining area the generations before me had pegged that room for, and just leaned into the fact that this part of the apartment only had one window that offered terrible light. I figured, if it’s gonna be dark in here, let’s just go dark: black, forest green, chocolate brown, and a little dusty rose just for the heck of it. And stuff…cram lots and lots of stuff in until all the accessories create a bit of a cocoon-like feeling so that all you want to do is sink into the couch and watch the first four seasons of Younger faster than you care to admit. The result? Mission accomplished and no regrets.
The remaining seven months between then and now have been about getting the rest of the rooms put together in a way that makes sense for my life. I write a food blog and do recipe development and food photography, so I needed to deck out the kitchen and have an area available by my front window for shooting. Check! I work mostly from home, so I needed a space with a lot of pretty things around a desk to make me excited to dig in every day. (And I wanted a cozy area by the desk where I could, ya know, just sit and summon creative inspiration. Because that’s totally how it happens. It happens like that all the time.) Check! (And check—kinda.)
And kittens. I got my little fluff balls, Franklin and Louisa, in January, so I needed to make a few—[ahem]—adjustments to the decor: RIP West Elm wall hanging; see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya, kitchen fern; and thanks for your service, stripe-y tablecloth—your new assignment: kitten blanket. (Also, my dining table is less a table these days than it is a kitty lounge area. Did I say, “dining table?” I meant, literally every flat surface in my apartment. It’s a good thing they’re cute.)
Phew. Almost a year in, and I think I’m done. Or, done enough.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: I think my style is all the styles, balanced. I love to pair really ornate and flowery things with modern elements, hard textures with soft, solid colors with patterned pieces, and so on and so forth. I don’t like anything all the time or all over, so I tend to mix it up within a space at any one time, as well as over time by swapping things in and out.
Inspiration: Lately, it’s all the homes I’ve photographed over the past couple years. I have definitely borrowed elements in my own home from every single tour I’ve done for Apartment Therapy.
Favorite Element: This is a tough one, but it’s probably my kitchen. I’ve never actually taken the time to decorate the kitchens in my other apartments—partly because some of the set-ups weren’t really conducive to doing so, but mostly because it just never occurred to me. So this time, I went a little nuts and really love how it all came out—bursting with greenery was definitely the way to go.
Biggest Challenge: The DIY lighting scheme in the kitchen! I almost didn’t take the apartment because there was fluorescent lighting in there—it’s bad. Real bad. Made-me-wanna-cry-every-time-I-flipped-the-switch bad. But the rest of the place was so beautiful that I just figured I’d find a way around it. Once I found the light fixtures it was easy, but it is much harder than it seems like it should be to find lighting—that are not lamps—that doesn’t need to be hardwired.
What Friends Say: One friend said it looks and smells like Anthropologie—high praise! But most friends usually say that it feels warm and comfortable, and then they ask if I can please decorate their homes. Equally high praise.
Biggest Embarrassment: I wish the kitchen had different surfaces. I’m really not crazy about the counter tops and flooring, but it’s a rental, so it is what it is.
Proudest DIY: The half-wall between my desk and living room that hides my computer cords. I really lucked out finding two separate pieces at Ballard Reuse (a salvage store in Seattle) that both had the exact color wood. All I did was clean both pieces up, finish with an oil, and attach them together. It’s perfect.
Biggest Indulgence: Plants. I’m getting better about keeping green things alive, but it doesn’t come naturally to me, so it takes a little extra cash here and there to replace ones that go south. It’s so worth it, though. I don’t know how I went so long without realizing how wonderful it is to have plant life in the home.
Best Advice: Everyone always says this, but it’s because it’s true: be patient and live in your space for a while before you make big purchases, so you know how you’re going to use the space first. And don’t be too rigid about what you think you want things to look like.
After living in this apartment for four months, one night I rearranged every piece of furniture in my living room because it was really bugging me that I looked at wall every time I sat down at my computer—and hey, I thought, those shelves over there would make for a pretty nice office corner. I knew if I moved my desk, I’d have to move everything, which was daunting, but I just went for it and it paid off.
Lastly, when decorating a room, I always say to start with something you love. It could be a pillow, a painting, a piece of furniture, etc. For me, once I commit to that particular item, I start to come across other things that work with it and that build off of it, and the room just starts to take shape.
Dream Sources: One King’s Lane, Apartment Therapy (duh!), Room & Board, Schoolhouse Electric, and a whole bunch of Seattle shops that I’ll do a weekend crawl of when I’m in need: Fleurt Collective, Anders, Tides and Pines, Glasswing Shop, Isla House + Flower, RetroFit Home, Prism, Digs—just to name a few.
TV ROOM
Couch — Macy’s
TV desk — Consignment shop
Side chair — A friend of my dad’s in college made it.
Coffee table and gold side table — Target
White and gold footstool — Marshall’s
Eucalyptus wall hanging — Teressa Johnson
Green footstool under TV — World Market
Shell chandelier — West Elm
Black wood piece — West Elm (leftover merchandising piece)
Palm art — Pier One Imports
Cat art — Spruce
Zenith radio — vintage, it was my grandpa’s
Woven wall hanging — Anders
Geometric pendant lamp — World Market
Black planter behind couch — The Palm Room
Green vase behind couch — Hearth & Hand, Target
Black and gold vase behind couch — Isla House + Flower
BATHROOM
Blue cart — Vintage find
Shelves — Salvaged wood
Assorted vases — Target
Painting — Kimothy Joy
Mackenzie Schieck
Writer/Photographer/Prop Stylist
Writer and photographer obsessed with lattes, stuff that’s funny, and assorted pretty things. Find recipes, mouthwatering food pics, and aforementioned pretty things on her blog, Pine and Crave.
