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Natacha and Joshua’s Berkeley Home Full of DIY Furniture

Adrienne Breaux
Adrienne BreauxHouse Tour Director
Adrienne loves architecture, design, cats, science fiction, and watching "Star Trek." In the past 10 years she's called home: a van, a former downtown store in small town Texas, and a studio apartment rumored to have once been owned by Willie Nelson. She currently lives in her colorful, maximalist dream home in New Orleans, Louisiana, with her partner, a perfect dog, and a cute cat.
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published Apr 26, 2015
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(Image credit: Submitted by Natacha)

Name: Natacha
Location: Berkeley, California

I am a part-time designer (furniture, ceramist and interior), and I just moved in with my long-time boyfriend Joshua, who is currently studying at UC Berkeley. We met in San Francisco, while I was in school in France and when I moved back to the Bay we decided to move to Berkeley. We found this lovely small apartment right by the campus. It’s a landmark building, built in 1902 (which means it lived through tough earthquakes!) and it has a Victorian charm to it.

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(Image credit: Submitted by Natacha)

Throughout the apartment we find Victorian design (cabinets, doors, nooks, pantry…) We decided to build almost all of our furniture because we did not want to spend a lot of money on cheap furniture, but also we wanted to create “our” space, and also be able to spend some time together working on a project. So right before we moved in we built two mid-century style chairs and upholstered them (yes we learned on the go with many Youtube tutorial videos). We built the coffee table out of old maple wood from Joshua’s family.

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(Image credit: Submitted by Natacha)

All the ceramics are either made by me or my mother, and the paintings are all done by my brother. The pillows are made by myself, and the ones on the bench made by Joshua’s cousin. When we look around the house, everything was made by someone we know and love so it makes it even more precious and we love it! We keep creating and adding new things every month but after living here for five months we already feel like it is enough.

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(Image credit: Submitted by Natacha)

We believe strongly in a minimal way of living, that’s why we just have enough for the both of us, and when we want to have friends over we always have the bench by the window! Our style is pretty Californian modern, with a twist of mid-century! Ideally we would love to live in a loft right by the bay front in San Francisco, but with the prices of housing right now, Berkeley is our temporary home!

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Thanks, Natacha!

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