Volume 1 | Issue 1
Small Space Big Bang Decorating on a Space & Money Budget
Spring 2010
Head Rooster Confessions of an Antiques Cowboy
This Modern Love Modern Design You Can Live With
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1 Editor’s Note An introduction to Shelf from the Editor-In-Chief, Jeremiah Pointer.
2 Ruler Confessions of of an the AntiquesRoost Cowboy - an interview
with Daniel Malone, proprieter of Roost in Chicago.
6 Small Coping with Space and excelling atBig living inBang a studio. 8 Mod Men An inside look at a how to live in the post-modern.
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ou now hold in your hands the inaugural issue of Shelf. Like most people, I don’t have a degree in interior design and I wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference between traditional, classical or swedish-gustavian. And I definitely wouldn’t know to not mix the three. I know what I like when I see it and that doesn’t often fit into a design theme or time-period. Shelf is for those of us who don’t necessarily know how to articulate how we want our space to be put together, but we’ll know it when we see it. We’ll go without a table until just the right one jumps out at us, even if it means eating on the floor. We’re the weekend warriors who get up in the morning and decide to paint the living room because just the right mood struck us to. We’ll pick up a piece of furniture or frame or knick knack even if we don’t have a use for it at the moment because we know that someday we will. We might not even know the basics of general interior design, but well, you know we’ll know it when we see it. For this first issue, I sat down with Daniel Malone, owner and proprieter of Roost in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago to talk to him about what got him started in the antique business and about what keeps him in it. I also suckered some good friends into letting me pick their brains on how they’ve put together their open-concept contemporary apartment in the post-modern modern. We’ll also take a peek into my own apartment to take a look at maximizing livability in a small space. I’ll give you a few tips I’ve found have worked when trying to get as much use out of a studio apartment as possible. Enjoy the journey. Jeremiah Pointer Editor-in-Chief
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RULER OF THE ROOST
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“Never buy anything you don’t absolutely
LOVE.”
— Daniel Malone
he idea to open Roost came to Daniel Malone while he managing M. Henry, a breakfast lunch and lunch cafe well-known for it’s delicious brunch and long waits. Opening a retail space was something that the owner of M. Henry had been thinking about and was looking to make the M. Henry name more of a brand. While the partnership with M. Henry fell through, Daniel didn’t let that stop him and he opened Roost on his own. That was nearly a year and a half and a store expansion ago and Daniel has big plans to grow his hen house. Daniel moved around a lot growing up and that’s probably where he gained his eclectic taste in design. Born in upstate New York, attending high school in West Virginia and doing two years abroad in the UK, it’s easy to spot his influences in Roost. “My mother was always very invested in her home and decorating and I was painting and doing art projects from a very young age. I was probably choosing the colors of my bedroom walls by the time I was ten years old,” he laughs. “I remember my first year of college, I had a roommate for one semester and after that I decided that if I had to pay extra or live off campus, that I’d have to live by myself because I couldn’t have my living compromised by somebody else. Kids in my hall would come and hang out in my room because it felt more like a living space. You know, I pulled down everything that the school had and brought in a painted bed and put up framed artwork and chairs and curtains, the whole nine yards. That was just natural. Your home is an extention of yourself so you have to design it. My lifestyle, my career and my home are kind of finally coming into alignment.” While working for a coffee company and setting up cafes around the world, Daniel really started thinking about design as a career. He spent five years setting up espresso shops in hospitality settings — hotels, hospitals and other entertainment venues — in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and places in the UK. “Actually, that’s probably where some of my interest in doing the interior stuff sort of sprouted. The Asian market has a real attention to design. I’d spend a lot of time traveling and seeing all these setups and it was really intriguing how design-savy the Asian market was. All the unsual things these people would do, like having a cafe right in the middle of a florist shop. But [Continued on next page.]
