As it turned out, the only thing that needed clearing was her “offbeat-chic” perspective. “I realized as I was sorting through each piece that I was having a lot more fun playing with the things we had already found than trying to be planned and methodical with the design. It forced me to look at things more organically, without overthinking,” she says. The epiphany led Julia to a fluid, freewheeling approach that allowed her to think beyond conventional boundaries, embracing the rental’s Spanish Revival architecture while bringing in the fantasy spirit of a 1980s art loft.
Designing a home is one thing, but designing one for yourself—and a rental at that—is a completely different game. “We couldn’t make too many architectural changes,” so we used furniture and materials to bring our personalities into the space,” Julia recalls. She didn’t worry about how a classic Spanish Revival interior should look and feel, inventing instead her own alternate reality by combining eye-popping colors, abstract art, and European midcentury and 1980s postmodern accents in unexpectedly whimsical ways. “I often pair things that don’t go together, use color and art as a way to enhance a space, or add subtle touches to inject a bit of quirk,” she explains of her selection which included postmodern furniture and lighting, and funky objects by design icons like Mario Botta, Gaetano Pesce, and Ron Rezek.
