There’s no room in the house that requires more thoughtful design than the kitchen. A well designed kitchen should look minimal, yet the functions it must perform are complex, so designing one is like mental Tetris, and I REALLY love doing it. I enjoy obsessing over the necessary shelf clearance for tall cooking wine bottles… heming and hawing for hours over whether polished chrome and polished nickel can be used interchangeably.

I hit the rental lottery with my current kitchen. It’s definitely not a designer kitchen, but it’s bright, functional, and big (for NYC). All my appliances are clean and white, I have pull-out shelves in my cabinets, and I have a beautiful view of a 100 year old giant oak tree. My apartment kitchen beats the kitchen I grew up in on all fronts. I really have nothing to complain about. I already put quite a bit of work into making it decent and at this point, I can call it “done.”

As they say, an idle brain is the devil’s workshop, so I simply cannot stop myself from checking out other sexy kitchens on the side. I feel a bit like I’m cheating on my current home by pretend-shopping for my future (nonexistent) house. I have thousands and thousands of tear sheets and images saved on my computer, but every now and then I see a room that sticks. This is one of them:

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*SIGH* She’s a beauty. This kitchen was designed by Jessica Helgerson who is pretty much design Jesus IMO.

My future bank account is screwed because now my future house must have a black and white kitchen that’s just the perfect mix of traditional, contemporary, industrial, and Moorish. I have no idea where that stove is from, but for all I know it costs more than what I make in a year.  (Although I did find this similar looking model at William Sonoma Home which is expensive but not like sell-your-liver-on-the-black-market expensive.)

I thought to myself…what if I had a fixer upper and wanted to achieve this look for less. Is it doable for $20K? Obviously it would depend on a lot of factors, but assuming that my boyfriend is a master carpenter, and assuming I’d be willing to completely forgo my social life and painstakingly lay tile for the rest of my life… I’m gonna say, SURE why not.

I went on an online bargain hunting frenzy and put together a little board of goodies that I may or may not buy one day. Honestly, it’s really ALL ABOUT THE TILE. Gotta have it.

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Atlas cup pulls from amazon

Cosmas knobs from amazon

Vigo undermount stainless sink from overstock

Contemporary chrome pull down kitchen faucet from amazon

Walnut butcher block from lumber liquidators

2 aluminum and glass pendants from ebay (ugh, someone beat me to it)

3×6 carrera marble honed subway tile from amazon

Reed medium walnut / charcoal counter stools from overstock

Treviso tile form villa lagoon tile

Pommegranite print from society6

Since I don’t have a house yet, let’s assume that the “big reveal” for the project will happen sometime between 2016 and 2020.

Happy New Year all! XO

Sometime in October I was approached by Brooklyn Exposed magazine to contribute to a feature about small space holiday decorating. It had been a while since I did anything arts and crafts-y, so I jumped at the chance. I usually don’t decorate my apartment for the holidays because I travel to California to see my family, so I took this as an opportunity to host a pretend holiday dinner party at my house. It was the middle of October and no one was selling fresh evergreens, so I had to get clever and use unconventional materials.

I had seen lots of DIY Christmas Trees on Pinterest and decided to make my own mini-tree out of wood shims from Home Depot. I took a long wooden dowel and screwed it to a base,  then drilled holes in 50 shims of decreasing length and stacked them on the dowel. I decorated my “tree” with leftover crystals from my chandelier, metal washers, and small glittery balls that I just glued on.

I customized some $1 gold chargers by adding an art deco motif with different shapes of silver duct tape. Instead of using evergreens for a wreath, I bought a bushel of eucalyptus from the farmers market and tied the branches together with wire. I cut the word JOY out of cork sheets.

My new favorite trick is using wrapping paper as a table runner. There are SO many awesome wrapping papers nowadays and it’s a really affordable way to transform your table for only $5.

The December issue of Brooklyn Exposed is on news stands now! I’ll post scans of the spread soon.

Happy holidays friends! Wishing health and happiness for you all. XO

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I am obsessed with HGTV. I could literally watch it all day.  It’s a good thing I don’t have a TV anymore, because if I did, I would not be blogging, I would be watching HGTV. I love it more than Breaking Bad. I love it more than the first season of CSI. I love it more than animal documentaries. I don’t watch Orange is the New Black, but if I did, I’m sure I’d flip the channel in a heartbeat if I knew Design on a Dime was on.

Don’t judge my lifestyle.