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have it incorporated throughout the whole thing, so you’d have this beautiful greenery through the whole shop and little cafe tables set up. And so that’s how the wheels started spinning. You know, marrying my work and interests into one thing.” Daniel says that the process of opening Roost has been very organic. “When I was intially developing inventory, I kind of had the M. Henry Home idea in mind — more farmhouse primitive and rustic — but also how that played against mid-century, and Danish Modern pieces, which is more of my esthetic. Placing those two things side-by-side and seeing how they play against eachother. So even though the store has more of a rustic appeal, it’s definitely changed from the beginning.” One thing you’ll find when you walk into Roost and Daniel walks the store with you is that he has an eye for seeing things in a different context than the store setting. He can look at a piece and envision how it would look placed with other items and how they’d work together in your home or office space. He also has a knack for re-purposing items as showcased in Roost’s light fixtures created from bushel baskets, further playing up the store’s rustic feel. The other thing you’ll notice about Roost is that it’s a comfortable setting. When you walk in, there’s no one there beating you down to buy something or forcing you to do anything other than browse. “My word of advice would be to buy something that’s multifunctional, something you can use as something else down the line,” Daniel says. “Never buy anything you don’t absolutely love.”
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oost occupies two storefronts at the corner of Clark and Olive in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago. Although still fairly new, the shop has already gone through a great deal of change. Originally a single storefront located one door down from the corner, owner Daniel Malone took over the space next door just under a year after opening. The building itself isn’t the only thing that been through many changes. Daniel says that the everything within the store changes weekly. “I’m always getting in new pieces. The store will probably look completely different next week than it did this week.” Daniel says that the sources he uses for Roost pieces range from estate sales, large antique warehouses and flea markets to individuals who pull up in front by the shop weekly with things for him to go through. “I want to continutally change the store,” Daniel continues. “In the
spring we’d like to morph things a little bit — have more substantial pieces of furniture, a little heavier into modern — not to say we’re going to scrap what the store is now. It’ll still have the same appeal. More upholstered pieces and also more custom pieces and light fixtures from found objects.” Additionally, Roost also carries t-shirts designed by Andrew Brant, an artist who also helped Daniel design the large mosaic art piece behind the cashwrap as well as the store’s logo. Daniel and Roost’s moto is simple: reclaiming the home. Whether you’re looking for more rustic pieces to recreate memories from your past or to put together something completely new and different, Roost can definitely help you achieve that with a vintage flair. Next time you’re in the neighborhood, definitely check out Roost. You’ll be glad you did!
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have lived in a studio apartment for most of my adult life. Aside from the occasional stint in two-bedrooms with the random lesbian, it’s mostly been my destiny to live in an apartment just a little too small for my liking. To that end, I have mostly mastered the art of maximizing space and doing it with a little added flair. I’ve put together a little list of tips and tricks of the trade to getting the most out of your studio apartment while still living the hip and trendy urban life you moved to the big city for.
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The most important part of getting the most use out of your small space is realizing that you live in a studio apartment. Your space is just never going to be a one-bedroom and you just don’t have the luxery of being a hoarder. Go through your stuff and get rid of things you don’t absolutely need. Clutter is going to be the first thing you and others see when you walk through that studio door, so make sure you keep it to a minimum.
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Hang Your walls might not be as big as the walls in other apartments, but the one thing that they have in common is that they’re there. So use them. Hang up your pictures. Hang up your art. Hang up your shelves, your clocks. Hell, hang up your cat if it’ll get him off your much-needed floorspace. Because we’re going for cool design, be sure you think about how you arrange everything you’re hanging up — do it creatively.
Display Hey, it’s a studio. Nine times out of ten, all your business is going to be right out there in the open. I intially felt like Carrie in “Sex and the City” with my walk-through-to-get-to-the-bathroom closet, but that quickly wore off. Without a door, my clothes, dirty or otherwise, are out there for every guest to see. An easy remedy for this problem is to make it at least look pretty. Wooden hangers create a more up-scale look. Books can also create interest if they’re arranged in an interesting way and kitchen utensils look better out of the drawers anyway.
Reuse Chances are, if you’re living in a studio apartment, you probably can’t afford art by your favorite artist or designer. But that doesn’t mean you have to do without visual interest in your living space. In my apartment I have a large bulletin board filled with pictures and concepts that I’ve cut out of magazines. I’ve also amassed quite a collection of larger-scale posters throughout my retail career so I’ve put them to use throughout my studio.
