I’ve been really excited to share this post with everyone. This was a labor or love project that took several months to complete and two visits to New Orleans (poor me) to execute. Some dear friends of ours moved from Asheville back to New Orleans and had this killer apartment space below their main home that they didn’t know what to do with. The space had good bones and was lightly remodeled before, however some challenges with the space included: low ceilings, support columns throughout the apartment, and lack of natural light. The other iffy factor was that the apartment was originally set up with a kitchenette and we heavily debated whether or not to turn this into a full kitchen. We ended up deciding to go with a full kitchen and had to completely gut the space and start over, which I think was the best decision for the long run!

The rest of the project focused on decorating and updating. It was important to give this space it’s own voice and style. I also really wanted to nail the photography as New Orleans is one of the most competitive places in the world to host an Airbnb and let’s face it . . . style and pictures are EVERYTHING for grabbing folks’ attention. From a decorating stand point, I wanted the place to feel eclectic, colorful and have a heavy influence on natural elements and texture. The space itself naturally feels a bit cold, being a lower level apartment, so I knew we were going to need a lot of rugs, wall art and textures to give it warmth and dimension. Also, it’s New Orleans! One of the greatest, most eclectic, colorful places in the world. There were no rules here and we could just have fun with the interiors. Of course I wanted the place to have this balance between historic and modern, so I was thrilled the owners were into decorating with some antique pieces and letting me do a gallery wall of antique photos of New Orleans residents!

We gave the entire unit a fresh coat of paint and I went with an egg shell finish everywhere - even the ceiling (this helped to bounce natural light and to make the ceilings feel larger) ! I chose a color called Origami White as it is a really warm yet contemporary color and I think by keeping everything uniform it not only helped modernize the space but it also helped make the unit feel larger. The ceilings are low FYI. Just under 7’ so I knew we had to keep furniture at a low profile and go with floor lamps and hang art slightly higher than normal to help create an illusion of height.

Perhaps one of my favorite aspects of this project was checking out local stores and sourcing from these places to give the unit local flare. Some shop favorites I came across were Consign Consign, Strip Ease, and The Magazine Street Antique Mall.

I clearly had a little TOO much fun and ended up getting myself a little something . . .

The Southern Gentleman

(I’m still trying to figure out how to get him home!!)

OK, let’s hop to it!! Here is a little background on the unit:

Before

The Kitchen

The “kitchenette” was super cute, however it wasn’t fully set up to be a functioning kitchen. It had a mini fridge, a bar size sink and the island, while huge, served little purpose. The other issue that had to be addressed was the lack of dining space. The plan was to rip everything out and re-create the kitchen with a apartment size fridge, full size stove, venting microwave above the stove, full size sink and add storage for cookware. The island would become our focal point by putting on a new stylish countertop with enough overlay that we could place counter stools underneath for dining / playing games. We were lucky enough to re-use the existing butcher block countertop from the island for countertops for our new kitchen. BIG $$ saver!!

The living room

The living room was another tricky thing to figure out with the structural support columns in the way. This Airbnb is meant to sleep four guests so we definitely needed a comfy layout for everyone to enjoy tv together as well as have a separate place to read or mess around on the i-pad. The original layout really created length and an open concept which unfortunately made the apartment feel kind of cold and empty. My idea for the new layout was to create cozy little nooks and cause some separation between the kitchen and living room, while still enjoying an open concept feel.

Bedroom 1

The space we had to work with had good bones, but it easily could be read as “uninviting” due to the dark tile floors, low ceiling and little natural light. My plan was to add warm texture everywhere - floors, walls and bedding. Being a garden level apartment, we switched out the window for a privacy glass window so guests felt like they could leave the blinds up all day to soak up all the natural light.

We made an economical choice to update these dated closet track doors by simply installing a curtain rod and hanging a bold pattern curtain for a little pop.

Bedroom 2

The second bedroom was the largest and most challenging. First off, the height of the existing head board really made the ceilings feel low so I knew we were going to have to swap it out for a low profile bed. I also wanted to help fill up the space on either side with some statement hanging lights (another trick for helping ceilings seem taller).

The other big thing to consider was creating a barrier between the owner garage entrance and the apartment. We decided to put up a wall across the stair case, and while it was a bummer to lose all that cool scrap wood, we thought it would be a good opportunity to place a custom logo mural by a local artist. To make the apartment accessible for the owners, we would build a custom sliding barn door that could be opened from the owners side.

Let’s take a look at the final results!