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by Furnishly | Jun 22, 2021 | Design Inspiration, Style
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission.
Name: Leney Breeden, founder of Folkling. Along with partner Owen.
Location: Gordonsville, Virginia
Size: 1,045 square feet
Time lived in: 7 months, renting
A photographer for over a decade, Leney Breeden has spent a lot of time on the road, actually driving across the US more than once. She started Folkling in 2017 in an “effort to create new lives for the old things” she picked up on her travels. In 2020, she opened her brick and mortar vintage store of the same name, and began renting this lovely home in Gordonsville, Virginia with her partner, Owen. This 1045-square-foot house is not only filled with vintage goods from Leney’s travels around the country, but also a variety of special family heirlooms. Revering and reusing vintage pieces — and celebrating the stories behind storied objects — is a common thread that runs through her home and her business.
“Something that’s incredibly important to every area of my life, and not just my home, is to shop secondhand or handmade whenever possible, which you can definitely see reflected throughout my home! Things that have character and are unlike anything you can get at a typical big-box store are more often than not the things that I am drawn to,” she explains. “Most things from 100 years ago were made with remarkable craftsmanship and created with explicit purpose and beauty vs. frivolity. While I decorate my home with things that could be seen as frivolous, they are all things that at one time held, or still hold, usefulness and have inherent beauty because of the intentional way they were created. I do not feel that can be said of most things that you see in home decor stores today.”
“It is an age-old adage repeated by many much older than I that things aren’t made like they used to be… but it’s so incredibly true,” explains Leney. “In line with that is my belief in the importance of caring for and being good stewards of your possessions. Loving them despite perceived imperfections and mending them when they break or even further — learning to do without.”
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: Is very centered around things with layered stories. Most everything in my home is at least 50 years old! Save for my couch and a few pieces of furniture my dad made, everything is from no later than the 1970s but most things are much older.
Inspiration: I find a lot of inspiration in slower and more elemental ways of living as well as the amount of time I have spent living out on The Road. I strive to be intentional with each and every piece I bring into my home. Most things have been in the back of my Subaru Outback at one time or another so pieces that are easy to move with my more mobile lifestyle, but also able to be versatile and moved throughout my home, are important to me.
I rearrange a lot. That’s partially because I often use my home to stage pieces I am selling in the shop (check out the Folkling web shop — you may recognize a few you see here!), but it’s also because it’s an outlet of creativity for me and allows me to be satisfied more often than not with the things I already own vs. feeling the tug of dissatisfaction to buy more. Moving things around and finding new ways to love and appreciate them allows me to feel content with what I have.
Everything I own has either explicit purpose and usefulness or is something I find to be inherently beautiful, but the best things are the ones that hold both of those traits.
Favorite Element: In a way my home is a physical and stationary representation of my very motion and travel-driven life. Many of the things that line the walls and shelves are from my many travels around this country and others. They remind me of the people I have had the honor of crossing paths with or the places I have been. I love that nearly everything in my home is a one-of-a-kind piece from a bygone era and that each item holds a story and history all on its own that I get to add to.
Biggest Challenge: I thrive on natural light and the middle of the apartment can get quite dark. It’s definitely challenging for me to create vignettes that feel cozy and happy despite the lack of light. Another would be shelving… The apartment is all sheetrock and plaster, which I can’t anchor shelving into (understandable landlord rule!). Alternatively, I seem to fall in love exclusively with very large industrial shelving that I can neither fit in my car or carry up my very narrow stairwell… I feel like I am still trying to remedy many shelving situations throughout my home!
What Friends Say: “What’s the story with ___?” Everything in my home is unique and has a story and most everyone in my life knows it! So everyone’s always asking where I found something or the story behind it.
Biggest Embarrassment: The kitchen floor… It’s impossible to make it look clean. The tile is small with wide grout that has long since gotten dirty and discolored from past tenants. I wish I had the ability to change it!
Proudest DIY: The antique quilting frame in my study that I turned into a table! I found the piece of glass on Facebook Marketplace for $20 and I love how it showcases the old wood of the frame, right down to the bits of fabric that were left in some corners of the joints. It feels special to sit at it and make things, like so many women before me did.
Biggest Indulgence: My quilt collection! I source a lot of quilts for Folkling because I list a weekly collection online, and I am constantly amazed by the artistry of them. They are endlessly fascinating to learn about and I spend a lot of time dating and identifying the ones we have in the shop. The fact that each and every one is a one-of-a-kind work of art and has so much unquantifiable time put into its creation is so incredible. Admittedly my personal collection rotates with ones from the shop fairly often… but I try to keep the ones in my possession down to a manageable number! There are definitely a few though that I plan to never part with.
The 1840s jelly cupboard in my dining room was probably the biggest splurge and indulgence I have ever made for a home of mine as far as one piece goes though! But it’s my hands down favorite piece of furniture I own. Even though it is a little crooked… I love how much character it has and the persimmon color is unlike anything I’ve ever owned before and feels really fun to style around.
Best Advice: Let your home grow with you — don’t be afraid to let something go if you don’t love it. I am constantly editing my home and keeping things around that only make me feel good and remind me of people I love or places I’ve been.
Dream Sources: Any antique mall, old barn, or junk store off the side of an old back road that I haven’t been in yet! Traveling and picking is my dream source always. I feel fortunate that I now get to do it for a living full time with having Folkling and that by proxy that trickles into my own personal living space. It feels like a dream to just simply get to follow my curiosity and the pull of The Road and get to find unique and beautiful things for my home, and others, along the way.
This house tour’s responses were edited for length and clarity.
