House Tour: Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge

It seems fitting that our very first official Shelterpop Home Tour kicks off with design blogging queen Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge. Grace pioneered the design blog trend in mid-2004 and has been dropping jaws and showcasing style ever since. We love her dedication to design, which is purely evident through her gorgeous Brooklyn apartment!

Grace was kind enough to welcome us into her digs -- virtually, of course. Here she dishes about her favorite piece (the Nama Rococo wallpaper shown above), future design plans and (gasp!) a tomato red kitchen (thanks, Grace!).
Master bedroom
"Our bedroom (right) is the room that sold us on our apartment," she says. "It's the biggest and brightest room in the apartment and gets wonderful light in the late afternoon. It's my favorite place to curl up with a good book and listen to the street noises below on 7th Avenue."

The walls are painted "Senora Gray" by Benjamin Moore (which is less gray, and more taupe) and the bedding is from John Robshaw and Pottery Barn. The zig zag rug is a Madeline Weinrib she bought on sale at ABC Home. Her dresser in the background is a vintage Danish piece from Modhaus in Massachusetts. The simple wall lights are from Williams Sonoma and really help "when we want to curl up with a book at night," she says.

Editor's note: It looks like Grace's cat loves Madeleine Weinrib almost as much as we do!

Entryway
"Our apartment is fairly tiny so our entryway (below) is a tiny nook where we can both stash a few key items (mail, coats, keys) by the door," she says.

The prints on the wall are a mix of pieces by Camilla Engman, Hammerpress and Etsy artists. The chair is a vintage McCobb piece she bought in Chicago at Scout. The branch wall hooks are from Live Wire Farm and the little white piece is a random vintage piece from Repop in Brooklyn.

Her favorite piece, the chalkboard frame, is from Blue Bell Bazaar at Etsy. "We use it for everything -- notes, to-do lists, numbers," she says. "It's a great message spot. I'm always making little changes in this space; currently I'm looking for a vintage Nelson-style slat bench to replace the chair, which our cats are currently trying to shred to bits."
Kitchen
"Our kitchen is the most recent makeover project in our home -- it started as a white room with kiwi-green accents and then one day we decided to totally overhaul it with the help of the designers at Repop in Brooklyn," she says. "They convinced us to paint the room a bold orange-red paint (Tomato Red by Benjamin Moore). I love it so much I can't stand it. It's a tiny space so it warmed it up right away and made it a fun place to hang out."

She made the pot rack herself -- "It's my favorite storage piece in the house," she says. The painting is by Jen Garrido and the knife rack is from Williams Sonoma. "I love my cooking knives so I like having them out to look at," she says. The dish strainer sits on a colorful plastic tray from Anthropologie. She tries to inject bits of color and pattern in the room wherever she can.

Zoe Pawlak's painting (shown in above right) serves as a great color-jolt for the room. She removes it when she cooks (it's just on a nail because it's so light, she says) but when she's not cooking it really brightens up the room and makes it feel more like a home and less like a "kitchen," she says.

Living Room
"Our living room doesn't get a ton of light (below left), and it's definitely the most "in-progress" room we have," she says.

One accent wall is wallpapered in Graham and Brown "Matchsticks" wallpaper from Target. "We figured we'd be ok with taking down one tiny wall of wallpaper before we leave, rather than a whole room of it," she says. The vintage glass light is an Italian piece from the 60's that she got from Repop. The TV stand is actually a vintage dresser. "It holds all of our media accessories and we pulled out the drawers to house our various gaming equipment," says Grace. "One day I hope to return it to its original use as a dresser."

This room is such a tough space to work with, she says, because it's drastically uneven (you can't see the slant here, but the whole room is on a 10 degree slant). If they stay in the apartment longer, she hopes to paint the whole room a really bright color and get a Jonathan Adler Nixon rug to brighten things up some. (The chair is an Eames piece and the vases are vintage.)

Library
The music/library room (above right) belongs mainly to her husband Aaron. It houses most of his book collection, along with a wall of guitars on the other wall.

The sofa is an Eames daybed and serves as their "guest room" when visitors stay. The shelves were there when they moved in two years ago, perfect since their book collection keeps growing. Grace hopes to brighten up the room and paint the shelves white so it feels more like the inner rooms of their railroad apartment. "It needs some help," she says.

"Our dining room (right) is a work in progress," she says. It currently contains red bamboo chairs from Williams Sonoma, a rug from Madeline Weinrib, a framed wallpaper print from Nama Rococo, a 'Grace' chandelier from Pottery Barn, and a faux-Saarinen table from Ikea.

What do you think about Grace's classic pad?

I'm a big fan of the mix of high and low price tags, along with its modern and vintage looks. Grace seems to know her style well, sticking to basics like Pottery Barn and infusing them with a few trendy textiles a la Madeleine Weinrib.

Such a beautiful home, Grace! Thank you for inviting us in! Read more from Grace at Design*Sponge, and be sure to watch out for more blogger home tours next week at Shelterpop.