Sometime in April, I received a call that basically fulfilled one of my life-long dreams. My dear friend Sue was producing an HGTV show about home makeovers using only furniture from yard sales and flea markets and she wanted to know if I was interested.  I asked myself, “Jen, do you really want to spend the entire summer in a warehouse sorting through filthy used furniture, drowning in fabric swatches, and inhaling noxious paint fumes?” Uh…YEAH!

pin it!The show is new, the brainchild of Good Morning America co-host Lara Spencer. She is a design aficionado and a yard sale-ing guru. Her passion for furniture hunting is unwavering and unsurpassed. She wakes up at 3:45am for Good Morning America, hosts Flea Market Flip, writes books, decorates homes, has 2 kids, 3 dogs, and still manages to go to yard sales ALL THE TIME.  She even wrote a book about it.

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Back in April, we found the perfect workshop to base our operations. It was large enough to house the set of both Flea Market Flip and I Brake for Yard Sales. There was a paint booth, a loading dock, plenty of storage, and proximity to excellent pizza. Only problem was that it looked like this:

pin it!Since Lara is ridiculously busy with her 5 jobs, I came on board to help spruce up the place.  I couldn’t have done it without my main squeeze, Aaron Montgomery who happens to be a designer/builder of awesome furniture.

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pin it!He built the metal table, shelves, and desk from scratch. All of the furniture turned out mucho sexy, and I hope to have everything in this office replicated in my future warehouse/design studio. It’s gonna be glorious. Everything black and grey and greige and white and wood because I’m allergic to color.

pin it!You know who’s NOT allergic to color? Lara Spencer. Even though we had functional, industrial furniture that fit the warehouse environment, we wanted the room to feel chic, fun, and bright, which would reflect Lara’s style. (She designed the room above.)

pin it!We painted the grimy walls bright white and the door citron yellow.

pin it!The furniture was designed to fit the space exactly.

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A wall of flats separates the I Brake for Yard Sales studio from the Flea Market Flip workshop.

pin it!We brought in piles of fabric books, antique frames, design magazines, added a sprinkle of Jonathan Adler accessories and voila! A preppy/industrial design office was born. The crazy orange credenza was a team effort. It’s actually made of 3 IKEA kitchen wall cabinets and we added chunky wall moulding around each door. I used brass doorknockers as handles.

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pin it!The top of the desk is actually an IKEA kitchen countertop.  I’ve always liked the taupe color of this laminate top and the faux wood edge is modern and interesting.  It never seemed like a material that I would want in a kitchen, but I think it works perfectly as a work surface.  The slab came exactly that length and it happened to fit perfectly against that wall. Destiny? I think so. Also, can we take a moment to admire the white lacquered chairs? SWOON. I got these at Build it Green (which is basically a donation-based junk yard) for $15 each!!!  They didn’t have seats at the time, but who cares! Nothing that a little plywood, foam, and fabric couldn’t fix.

pin it!Alex built the Greek key screen which is actually covering a massive gaggle of electrical cords and a giant circuit breaker.

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It just so happens that the annual Jonathan Adler warehouse sale was the week of our warehouse makeover. Christine and I waited for 90 minutes in the pouring rain to snag this golden turtle dove.

pin it!Left to right: Alex Gurrero, Sam Knapp of Tiger Lily’s, Lara Spencer, me, Cija Johnson.

Millions of thanks to Christine L., David D., Jay A., and James D. for helping pull the studio together in record time. Lara, thanks for including me on your furniture-saving adventure.  Can’t wait to do it again!

And Sue, you are my hero!

We designed and decorated 8 rooms, so more blog posts to come….

Watch I Brake for Yard Sales Friday evenings at 9pm on HGTV.

My family rarely pays full price for anything. If we can can wait for it to go on sale, we will. If we can buy it used, we will. If we can make it instead of buy it, we will.

I come from a line of resourceful/handy people. My grandmother was a housewife, and while raising 4 kids, she also made and sold traditional Chinese treats in her tiny kitchen and was able to earn as much as my grandfather did in a year just by baking around the clock for 2 weeks around Chinese New Year. She also used to make my mom’s school uniforms rather than buy the ones sold through the school and she’d use better material, add warmer lining, and she’d tweak the designs to for better fit and style.

