Reader Design: Linzi's Mod Apartment

Happy November, Mutts! I hope you all are slowly coming off your sugar highs - but we're here to keep the excitement going with a tour of Linzi's mod apartment in Providence, Rhode Island.

She and her longtime love and fiance Spencer love all things retro and have a true penchant for Ikea, with a heavy dose of thrift to keep things interesting.

“We both grew up in upstate New York in a very small town where there wasn’t much to do. In high school, we loved to go thrifting and decorate our bedrooms in our respective houses with our small vintage finds. When we moved in together here in Providence, it was great to combine all our stuff and pick out our own larger pieces of furniture like bed frames and couches together.”

Now, most people think of "basic" and "starter furniture" when they think of Ikea. But that really doesn't have to be the case. In our world of e-design, we know that Ikea can offer so many options for pretty and affordable furniture (this isn't an ad for Ikea, I promise). Linzi didn't shy away from the brand when designing her own home, though; in fact, she had to consciously reel herself in!

“I think one of the biggest things I’ve wrestled with is loving Ikea almost too much. I love everything that place makes, but I had to step back and make sure I wasn’t living in a place that looked like it could be in their showroom. ”

I don't know about you guys, but I can hardly pick out the Ikea pieces in this space. Linzi and Spencer did such a great job adding character through both thrifted finds and family passdowns. In fact, Spencer was lucky enough to get one of the most incredible inherited record collections I've ever seen, gifted by his dad. Those records on display really help this couple achieve the overall feel they're going for:

“I try to evoke a feeling that is fun and comfortable, in a vintage way. I want people to feel like they can come hang out with us and listen to a record. ”

Linzi also wasn't afraid to get hands-on to make this home special.

“In the kitchen, my favorite pieces are the vintage wooden table chairs. I got all 4 for $10 each and put in a lot of elbow grease refinishing them (they were painted bright green before).”

The retro and bauhaus vibe is carried through in every room, all the way to the bedroom. It's bright, happy, and effervescent, just like the 1960's era on which it draws.

Linzi, thank you so much for showing us around! We love what you've done with the place. Follow Linzi along on Instagram at @linziclary for more.

See you next week,

Reveal: Eclectic Equine Condo

Hello, hello! It's good to be back here with you for another eDesign reveal! If you're newer around these parts of the great World Wide Web, first off, welcome! So glad you're here! I'm Chelsea and peeled off from doing furniture refinishing about 2 years ago to focus on the design branch of StyleMutt Home. It's been a really exciting challenge to learn how to do design work, (primarily eDesign), and navigate where the specific skills can be used. Although we have been blessed with a full load of individual clients this year,  I accepted and began a freelance design job over the summer with a corporate company who is similar to Airbnb. They're purchasing condos in major cities around the US and Canada and making them available to travelers as home-away-from-home stay places. But between their purchase and that first lease, there is a lot of work to do on these condos! My job is the design, (i.e. the fun part)! The work is very fast paced and often unpredictable. I design these spaces from the comfort of my own home, never stepping foot inside the physical space.  I never know what information they'll be able to supply me with on a unit before I get started on the design. Many times they give me a floorplan with measurements and that's it. If I'm lucky I get pictures, and maybe even a video tour! Regardless of what info I'm given for a space, they require all the details that make up a complete eDesign in a day or two. It's a lot of fast research, drawing, note taking and, <gulp> math, but the exciting part is having the creative freedom to design the spaces how I wish. The company always gives me a style direction, (industrial, old world, California cool, etc), but from there I can run with it.

The space I'm sharing today is in Chicago and came with all the lovely before photos a girl could ask for. It is a 2 bedroom condo with a comfortable living space complete with a full kitchen. When I saw the before photos the space just looked tired. The blue-gray walls just made the it all look kind of 'blah'; especially the kitchen. There is absolutely nothing modern or industrial about the architecture here like in many of the other spaces I have designed for this company, so my desire was simply to freshen it up and make it cozy. In my short experience with design thus far I have learned that the most successful designs are a natural extension of the space. Since this space is already very traditional, I stuck to fairly classic pieces that read traditional with a modern twist. When I first showed Cate her remark was how very equestrian it felt with the dark moody colors, rich velvets and warm leather. So I'm calling this the Equine Condo! Lol!

