A Young Design Enthusiast’s Carefully Crafted Home

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Name: Zane
Location: Woodley Park — Washington, DC
The basics: 5 weeks, rented1,170 square feet

As popular CBS sitcom wisdom dictates, a building occupied by three brothers of a certain age should be a mess full of recliners and light-up beer signs. Zane’s crisp and well thought out apartment stands in direct opposition to that particular stereotype, with its muted color scheme and purposeful blend of textures.

Tell us a little (or a lot) about your home and the people who live there: Three out of four of my brothers live in a corner building in Woodley Park. It is light-flooded and has a cross-breeze. Our father is an architect and has a firm in Maryland. I grew up paging through his Architectural Digests and interiors brochures. I remember he used to leave his drawings on the island, and as a kid I used to study them excitedly.

What is your favorite room and why? I like my bedroom. It conveys my design aesthetic: spare, nostalgic, user-friendly. There’s ample light and botany and cushions, and I look out to a nice wall of foliage that shields from the row houses across the street.

If you could magically change something about your home, what would it be? I would make the kitchen open to the living space, so everyone can be together while someone’s cooking or mixing drinks. I imagine the south-facing kitchen windows would let more light spill into the living room.

What’s the last thing you bought (or found!) for your home?I purchased Linen “Ancien” Cushion Covers in the sarcelle color from TRNK.

Which fictional character would be most at home in your place? I would say Malcolm Irvine from Hanya Yanagihara’s novel ‘A Little Life.’ The character is an architect who designs a lake house for his college friends.

Zane’s words of wisdom: Select only what you need in the space. Discard or give away the rest, the clutter. Spend legitimate time doing this. Really curate. Also it seems people respond a lot more to texture and material, less to color. In creating a home, I have thought more about how things feel and react to light and temperature and less per se how they look.

Thanks, Zane!

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