My mom followed in her mom’s footsteps. She cuts her own hair, tailors her own clothes, and LOVES to bargain hunt. When I was a kid, my mom would go to TJ Maxx or Marshalls at least once/week and I would tag along. She was the master bargain shopper and I was her apprentice. Shopping didn’t always mean buying. A lot of times it was just the ritual of looking, comparing, examining the quality and value of goods from different sources. I never saw her spend over $24.99, yet she always managed to put together super chic outfits. My mom is the kind of lady that will buy a $9.99 from the sportswear clearance rack, then she’ll cut a hold in the shoulder, take 3″ off the bottom, hand sew sequins and stones on the neckline and BOOM! New shirt to wear to a party. As I mentioned in a previous post about my mom’s home office makeover, my mom is the coolest person I know. Exhibit A:

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Sometimes you just need to buy a solid, quality piece that will last forever and I’m willing to splurge on wardrobe staples. Anyone who lives in New York probably pounds pavement for at least 2 miles/day and your footwear has to be tough to survive this city. My favorite shoes, coats, purses, and carry-all totes get used and abused to death and they prove their value over time.  But when it comes to a nightstand, I really don’t feel like spending more than $75 because ultimately it’s just a horizontal surface on which to place a lamp and my chapstick.

It’s not much of a surprise that I wound up with a profession that requires a lot of shopping. I’m a speed shopper at work but when it comes to buying stuff for my own home, I’m annoyingly indecisive. If I’m in the market for a lamp, I will literally scour the internet, flipping through thousands of lamps until I have a folder of my 50 favorites. From there, I narrow it down to my 10 favorites. Then I’ll go to a handful of  thrift stores, Home Goods, and big store sale sections to see if there’s anything I like better. Then I’ll go back to my “faves” folder and start searching Ebay to see if any of my faves are online for cheaper. Not until I’ve spent about 10+ hours researching to ensure that I have absolutely found the lamp that’s the greatest value will I pull the trigger and buy. I’m fully aware that this method of shopping is ultimately uneconomical because time is money, but I simply cannot help myself.

pin it!Anyway, I lived in the tiny room for 5 years, and when my guy moved in with me, we stayed in the tiny room for a couple weeks with intentions of making the big room into a giant home office, but it turns out we don’t really need a giant home office, so we decided to try out the big room to see if we liked it. And we did! There was something nice about making a fresh start with a new space. Problem is, I don’t really have any bedroom furniture, because everything in the tiny room is built-in and fastened with 10,000 screws so the only way it’s coming out is if I demolish it.

The upside? I get to buy new stuff! But as y’all know, furnishing a room or house all at once is wicked expensive. I’m also a decorator, so I’m extra picky and I like to live in rooms that look finished, so I need to save room in the budget for accessories. I whipped together a mood board of affordable things that I love.  Here’s what I have my eye on:

1. Dusk & a Dirt Road by Christina Shaffell, Society6, $34.00

2. America Cutting Board, Target, $12.50

3. Compass by Zach Terrel, Society6, $21.00

4. Nyfors work lamp, IKEA, $49.99

5. Water by Jaime Hogge, Mammoth and Company., $20.00

6. Valhalla walnut 5-drawer dresser, Overstock, $184.99

7. Rugby stripe bins, Container Store, $14.99

8. Serving tray with faux leather handles, Target, $24.99

9. Faux sheepskin area rug, Home Decorators Collection, $149.00

10. Fjellse bed, IKEA, 49.99 upholstered on the cheap a la Manhattan Nest

11. Tear drop decorative pillow, Target, $8.49 (discontinued)

12. Draper stripe ash duvet, Dwell, t’was a gift

13. Dwight console, CB2, kindly donated by my friend Natasha (discontinued)

14. Set of 2 chestnut dining chairs, Target, $82.99

15. Hometrends 5-drawer chest, black, Walmart, $179.00

16. Marble top tables, Craigslist, $30 (score!) similar to Smart glass top side table, CB, $149.00

17. Ljusas Ysby lamp, IKEA, scored it for free on a job

18. Wooden flower vase, Target,$24.99

19. Floating by Heather Goodwind, Society6, $50.00

The first things I bought were the marble top tables (#16) and they set the tone for the new room. I pursue craigslist every freakin’ day, and I rarely find anything that I need or want. You know the drill. If you want to find anything good and cheap, you have to email the owner within 15 minutes or someone else will beat you to it. Finally, one day I saw these perfect marble side tables for $15 each, so I emailed the guy in a hurry and made them mine. They’re definitely worth at least $150 each. Winning! I feel like there’s a little marquee in my brain that says “You saved 90%!” in flashing red lights.

