Name: Nick Wafle, Grad Student, University of Washington
Location: Capitol Hill – Seattle, Washington
Size: 900 square feet
Years lived in: 2 years
Kudos to Nick for not letting the meager budget of a student get in the way of living in a stylish and comfortable apartment. After seeing a few photos of the space, you realize that his home fits him perfectly, and you can definitely see the East Coast inspiration throughout.
I love Nick's style so much and had to know how he found his home. In his own words...
I found my apartment building on Craigslist on the day I got a call from the admissions officer at the University of Washington to let me know that I had gotten into grad school in Seattle. It was in the perfect location on the edge of Capitol Hill, had just the right amount of scruffy charm and featured a handsome gardener on Google Street View tending the beds. I was living in DC at the time and had been to Seattle only once, for my interview. Fast forward to summer 2010, when I flew out to the city to apartment hunt and discovered that the building I had found online back in the spring was managed by a recent grad from my program at school. Several other students and the admissions officer lived there too! I was really lucky, as the building manager held one of the best apartments in the building for me until I arrived in August for school.I moved into my apartment without ever having seen it. Once I was there I knew that it was worth dealing with the uncertainty. My place is on the top floor, in the front of the building, faces south and has tons of light (even for Seattle). The rooms are all nicely proportioned and flow well. I've had several homes in DC that were basically shotguns with one room off the next, but in my Seattle apartment the foyer, kitchen, dining room and living room connect in a circle.
I had all of my things shipped from the East Coast, which took two months. While I waited, I hunted Seattle's antique, consignment and thrift stores for some missing pieces, like the dining table. I also painted and made the leap of faith that a black ceiling in the dining room would somehow work. That fall I was dating someone who was the head of store design at Starbucks and had come from Ralph Lauren. When my East Coast stuff arrived, having his expertise on hand helped me to arrange and install it all within a few days. He also introduced me to the artist Alfred Harris, and I now have three of his paintings in my home.
This apartment has been emblematic of my transition to Seattle. It's a very idyllic and relaxed place where I feel immediately at home. I spend most of my time in the dining room alternately studying and looking out the large windows across the treetops at the ever-changing clouds and sky. The space is often bathed in a soft light and I always leave my blinds pulled all the way up.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: Eclectic prep.
Inspiration: David Hicks's mixture of antiques and Mid-Century art/furniture.
Favorite Element: Grandmother's hand-me-downs, especially the living room rug.
Biggest Challenge: Shipping all of my things from the East Coast to a space I'd nnever seen and hoping it would all fit together on a minimal budget.
What Friends Say: "What a classic Seattle apartment." or "You should have people over more often."
Biggest Embarrassment: The bathroom (not pictured)
Proudest DIY: Salvaging the original dining room light fixture when the apartment next door was 'renovated'
Biggest Indulgence: As a grad student, shipping out all of my old things form Washington, D.C. and renting a large apartment for myself seemed extravagant, but I knew that I was going to spending lots of time at home studying. I also wanted to feel comfortable in my new city.
Best Advice: Paint (even if you loose part of your deposit like I did).
Dream Sources: Good Wood (Washington, D.C.), Kirk Albert (Seattle), Galerie Half (Los Angeles)
Resources of Note:
HARDWARE
- Vintage brass switchplates from the ReStore in Ballard, Seattle
FURNITURE
- Desk, shelves, bed, dining table from West Elm
- Safari chair in office from Millennium in Washington, D.C.
- All other pieces are hand-me-downs from my grandmother
LIGHTING
- Vintage lamps in living room from GoodWood in Washington, D.C.
- Vintage anchor lamp in foyer from Brimfield in Chicago
PAINT
- Living Room and Dining Room: Benjamin Moore Clarksville Gray
- Foyer and Dining Room Ceiling: Ben Moore Almost Black
RUGS & CARPET
- Diamond pattern rugs in bedroom and foyer from Dash & Albert
ARTWORK
- Over couch: Feud by Seattle artist Alfred Harris
- All others vintage
Thanks, Nick!
(Images: Charles Ramsey)
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Grad school looks a great deal more comfortable than it did when I was in the midst of it! Nice job. I was hoping, however, to get a glimpse of that black ceiling in the dining room!
Love it, it looks lived in comfy.
Everything fits perfect, one of my fav tours!