Store A huge issue with any apartment, big or small, is storage. Unless you’re lucky enough to live in a building with basement storage, you’re gonna have to get a little creative. Get seating that doubles as as a place to keep your stuff. Make use of all the space under your bed, under your sink and behind that chair. Shelves are also handy for utilizing wallspace to store and organize your things — just find cool looking storage containers.
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Clean Nobody likes housework, but look on the bright side — smaller apartment means less cleaning. If clutter shows in a tiny apartment, then dirt and dust are the icing on that crap cake. So do your best Mommie Dearest and clean up after yourself. Break out the rubber gloves, do the dishes, wash your clothes, sweep that floor and maybe light a candle while you’re at it. Create Just like any space, it is what you make it. No, you might not have all the room that other apartments have, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create a great space. What’s great about a smaller space is that you have to do less to make things look cohesive. Pick a look and go with it. Use complimentary colors, follow a theme throughout your area and really try to get the most out of everything you’ve chosen to surround yourself with. It’s where you spend the majority of your time, why not enjoy it?
“It’s where you spend the majority of your time, why not enjoy it?”
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MOD MEN M
ichael Sinkula and Jacob Alderson had been together a little over a month before they moved in together. A bold move for any couple to be sure, but if the rest of their relationship is anything like their similar design taste, bold is better. Upon entering their open-concept, contemporary condo, the first thing that strikes you are the floor-to-ceiling windows — a staple feature of Burnham Point, the complex that Jacob also happens to manage. Although they’ve been in their place for just over nine months after moving from another building Jacob managed, you definitely get the feeling they’ve been there for much longer. “I like clean and simple lines but I still want things to be comfortable and feel ‘homey,’” Mike says. “I would say I’ve been [decorating] from a very young age — moving furniture around in my bedroom,” says Mike. “I always wanted things to look new and exciting. Do you remember that teal carpeting? That was in sixth grade. My
parents were remodeling a couple rooms in our house and they let me choose the carpeting I wanted and all the rest kinda came out of that. Teal was very cool back then. Everything was teal. When I was eighteen or nineteen and in college is when I first really started to figure out that I liked things to have really straight, clean, simple lines.” Jacob shares a similar experience. “Growing up, it was just me and my mom. We’d always be moving the furniture around in different ways. In college, my dorm room was very simplistic. I hate clutter. Most of the things in my first apartment were hand-me-downs, but I would always clean them up and update them how I liked. I remember the first couch I ever bought was very simple in design but it had these thick, bold navy blue stripes. I like to decorate like that. — mostly simplistic with one thing that stands out.” The one thing that stands out in their space is their use of more intense yet muted colors. Mike says that his color choices have changed over the years with trends and maturity. “I still like to use bold colors but what I like now are colors found in nature. Deep purples, greens.” Jacob agrees, “The first time I was able to paint the apartment I lived in, my bedroom walls were navy blue.” Currently, their bedroom walls are talc with a darker sky blue accent wall.” Jacob and Mike’s apartment is mostly comprised of dark woods and a contemporary look with punches of interest shown through funky accessories and plants. Their dining table is a modern mohogany colored fixture with straight lines and angles and works as an interesting companion piece to their living area sofa with it’s similar straight lines. An over-sized bookcase lines one wall with unique accessories and books displayed in stacks. Not needing their balcony at the moment because of the Chicago winter, their TV sits on it’s stand in the corner of the room at an angle parallel with the sofa. I ask if either of them has had to compromise their tastes to suit the other and they agreed that it’s never been an issue for them. “We have such similar tastes. Sure, we’ve had discussions about color or layout — things like that, but
never really an disagreements. Our basic design concepts are very similar so it’s been very easy,” Mike comments. When I ask them what their influences in decorating and design are, they agree that HGTV is nearly always on in their house. TV shows like ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters,” restaurants, online shopping and even retail store displays also pose as inspiration for these two. “I also just like what I like,” Jacob says. “If I like something, I’ll buy it and figure out how to make it work.” The night ends with me asking the couple who they ultimately decorate for — themselves or others. Both agree that they design 75% for themselves and 25% for other people. Michael says, “We do it mostly for ourselves because we’re the ones that live in it. But when you’re happy with the way things look, you like to share it.”
“I always wanted things to look new and exciting. Do you remember that teal carpeting?” –Michael Sinkula
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