Recently our content manager, M, moved out of a collective house of ten years and into a one-bedroom apartment in a 4-story complex that was built in the late 1920s.
The move meant having to acquire a range of mundane items that just about every home needs (a toaster, a broom, a soap dispenser, a shower curtain), with the decision to spend a bit of money on nicer mealtime items that would be used everyday (bowls and glasses, electric kettle, rice cooker, kitchen linen).
While we offer many small goods for home, we would hardly consider ourselves specialists. Yet over the years we have sold an admirable selection of items that can make a house a home. Here we'll show how M's style mixes Omoi's best home goods with thrift and box store finds.
A glass jug from IKEA sits next to one of our tebineri drinking glasses on a thrifted wood table. The binchotan charcoal stick filters the water and looks cool too. Both glasses rest on coasters, again one from IKEA, and the other a Fog Linen variety from the shop. Plant pots and plant stands come from sidewalk free boxes and the nearby Greensgrow garden center.
Not having much counter space in the kitchen, M decided to go for a space-saving over-the-sink dish rack and to keep minimal appliances on the counter top (the rest live on a wooden shelf just a few steps away). Here is the area after brewing up some coffee. Since introducing select coffee wares from Japanese mealtime brand KINTO to our shop, M has taken a liking to their excellent make and usability, and considers them well worth the cost. Other items come from neighborhood shops (Kitchen Kapers, Rikumo, Mariposa) and chain stores such as Target (the Bialetti kettle) and Bed Bath & Beyond (dish rack).
M recently re-listened to Marie Kondo's The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and is interested in lessening the presence of visual clutter from product packaging. Hence a MUJI dispenser bottle houses dish detergent while a Rikumo-supplied soap dish holds a fresh bar of triple milled French hand soap.
Using a tension rod, M makes some space above the efficiency oven to hang a dish towel and scouring brush.
A small collection of BAGGU totes rest in a thrifted basket next to the toaster on the kitchen rack.
The bathroom is compact, with no electrical outlets, but it also has a window that lets in natural light and this small ledge for hosting some plant friends and bath accessories, such as this fragrant cypress bath bucket. Again seeking to lessen visual clutter, M transferred lotion out of its original plastic packaging bottle to an unbranded amber apothecary bottle.
Perhaps out of all the areas of the apartment, the bathroom offers the least storage space. The medicine cabinet is quaint in size, so M decided to use the space almost like a display case for their daily-use skincare and hygiene items. A storage closet just outside the bathroom currently houses a tiered organizer with the rest of their many nail polishes, backup bottles of lotion and sunscreen, and other beauty goods. It's... a work in progress.
Moving from a shared room in a collective house to a one bedroom apartment, M experiments with how to set up their bed room, choosing to house their recently KonMari'd clothing bed-side on this wire rack. Plastic IKEA bins contain underwear, socks, and other accessories, while thrifted natural fiber baskets serve to hold extra pillows, laundry (piled high on the top shelf), and other small things. M's preference for a small laundry basket puts emphasis on doing the laundry regularly, which they acknowledge depends on what kind of clothing one most has, as well as one's ability to get to a laundromat (their old house had a washer and drier in the mudroom and their new apartment has facilities on premises). M wears a lot of dark colors.
The living room is also a work in progress, but the wealth of natural light throughout means that plants can be placed almost anywhere and still get their daily dose of sun. M likes the balance of the houseplants and electronics, and chooses to cover their TV when not in use in order to minimize the distracting presence of the screen. The hand-dyed cloth came from Snapdragon Flower shop, by a maker known as A Sensible Habit.
There's still a lot of unpacking and arranging to do, a couch to find, and a housewarming party to throw, but everything's coming together nicely. The mix of chain store, thrift store, found-for-free and boutique home goods exemplifies our own "thoughtful, useful" motto. Not everything has to be brand new, super modern, or expensive to have a proud place in a new home. Let your own style dictate how something will work in your life, and appreciate it on your own terms.
We hope you'll think of us next time you're searching for something special for home.
Katy
This was charming and better than 99% of articles on Apartment Therapy & Domino.