Why is the painting upside down in the hall behind you?
what a happy story - that you found a place that makes you happy and rightfully trusted you could make your stuff work in it without having seen the place before move-in. :)
the rooms flow together nicely, but your consistent and cool style throughout really helps make the space what it is - great!
i would appreciate hearing how that "feud" painting is framed. i can see a reflection of glass and a couple dark spots that look like clips holding the glass and painting together, but can't see a traditional frame around the entire painting. would love to find something like that for art that i need framed. could you help, please? and thanks.
and best wishes on grad school.
kathy
Love the decor, love the apartment, and especially love the anchor sconce in the first image.
The recent Seattle house tours have confirmed something I've long suspected: there really are only three basic layouts for Seattle apartments built before 1940. I guess when we find something we like, we stick to it.
love
Nick is a cutie pie. The apartment's pretty great too.
Stunning home - great job! I especially like the little entryway corner, and am now inspired to
go ahead and put bookcases in my dining room.
It's a very lovely apartment, but calling this "Grad School Digs" reminds me a bit of a faculty member whose advice to me was that "of course you MUST get a place in the South of France for the summer to study for your comps." Great if you can do it, but some of us are slinging coffee all summer just to pay the rent on a shared apartment and could never dream of shrugging off part of the deposit in order to paint. Taking nothing away from the place or it's dapper occupant, but would like to remind the editors that not everybody's "meager budget of a student" is backstopped the same way.
Love the apartment. I, too, am wondering about the upside-down painting in the hallway.
Beautiful apartment!! But I agree that not all grad students can live so luxuriously. When I was in grad school, I lived in a dark, tiny efficiency with wood paneling.
what exquisite taste and LOL at checking out the gardner on google streetview
i too lived in a dump in grad school, but it seems like maybe Nick worked for a while in DC and saved up so not as to live in a hovel.
Elegant home, fit for a King. This apartment is pure romance. A living work of art, I can imagine myself here on a rainy day. The details are divine.
This makes me want to have grad school apartment wars! Ours is quite different, and is a student housing apartment (meaning 500sf, not 900), but it's no less awesome.
WOW! Very stylish digs....hard to believe this is a students home...it looks more like the home of a design professional...very warm and comfortable and welcoming! CONGRATS on a well done space!
Wow, what a wonderful job there Nick. BTW, live on Capitol Hill myself so know that area well.
While not to my tastes (a tad too traditional), it's well done and fits this area well.
And he's a cutie pie himself, and had to chuckle when he was eying the cute gardener via Google Street View when he was finding the place.
In any event, good work and from someone who knows you can, if you save up and buy what you need when you have the funds, you, too can build up a much nicer place than your budget may indicate, and I suspect that's exactly what he did here. A lot of it as he said, were hand me downs, stuff he's bought used etc, probably $100 here, $25, there, $50 a few months later, and over time, say, a couple of years or more, you, too can have a very nice place on a very, very limited budget.
Again, a good job well done.
Let's hear it for grandmother's hand-me-downs! We have amazing furniture from my in-laws' stint in Brazil circa 1920 that we could never afford to buy in a hundred years. My hand-me-down living room rug could be best friends with yours... Beautiful place!
See you at Marjorie's!
A 900 square foot apartment in Cap Hill is not exactly going to fit a "meager" budget.
Pretty awesome. This grad student has serious envy ;) I really dig all of it except.... one thing... I don't quite get the couch?
MMM, the dining area...great feel!..
At first I didn't see the little half-wall in the first photo and was wondering how the heck he was standing like that
Really nice! And to think when I was in grad school I thought I was living large because I bought myself a new futon mattress for a bed I'd made from 4x4s and plywood...
Great, great job!
Wow, just wow. What a great eye and terrific instincts. Nick should go into design professionally. Not sure he needs grad school! Congrats!
Fantastic, Nick! Miss you here in DC!! Your long lost friend...BZ!
i love the salvaged light fixture in the dining room! that's my favorite thing :)
Speaking as someone who went back to grad school after working for a few years, please don't let people guilt you into feeling unworthy of your lovely home. You earned this comfort and style. You've collected things, inherited others, and learned enough in your previous abodes to put this lovely place together. Enjoy it and charming Capitol Hill.
Wishing you all the best for a great experience in this other Washington.
Beautiful wood. And your art collection.
As a Bombay-ite, I envy your apartment for space and light. Specially where that study table is- what a view!
Very chic.
Am I the only one who had the impression Nick was doing a demi-plié rather than sitting down?
Very chich apartment.
