Name: Meghan Kilgallen, Shawn Spreng and Khalil the cat
Location: San Francisco, CA
Size: 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom
Years lived in: Shawn: 12 years, Meghan: 3.5 years
>> Enter Slideshow
It was love at first sight when one of our favorite San Francisco couples, Meghan and Shawn, met at a crazy New Year's Eve party/show back in 2002. Since then, their life together has blossomed: they shacked up 3 1/2 years ago and got married last July. With that said, we're happy to present a house tour of these lovely people's equally lovely home. For those of you wondering how a young San Francisco couple (besides the super wealthy) can rent such a large place for themselves, it's called rent control -- Shawn and his cat Khalil have been tenants for the past 12 years! But aside from the apartment's spaciousness, it's what they've done with the spot that's really worth noting. While their home is still a work in progress, we like the looks of it so far.
Meghan, formerly the Visual Manager at Anthropologie (She's the one who designed those beautiful and inspiring window and store displays from 1998-2007) is currently studying industrial design at San Francisco State. Her strong knowledge and sense of decor has come in handy in decorating the couple's apartment. And Shawn, a geologic engineer, also has a fair say in the style of the house. Not only are a few of his favorite rock finds displayed throughout the house, but he collaborates with Meghan on many home design decisions. In fact, he insisted on the kitchen's bright orange hue! We think it was a good choice. We also give big nods to their various vintage finds, meticulously arranged collections, and playful and varied artwork and posters.
AT Survey:
My/Our Style: Our style is an eclectic mix of modern versus vintage and found objects. Our home has a warm cozy feeling with splashes of color.
Inspiration: We get our inspiration from junk yard/ thrift store finds to sleek mid-century designs.
Favorite Element: The house has great character - from the beautifully hand crafted built-ins in our living room to the molding details throughout our home.
Biggest Challenge: The biggest challenge to decorating any home that you share with your loved one is combing each other’s style and personal belongings. I moved into the house after Shawn had been there for 9 years, so there was definitely a lot of purging and compromising to make the house feel like it was ‘ours’.
Also painting the large surfaces, ceiling and molding can test anyone’s patience.
What Friends Say: Usually our friends first comment on how much space we have in the apartment. Then the orange kitchen is always a conversation starter for sure. I think our friends appreciate the colors we’ve chosen to paint each room, instead of opting for white walls.
Biggest Embarrassment: We have the smallest toilet closet in the city !!!!!
Proudest DIY: Shawn and I built five floating shelves in our living room between the fire place and the bay window. Also, Shawn built a giant flower box out of a found futon frame that he’s pretty proud of.
Biggest Indulgence: Maybe our ...? not sure about this one! We’re pretty cheap and thrifty so nothing too expensive is bought.
Best Advice: “When in doubt color out” and just buy what you love, it will works itself out later.
Dream Source: Great thrift stores along a road trip anywhere.
Resources:
Furniture: 60’s floral print chair and White kitchen chairs from Ikea. The brown suede chair is from Anthropologie. Everything else is pretty much thrift store or garage sale finds.
Lighting: Ikea, Anthropologie, thrift store and Grandmother’s chandelier.
Rugs: All rugs were from Ikea.
Window Treatments: The fabric was bought either from Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and Ikea.
Beds: Bed Linen is Jonathan Adler.
Artwork: Art work is either from thrift stores, friend’s art work and our vintage maps are from thrift stores.
Paint: Not sure of the names of the colors we’ve chosen. The green hallway and our orange ceiling in the office we mixed up ourselves the rest was from a Discount Builders Supply, here in San Francisco.
(Thanks, Meghan and Shawn!)
Find Your Style: 20 Classic to Contemporary Kitchens to Add to Your Inspiration Board
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Shaw's Original Fir...
How To Make Perfect Bacon in the Oven
How To Cook Tender, Chewy Wheat Berries on the Stovetop
I have seen a lot of house tours, but this one hits me with a completely different feel. Peaceful, crisp and unpretentious.
You have a beautiful habitat.
Man, you weren't kidding about the "spacious" part. And in an expensive city, no less.
I just love this space! It makes me so sad that I have to live in a white box of rented, un-paintable walls!
i am so intensely jealous.
I don't normally comment on house tours, but your home is too lovely not to. This seems to fit right in with my personal style. Thanks for sharing!