Let's take a look!

LIVING ROOM

Below is a before picture of the living room paired with my design plan:

BEDROOM 1

I'm telling you, it's so hard to design rooms without the current season on your brain. I worked on this space right as the days were turning crisp and pumpkins were being displayed on doorsteps. Can you tell?! I went all out cozy. It's a rather large bedroom and I just wanted to make it feel inviting, quiet, and relaxing. It's like a big green cave and I just love it.

BEDROOM 2

They said a bed couldn't be done. They said a dresser could never fit. Literally - I actually (accidentally) stumbled onto other designers' notes on this room. The client deeply desired this space to be a second bedroom, and with an en-suite bathroom it surely made sense.  I studied that floorplan and researched beds. I knew if the measurements were right that a full bed mattress would absolutely be doable. A bedframe, maybe not. So I found an adjustable bedframe that could be pulled inward a few inches if need be but still support the full size mattress. And with the bed nestled cozy in the corner there was more than enough space for a modest tallboy dresser with a small footprint. I'm not usually one to sit and work on puzzles, but I thoroughly enjoyed figuring out how to fit the pieces together comfortably in this room!

And how about that wallpaper?! Target has a gorgeous line of peel-and-stick that is ~$30 for 27.5 sq ft! That's a lot of impact for a tiny bit of $! I'm still fairly weary of using wallpaper, but I'm so pleased with how it turned out in this space. It's the perfect tiny room for it.

KITCHEN

I admit I wasn't thrilled with these cherry cabinets and cherry floor - it was a lot of red wood, hurt my eyes. Hah! But once again I am floored by the magic of a fresh coat of paint. My design for this space included painting the entire main living space in Swiss Coffee by Benjamin Moore and it absolutely wakes this space up. With all the red wood, the stools may seem an odd choice. I totally get it; why add even more red toned wood? Well, for one thing I didn't want any statements in the kitchen. I was adding a lot of contrast to the living room right next to it and wanted the kitchen to just be easy on the eyes, nothing sticking out. Secondly, although the red toned wood itself is not my favorite, keeping it all the same gives this space a slight modern feel. It's monochromatic which I love.

That's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed looking around - I sure am grateful to you for coming by!

A New Kind of Play for an Old Toy Chest

Grandpas are special.  They let you eat sugary cereals and watch early morning cartoons when you’re parents are out of town.  They slip you gas money before you drive back to school.  They build things in their basement workshop and teach you all about their tools.  And sometimes they even give you the old family toy chest he built for your mom and her siblings and tells you to “have at it!”

 If you’re popping by from Apartment Therapy, welcome!  We are StyleMutt Home, a sister-in-law duo  (Chelsea & Cate) who love to mix and match a myriad of styles in the pieces we refinish and the spaces we design...

Now my husband (Chelsea's brother) and I don't have any kids of our own yet so I was challenged to rethink what else I could do with this piece of family lore.  So I got to thinking... what if it could still be used for a more grown-up sort of play...

It was a simple transformation really.  I took the lid off the toy chest and flipped it on it’s side to screw in some hairpin legs I had from a thrifted find and boom: record player stand.

Inspired by grandpa's original paint color, I refreshed the muted black paint on the exterior. of the box.

But for the interior I couldn’t bring myself to sand out the assortment of dings.  To me, they are the map of a playful childhood.  

So I just waxed the wood to at least give it back its buttery sheen.

It turns out that the chest is the perfect size for a standard LP sleeve!

For the styling, I used plumb foliage (scavenged from the parking lot no less) + DIY moon phase chalkboard art + a framed floating ghost lady (taken from Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer ).  To me, they all subtlety tip their witches' hats to Halloween without being overly ghoulish.

Adding legs gave it the height it needed to be used as a record cabinet or even a bar - either way it's ready for a more grown-up type of play.

And as much as I’d love to keep this bad boy in the family, we simply don’t have the space!  So DC Metro area: my loss is your gain.  If you are interested in this piece - pop over to our shop to get more info.  

Hairpin Legged Record Cabinet
Now Available for Sale