Sorry, but as the original person to mention that maybe the "grad school digs" idea was a little disingenuously applied here, neither I nor any of the subsequent grad students and former grad students were trying to guilt the guy at all.
It's a problem when media conflate MBA students taking a break from lucrative careers to make their career prospects even more lucrative and the few students whose families can completely support them in high style with the vast majority of grad-students, who are usually folks who are genuinely scratching to live on less than what a lot of people have as a car payment in order to pursue a career they're truly passionate about. Some of us do make an effort to live as richly as we can, but as someone who has negotiated hard-fought collective bargaining agreements for unionized grad-student teachers and tas, we have to fight really hard against a public perception that we'd all be fine if we just stopped spending 20 bucks a day at Starbucks and made our own coffee in our bo-bo palaces, so it was the editorial tone of the piece with which I had (I thought a very mild and politely stated) an issue.
Just beautiful! Though I'm not a grad student anymore, I've just finished repaying my student debt, which means I've subsisted on a comparable meager income. I've struggled with creating a beautiful, character-filled home on a shoestring.
Your apartment is an incredible inspiration -- I live in a similar style apartment (a pre-war 4-storey walk-up in a beautiful, historied Toronto neighbourhood) and I have no problem admitting that my future design choices are going to echo yours. I love the hommage you've paid to the original character of the place, while also weaving so much of your own style and personality into the decor.
I'm about to embark on step 1 of my apartment re-beautification: painting! Security deposit be damned!
Thank you for opening your home to AT readers and good luck with the rest of your studies!
It's too late for me, but I wish everyone else as generous and well-appointed a grandmother as Nick.
delightful
My first apt in grad school was a well-appointed 325 sf studio, but it was in a condo bldg full of loud, disruptive and frequently felonious undergrads. Also the worst rental agent in history, a real pill. I moved after six months into a true dive, the top floor of a small house in a scruffy working-class neighborhood right down the street from where Hootie & the Blowfish filmed their first video. Gritty but much quieter. What are you studying, Nick? I got my MLIS in library science.
That's the truth. We recently moved from Cap Hil after tiring of paying $1100 for 500 square feet.
Also, AT - Why doesn't a "reply" to another commenter show indented below the original comment? Having it show at the bottom of the feed makes a reply feature useless.
I love how, in the first photo, it appears as if the owner is about to launch himself into a self-congratulatory heel-click! I would too if I had curated all of those lovely treasures! Bravo!
Totally awesome. Wish I could see the black ceiling! Is it the same as the photo next to the front door (which appears very dark gray)? 'Cause that's really beautiful, with those antique brass accent pieces!
Great place! Not to mention....hubba hubba. :):)
Really smart color choices throughout. Even that teal leather sofa looks great. Wish we had seen more pics of kitchen and even the ugly bathroom.
The only poor thing going on here was the word choice of the writer, not the budget of the owner. I wish the entire issues of meager grad student was left out of the theme of this post. Being able to ship and entire apartment's worth of furniture, living solo in a 900 sq foot apartment, and owning pieces from Brimfield in Andersonville and Dash and Albert rugs does not equal meager. It is a lovely space, just not a meager situation.
I was really impressed by this home tour’s space use of vintage furniture, hand me downs and simply very inspired thoughts about personal living space. I also agree with Nick that investing in paint can quickly transform a room. Great Job!
hi Nick,
you two did a great job with the apt and it's very organized and clean no distractions, I hope you'll do well in your studies the environment you're in will help you I am sure :-) take care and good luck!
Great apartment though Im not loving that couch. I'd like to point out that not EVERY gay man is good looking,well off or has incredible taste! Some of us(a lot) are pudgy,aging badly and poor! :-)
Lovely choice of paint colours and beautifully styled but I'm sadly distracted by that couch. I think it's both the most eye-catching and unfortunately, by far the least attractive item in the house. A bit of an anomaly in an otherwise gorgeous apartment.
Great place. Especially love the bedroom.
Love it.
really great, elegant, masculine and homey. lucky you, getting all those great pieces from granny. kudos to her good taste as well
So where is the handsome gardener now I wonder. Charming description and charming apartment. It reminded me of my own apartment in Portland when I was in school. A bit of returned paint from Freddy's and furniture found on the street or in my parent's basement and there you go. Good design is better then lots of money.
Nothing about this place I don't love!
I think you did a great job. Wish we actually saw the black ceiling in the dining room and yes, why DID you hang that painting in the hall upside down, I wonder...?