Love this apartment so much! It has such a happy, harmonious vibe.
PS. Khalil is adorabuls.
I'm really into the white walls, brightly colored above-moulding/ceiling look. It's so striking but doesn't smack you right in the face -- I noticed the vibrancy of the space immediately but it took me a few seconds to notice where, exactly the color was coming from. Love how the rooms and colors flow together so naturally. Congrats on such a fantastic home.
I LOVE the painted ceilings and the super-high dado rail. Just perfect. And very inspirational!
The architectural details are amazing but I especially love all the moulding and details around the "fire"place. Just gorgeous!
What color did you use to get that green color in the hallway?
Fantastic place! Love all the colors used here. The green used in the hallway is dreamy. By the way, your kitty is adorable.
adorable home
What a wonderful space! I love all the color and personality. Such a happy and inspiring place to call home.
perfect. I love those rambling Victorian flats; makes me miss San Francisco.
Nice, but I would expect more from the visual manager of Anthropologie. It's a pleasant space but she needs to add more of the creativity she used in the stores!
What a bummer! I was gonna ask what the green and orange colors were! Can you mix me up some? You should start your own paint line. I'm not usually an orange wall fan, but it's so vibrant and happy in your room! And green is my favorite color and that particular color is so light without being too bright. Ah, you have a happy home.
Fantastic!!! I'm in love with all the color!
By chance the tenants or blogger read these comments...what neighborhood is this in? My guess is Alamo Square, but my husband guesses the Haight. Please, do tell!
love the paint colors and those maps! its light and airy yet very homey and cozy. love it!
If this wasn't in the color contest I'm wondering why not. Love this apartment. Adorable shower curtain!
bmb: The house is on the border of Lower Haight and Hayes Valley.
Love the home you both created. It has a good balance of old and new. Thanks for sharing!
This is the best house tour I've seen in a very long time! I absolutely love your style and use of color. Thanks so much for the tour!
Absolutely beautiful apartment painted in all the right colors for San Francisco. Excellent, inspirational job.
Impressive.
Great colors and beautiful apartment... but how many rooms can you put a single chair and sidetable in the corner? They are well composed but everything seems pushed as far apart as possible. But I guess what are you going to do with 3 bedrooms for 2 people?
Ahhh, nothing like a good juicy (literally and figuratively) house tour to start the day.
One of the things I love about these house tours is the fact that different regions have their popular style of housing stock and how people choose to highlight and decorate within the features of that particular style.
SF is obviously full of these types of Victorian flats so it's really neat to see how someone can make one pop and stand out from all the rest while maintaining it's defining characteristics. There was one comment which stated they were expecting "more". I think in this case, where the space is so chopped up, with narrow hallways and lots of intricate moulding and wainscoting that less is actually more.
Is this one of those super affordable rental treasures found back in the day or is it owned?
Great job!
Great house tour.
I love everything about this place. The murano glass lamps, the perfect shade of blue in the bedroom, the cheery orange kitchen and Khalil is as cute as his name. Thanks for sharing.
Sweet Holy Mother of Jesus, this is so beautiful. I now want to paint my apartment mango. Geez, right after the office was painted grey.
See, engineers aren't all boring!
Signed, geotechnical engineer
I think I'm more inspired by your house tour than any other one I've seen. You've captured exactly the feel I strive for in my work-in-progress apartment. Your apartment is colorful yet grown-up, nicely styled yet so obviously lived in. I've been looking for something big but not overwhelming or expensive to go over our desk, and I'm going to go out TODAY to try to find a big old classroom map like yours. I love it.
Also, I need your shower curtain like a fish needs water. Where's it from? Share, pretty please!
This place is very inspiring - makes me want to paint my rental (after swearing I would never do that again). You two have a lovely home. I wish I had 1/10 of the "creative" vision that you two seem to have. Lovely, lovely, lovely...
Congratulations from Madrid (Spain)! It,s lovely...I ,m not so creative, the colors, it,s beautiful and has a lot of light, bright! Muy bonita.
HooteNanny: The shower curtain is by Marimekko and is called the Kaiku Shower Curtain. We blogged about it here: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/tubs-toilets-showers-sinks/marimekkos-kaiku-shower-curtain-017156
This has to be the MOST BEAUTIFUL house tour I've seen on Apartment Therapy. I love the colors and how everything flows. My FAVORITE are the pendant lights. I've been window shopping for some pendant lights for 3 months now and still have not made up my mind.