The room is coming along and I’ve already bought a lot of the stuff on the list. I will post progress pics soon.

pin it!When i was a kid I wanted to live on a boat or an RV. My dad used to take me to boat shows where my brother and I would crawl in and out of every crevice of the tricked out custom interiors. I distinctly remember being 7 years old at a boat show, hanging out in a dim, snug, well ventilated crawl space with a tiny gnome door and a mattress on the floor. I could have stayed there forever and literally dreamed about that nook for years.

Boat shows are like space planning heaven to me. On a boat, every component flips up, drops down, doubles as a bed, and has hidden storage. My fascination with tiny homes on wheels/water turned into a fascination with small space living.

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I could live here forever. No joke.

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pin it!Scandinavian style yacht? Yes, please!

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My first Brooklyn bedroom was roughly 12’x20′ which is HUGE by NYC standards. I even had my own bathroom and laundry in the building. So fancy.  I put work into trying to make it pretty but ultimately I didn’t have enough storage so the room was always a mess. I came to the conclusion that I was one of those people who needs a designated spot for everything or I will never put anything back.

At the time, I was working on an office makeover for Tyra Banks where I met a furniture designer/builder named Mark. We were chatting about life in Brooklyn and I mentioned that I was considering downsizing from my huge room in Clinton Hill to something more affordable. It just so happened that his upstairs neighbor was about to move out. The mention of a “tiny room” piqued my interest so I got the landlord’s info and went to check it out.

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The room was rough around the edges, but had no major issues, which was perfect. I decided right away that I wanted to take the place and managed to finagle a 6 week window where I would come in after work and on weekends to fix up the place.  I was determined to make this tiny room fancy yet functional so I started pulling inspiration images from magazines (mostly Domino…cutest mag ever, I miss it) and these two pages were the tearsheets that influenced me the most. I’m glad I saved them after all these years.

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I decided on black, white, brown wood, with a touch of brass as my palette. Timeless and classy IMO. In comparison to these rooms, I’d say that my style is a little more “global eclectic.” I love gaudy crosses, Moorish tiles, statues of Buddha and multi-armed Hindu deities. So yea, like French castle guest room meets antique market in Bali…for a secret girly girl who hates girly things and color. Yea.

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Every secretly fancy girl has to have a regal, disproportionately large bed. I fancied the Louis bed the most but I was poor at the time and had no idea if it was even possible to get European designed furniture to my neck of the woods. I studied wood sculpture in college and had an itch to make some 3D sculpture anyway, so I decided to build a Louis bed replica. Initially, I assumed a full sized bed with canopy frame would eat up the whole room, but realized later that I would have about 12″ of space to the right of the bed that would be perfect for shelving. I saved my mad-scientist sketches from this project. I love revisiting my art sketches and marveling at how bad my handwriting has gotten over the years.

pin it!I built the bed, built-in shelf, console, headboard and shoe shelf from scratch.

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I don’t have any photos of me actually building because I did everything by myself and just didn’t have my act together to document it properly. In a nutshell, it was a BEAST of a project. I didn’t have a car. I didn’t have any tools with me at the time. I basically hired sketchy guys with vans to shuttle me back and fourth between Home Depot and the house, and I cut all the wood propped up on two folding chairs with a $30 Black and Decker jigsaw. I had to patch the walls, ceiling, and trim and probably inhaled a huge amount of spackle and saw dust. I made a TON of noise cutting the curvy shapes and nailing all those furniture tacs into the shelving. My neighbors must have HATED me.

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This is the closest thing I have to a “during” photo. After days of agonizing over color options, I settled on chalky white walls, a dark semi-gloss navy for the bed, and what I call “old man mustard” for the ceiling which is for some unexplainable reason my favorite color that’s not related to black or white. The room was coming together and the right side looked great with the built-in shelves, but the left side was really unbalanced, so I made a headboard/sideboard and mounted it to the left wall.

Also, a chandelier was desperately needed. Unfortunately, the original light fixture was not centered on anything (neither the window, nor the bed, nor the room). It was also a pull-chain fixture with which I had no experience and didn’t want to get electrocuted. I wound up splurging on a Craigslist electrician who charged me $250 to move the box and install my newly obtained vintage chandelier from the Brooklyn Flea which is conveniently located 2 blocks from my house. It seems secure; I’m pretty sure I won’t be impaled in my sleep.

It’s odd that I never posted a full set of pics on the blog, but there they are!

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pin it!By this point, the room has gotten some press. It started with a feature in Apartment Therapy’s Big Book of Small Spaces, and since then it’s been in Design Bureau magazine and on a bunch of blogs. Youtube has a web series called Tiny Eclectic Amazing Spaces and they recently stopped by to shoot a little interview. Awkward!