“It’s a continual evolution!”
timeline:
Design an imaginative kid zone without doing a total gut job.
Top priority:
1956
year built:
350
Square Feet:
Saint Paul
Hollyhocks Wallpaper by Sanderson, Wallpaperdirect; Afternoon Paint,
Sherwin-Williams.
Click to see the before
Cortez Natural Floating Dresser by Leanne Ford, Crate &
Barrel; Strawberries Print by Heather Deffense, Minted; Geo Ottoman by Minted for West Elm, West Elm.
Vintage Bed Frame in Nurture Green Paint, Sherwin-Williams; Lucy Change Table, Incy Interiors; Goose Print by Elliot Stokes, Minted.
for It...
The white dresser was the kids’ old changing table—it had big wood knobs that felt a little too nursery-like, so I used pulls left over from our kitchen remodel to make it more grown-up. To jazz up the hallway light, I found some simple medallion moldings at a thrift store for $10 and mounted them with adhesive. Old finds add richness and texture to a space. They ground things, and they also have a story.
It’s not that you have to love the compromises you make, but accepting them for what they are and focusing on what you can change is really important. Be flexible, find solutions, embrace them, and move on. Try not to dwell too much.
Upcycle Someone Else’s
(or Your Own!) Stuff
The doors were very much in that simple, rambler style, even though the previous owners had added all these very formal architectural details throughout the home. So we took them off their hinges, bought Colonial-style molding for $150 at a local lumberyard (to match the style used throughout the rest of the house), and stapled it around the edges. I had seen a couple examples of London townhouse bedrooms where color is used as a framing device, lending energy, brightness, and cheerfulness. With that in mind, we painted everything a HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams bright yellow shade called Afternoon, including the baseboards and window trim, which got two coats. I’m not a great DIYer, but I can do little things.
Be Bold With Your Borders
When I first saw the new striped wallpaper and trim together in the bedroom, I freaked out. It looked sort of like a baseball-themed room. I thought, oh, my God, what have I done? I need to repaint! But my team said I should stick with my vision, so I did. It was a good reminder that walls and floors are the foundational elements, but furniture, textiles, and art really make a space.
I’m not not a trained interior designer, but I am a graphic designer, so I’m thinking, if I can shift the mix a little bit, I can smooth over some of the surprises. It often goes back to balancing out where things might be too intense. Painting the beds green and hanging bright, large-scale art helps break up all the lines.
Balance Out the Big Moments
I went from being someone who advocated for starting fresh to someone who was like, “Don’t do much when you first move in, because you’ll get to know the house.” It’s more responsible for my wallet, but it’s also a creative challenge. Since we didn’t have the budget to redo the kids’ yellow-tiled bathroom, we leaned into its limitations. We kept all the fixtures; I love the Crane sinks that look like funny faces—our kids do, too—and there’s a fun skylight. We just changed the wallpaper—I knew we could make something we like without spending five figures.
The Sanderson print ($276 per roll) puts a new spin on the space’s very ’50s style; it’s whimsical and bold. And the hints of purple and blue in the foxglove flower print make the yellow feel less canary and more of a lemon shade.
Change Your Whole Outlook With
a Little Botanical Wallpaper
“Remembering The Secret Garden and the feeling of being in old homes were moments that I wanted to creatively infuse into the space,” Arends says of looking at the interiors through a nostalgic lens. “I also thought about it through our kids’ eyes.” Their verdict: like a storybook. The siblings create imaginary trails out of their forest-print bedding and a main fairy-tale character out of a mushroom stool their mom brought in. “Although I make a lot of the design decisions for them, everything is for play,” she adds. Because the hallways are so small, there were pieces of furniture that Arends couldn’t fit into the room. “Luckily limitations for creativity are wonderful, because you have fewer options to consider,” she notes.
In her own words, Arends breaks down the $4,000 slow-burn renovation, sharing where she splurged and how she saved.
When Kate Arends, the Saint Paul–based founder of lifestyle blog Wit & Delight, doesn’t know where to start when designing a room, she…doesn’t. She calls it “flow design”: living with things as they are—even if it’s the absolute opposite of what she would choose—until ideas pop up. This unconventional approach has fueled her home’s entire renovation. She and her husband, Joe, their son, August (5), and daughter, Bennett (4), moved into a rambler-style house in May 2020, and rather than start with a blank slate, the former graphic designer decorated most of the areas around the previous owner’s quirky paint color choices (hello, lemon yellow living room!). So naturally, Arends avoided a hasty overhaul of her kids’ shared bedroom and bathroom, despite the paisley wallpaper being, she jokes, “offensive to my eyes.” COVID had just been declared a pandemic, then came the George Floyd protests, which left Arends feeling like a full-on revamp wouldn’t be the best use of her time or energy. Plus, she says, pause long enough and “spaces often tell you what they need to be.”
The most important lessons she walked away with during the waiting period? The plaid carpet triggered the children’s allergies, and despite the fact that her little ones were all for the wallpaper’s repeating Hyde Park landmarks motif, the brown was way too drab. Arends did keep their existing furniture, including the mahogany four-poster beds she scored from a local antiques shop for a total of $150 and swiftly painted a middle-shade green that Bennett and August helped select. Then she let the butter-hued square tile in the adjacent bathroom drive her inspiration for a few bigger upgrades.
In Renovator's Notebook, homeowners open up about the
nitty-gritty of their remodels: How long it really took; how much
it actually cost; what went horribly wrong; and what went wonderfully, serendipitously, it's all-worth-it-in-the-end right. For more tips to nail your next project, follow @reno_notebook.
Location:
Saint Paul creative Kate Arends
really got to know her kids’ 1950s-era bedroom and bath before she committed to a stripy, sunshine yellow refresh.
Photography by WING HO
Words by KENYA FOY
Styling by MARLO MUNCH
Wait
Saint Paul — MN
Click to see the before
When Kate Arends, the Saint Paul–based founder of lifestyle blog Wit & Delight, doesn’t know where to start when designing a room, she…doesn’t. She calls it “flow design”: living with things as they are—even if it’s the absolute opposite of what she would choose—until ideas pop up. This unconventional approach has fueled her home’s entire renovation. She and her husband, Joe, their son, August (5), and daughter, Bennett (4), moved into a rambler-style house in May 2020, and rather than start with a blank slate, the former graphic designer decorated most of the areas around the previous owner’s quirky paint color choices (hello, lemon yellow living room!). So naturally, Arends avoided a hasty overhaul of her kids’ shared bedroom and bathroom, despite the paisley wallpaper being, she jokes, “offensive to my eyes.” COVID had just been declared a pandemic, then came the George Floyd protests, which left Arends feeling like a full-on revamp wouldn’t be the best use of her time or energy. Plus, she says, pause long enough and “spaces often tell you what they need to be.”
The most important lessons she walked away with during the waiting period? The plaid carpet triggered the children’s allergies, and despite the fact that her little ones were all for the wallpaper’s repeating Hyde Park landmarks motif, the brown was way too drab. Arends did keep their existing furniture, including the mahogany four-poster beds she scored from a local antiques shop for a total of $150 and swiftly painted a middle-shade green that Bennett and August helped select. Then she let the butter-hued square tile in the adjacent bathroom drive her inspiration for a few bigger upgrades.
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