Synopses & Reviews
Break out of the white-walled world of first apartments and tap in to your blue-sky decorating dreams with star designer Kyle Schuneman’s smart, bold ideas for any budget. First apartments are so exciting because you can finally do what you want with your own space, but they can be tricky to decorate. Kyle Schuneman knows that a paper-thin wallet and four plain walls don’t have to stand between you and your perfect home. Kyle, 26, is a decorating prodigy who has designed first apartments for friends, clients, and himself, braving logic-defying floor plans, space-challenged rooms, and picky landlords. In The First Apartment Book, Kyle shares brilliant design ideas and thirty simple DIY projects that show how anyone can infuse a first home with personality—whether you’re renting, moving in with a roommate or significant other for the first time, or are a newly minted owner eager to put your stamp on your place.
The First Apartment Book is both a tour of amazing photographs from ten real homes across the country and a hardworking resource of great ideas. Kyle explains how each of the featured apartments achieves the perfect balance between cool design and the homeowner’s lifestyle, with a sprinkling of influences from the resident’s city thrown in.
Kyle scours flea markets for functional pieces with personality and incorporates Pollock-inspired art and touches of taxicab yellow to make a small studio in New York City function as four different yet coherent “rooms.” Graffiti-like dip-dye curtains and a skateboard table reflect a Seattle renter’s hip sensibility. In Cleveland, Kyle creates a modern preppy space for a plaid-loving local using subdued colors and careful pattern mixing. A couple’s salon-style hanging of rock posters in Nashville feels utterly unique, and Kyle’s clever ideas for storing to store their musical instruments keep the duo sane.
Short on time and long on style, the thirty DIY projects include no-sew pillows, yarn-wrapped picture frames, and a dresser update using a little glue and fabric. Full of bold, vibrant photos and hundreds of big ideas for small spaces, The First Apartment Book proves that no matter what your landlord, your floor plan, or your wallet says, there are no limits on how cool your first apartment can be.
Synopsis
Star designer Kyle Schuneman offers bold ideas for achieving big style in small spaces—on any budget.A first apartment allows you to finally do what you want with your own space, but it can be tricky to decorate. Luckily, twenty-seven-year-old decorating prodigy Kyle Schuneman knows that a paper-thin wallet and four plain walls don’t have to stand in your way, and the ten amazing, real apartments in this book show it.
From coast to coast, these fabulous first homes are the perfect balance between cool design and comfort, and they offer plenty of practical ideas for making your apartment feel open, organized, and inviting. Examples include:
■ Multifunctional studios
■ A loft that was sectioned into livable areas
■ Cookie-cutter apartments with one-of-a-kind personality
■ Shared spaces that accommodate different decorating tastes
■ Fantastic examples of how to display collections, hide unsightly stuff, and manage picky landlords
Kyle’s creative solutions reveal how you can make your space feel much larger than it really is—and how it can reflect your passions, your travels, and your location. He will inspire you to use your surroundings for decorating ideas (think taxi-cab-yellow accents in New York or graffiti-like dip-dye curtains in Seattle). Short on time and long on style, the thirty DIY projects here include no-sew pillows and a dresser update using a little glue and decorative paper.
Full of bold, vibrant photos, an extensive resource section, and hundreds of big ideas for small spaces, this book proves that there are no limits on how spacious and how cool your first apartment can feel.
About the Author
KYLE SCHUNEMAN is the founder of Live Well Designs in LA. He has been featured in
Real Simple, Esquire, This Old House, Sunset, and
L’Uomo Vogue and has frequently appeared on NBC and HGTV. Named one of
House Beautiful’s “Next Wave of Top 20 Designers,” Kyle is the art director for the Emmy Award–winning
Giada at Home on the Food Network. This is his first book.
A former senior editor for Lucky magazine, coauthor HEATHER SUMMERVILLE has written for InStyle, Travel + Leisure, and Real Simple.
Photographer JOE SCHMELZER’s work has been featured in Elle Décor, Coastal Living, and House Beautiful.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Art Lover
The Free Spirit
The Preppy
The Roommates
The Collector
The Scholar
The Rebel
The Homebody
The Bohemian
The Couple
Resources
Acknowledgments
Index