At home: Creative couple makes most of small space with clever custom pieces
By: Karen Palmer
Special to The Examiner
February 6, 2009
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| Erin Feher and Danny Montoya (Mike Koozmin/Special to The Examiner) |
SAN FRANCISCO — Many a young couple will look to the usual suspects — Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel — to furnish their apartments, but when it came time for Erin Feher and her boyfriend Danny Montoya to outfit their Civic Center one-bedroom, they tried to do the exact opposite.
“I admire the way that designers can customize things to make them look unique,” Feher, no stranger to interior and home design through her job as an associate editor for California Home + Design magazine, explains.
Flipping through a recent issue, she points to one of the magazine’s 2009 award-
winners, interior designer Charles de Lisle, for inspiration. “He doesn’t want anything to be recognizable and takes pieces and makes them his own, by using textured fabrics on midcentury furniture, for instance.”
The couple took that philosophy of making things their own and applied it to several of the pieces in their apartment, such as a kitchen table from the Salvation Army whose chairs Feher later covered with fabric from Mission Discount Fabric, or an IKEA bookshelf that was spruced up with black-and-white patterned wallpaper.
Montoya, a kindergarten teacher at the Hamlin School by day and DJ who spins at Swig and the Rickshaw by night, stripped and repainted an eye-catching pink locker in the front hallway.
It’s clear that the apartment was a collaboration between both parties: Montoya’s handiwork can be seen in the shelves that he built to hold his DJ equipment and vinyl collection, which numbers in the thousands, and a swivel he built for the couple’s flat-screen TV (which allows them to watch from the living room or the bedroom).
Meanwhile, Feher’s eye for pattern and color shine through in both the pillows she had custom-made for the couch and bed, and in her ability to take a piece and transform it into something completely different, such as a tapestry from Urban Outfitters that became a stylish shower curtain.
Artwork reflects the couple’s shared passions, such as a wall covered in images of bikes from postcards and torn from books.
With just 500 square feet to work with, Feher and Montoya have created a home that’s at once chic, comfortable and personal.
Feher says, “We were drawn to this building because it’s historic, from 1908, and has such beautiful masonry and unexpected interiors. Our place may be small, but it doesn’t feel small.”
Style keys
Design aesthetic: DIY chic
Design highlights: Using pattern and color to add interest and individuality, clean lines with a twist, creative storage spaces, adding wallpaper, paint and fabrics to make pieces new and interesting
Favorite local design stores: X21, The Other Shop, Propeller, Monument, the Alameda Flea Market
Prized possessions: “I’d have to say the kitchen table, because it’s been with me for so long. It’s important to me that we sit and eat together, and we often host brunches and dinners for our friends.” — Feher
Favorite design publications: “I loved Domino. I’m actually more of a blog reader; I really like Apartment Therapy and SF Girl By the Bay.” — Feher