You have a beautiful home; thanks for sharing with us.
Nice colors. Lovely feel to the whole place. Some really charming items. Thanks for sharing.
lovely!
Fantastic! Love, love the painted ceilings, what a great idea, of course most of us don't have your wonderful ones. The colors are grreat, also love your kitty.
You are an inspiration!
not my personal style, but it's cohesive.
lovely apartment! i am dying to know more about the map hanging in the hallway (on the green painted wall). i have been dying to find something vintagey looking and i love how this is rolled. where can i get one?
i'm in love! that kitchen is absolutely amazing. everything about this house is amazing!
Just love the way, everyone is fawning over this place. Some how I am seeing how being nice about something lacks the critical eye we need to make anything better or learn how to improve our design skills and tastes.
With all due respect for the effort and work done in this place and I do not like to rate things on a scale of anything, since when it comes to one's home, it is personal taste and justified, I cringe at the feckless manner posts here reflect a cowering attempt to not insult.
Are there any critical eyes out there. We need more objective criticism without blatant cruelty.
The colors are interesting, if somewhat unbalanced (the orange could be creamier). Nice things... but "vignettes" are tricky, aren't they? I have trouble with that myself.
Wow, gorgeous, my walls are still white and this is beautiful inspiration!
I need that shower curtain like I need another pair of shoes....and I do need another pair of shoes :-D.
I am just drooling all over myself. I'm going to be able to use these images to be zen calm all day. And I can't wait to show them to my husband. There are too many excellent decisions here to enumerate, though previous commenters have done well! So I'll just say... I've never seen a file cabinet look so good. In the context it is in, it is actually comforting.
Also, I love the distressed couch with the big midcentury one. The big one is seducing me to lay down and nap, in the hope that the cat will curl up with me.
Ah, so nice to see colour. It feels fun and playful but in a grownup way. I love it! Great hallway.
That kitchen is my all-time favorite! Great experimentation with color.
This perfect blend of color and style is what I would like to think my apt would look like if I had more room, more light...and more money due to rent control!
I find myself returning to this post more than any of the others...and I'm an apartmenttherapy.com junkie. Gorgeous. Great job you two!
Where is that shower curtain from? Its amazing.
Love the orange painted ceilings - very fresh looking! Great job!
does anyone know where I can find a small table like the one in their kitchen?
OMG, we just painted our kitchen the exact same color (mine is mardi-gras gold form Benjamin Moore), and we have touches of the same kind of green tone in the living room (painted an Ikea Bekvam stool with BM's Douglas Fir)
here is our kitchen before / right after we painted it (lots of additional touches missing still...)
http://groovinthecouv.blogspot.com/2009/06/kitchen-confidential.html
Nice to see someone else who enjoys having sunshine for breakfast, whether it rains or shine outside !
the rest of your apartment is really lovely !
I LOVE the yellow-orangy egg-yolky color of this kitchen.
Specifically I love the way the hue changes from a yellow to an orange feel based on the lighting. This is something fairly unique.
I've been researching colors to try to find something like this for my own kitchen for more than a year now--pretty precisely. I'd LOVE to be able to nail this down.
Meghan or Shawn, I've found that Discount Builder's Supply in SF is a Glidden dealer, so I'm guessing that this is likely something from the Glidden line. Could you please check to find what paint color this is? Do you have an account there that you can check? Do you have any old paint cans in the closet or in storage? Could you get me a chip you have laying around? I'll be glad to reimburse postage!
The problem is, Glidden massively "simplified" its paint portfolio between the time your pictures were taken and now, taking it down from thousands or colors to 282. While any older color can still be mixed, you can't find any chips or references for any of their older colors to know what they look like.
The closest thing I can find is a color called "spring squash" that they make now. ( http://blstb.msn.com/i/DD/A66F7EEDAA1469D97BF1E4D8CFAF0.jpg ), ( http://farm1.static.flickr.com/39/87406527_2de359afac_m.jpg ). Note that in the painted kitchen picture in the link, it seems to be a nighttime photo with only interior lighting, while the Meghan/Shawn kitchen has bright daylight shining in, giving it a brighter yellow look.
Can you please look up any of this to help me? Clearly from the comments a lot of people love this color, and would like to know what it is. Thanks for any further help you can provide!