Adam’s Art and Antique-filled Apartment

Name: Adam Bechtold
Location: Vienna, Virginia

My fiancée Cate and I live in a quiet town about 15 minutes outside of Washington, DC, where I am an antique and art dealer. Our apartment, which we’ve rented for the past three years, has an amazing location in the heart of town. We can walk to Whole Foods, the local pizza parlor, Chinese place, sushi spot, Mexican restaurant, gym, local watering hole, post office, etc. Our apartment is on the top floor with great big windows that look out over the town park and main rain road that runs all the way into DC. It will be hard to leave someday!

I would say my style is simple, relaxed, and natural. I don’t like crazy over the top furniture or art. I like calming neutral colors (white, tans, and grays) and bring color in through our extensive art collection and objects displayed through out our apartment. Being in the antique and art business (I sell at the Old Lucketts Store in Leesburg, VA) I come across amazing furniture, artwork, and objects on a daily basis. It’s hard not to keep all of it! But when I do keep a piece I want it to be classic, timeless, and most importantly, cool!

The living/dining area houses some of my favorite pieces. The airplane propeller over the bar is off a WWII sea plane. It measures almost 9 feet long. It’s quite a statement piece and always get a ‘wow!’ from visitors. The bar is from IKEA and houses my ever growing indoor plant addiction. Another one of my favorite pieces is the fossilized turtle shell sitting on the bar. Our dining room table was custom built by a master craftsman in Southwest Virginia. He used reclaimed barn planks from a West Virginia Barn to construct our table. There’s not a single nail in it; it’s all held together with square pegs in round holes. It’s something we will keep for the rest of our lives.

The chairs around the table are from Restoration Hardware. Above the white linen couch from Crate & Barrel I assembled a grouping of some of my favorite artworks I’ve collected over the years. All original (no prints!) which is very important to me. In the entryway I have a 19th Century table with a collection of books and art. The African war club is early 20th Century Congo. I bought that at one of my favorite shops in Middleburg, Virginia, The Outpost. The walls in the living/dining area are Latte by Restoration Hardware and the entryway is Decorator White by Benjamin Moore.

The bedroom was a long work in progress and just recently finished this past summer. The walls are painted in Benjamin Moore’s Pebble Beach. The night stands and dresser are from IKEA. The blue cord lamps are from Crate & Barrel. The large photograph over the bed is ‘Splash’ by Max Wanger. I found the original 1980 Picasso poster at an estate sale, it’s one of my favorite pieces of art.

The accordion sconce lamp is from West Elm and the stools are both antiques found at auction. Not pictured in the photos I attached, I have a weathered pine table underneath our double windows. The table houses an orchid and other plants, along with a huge chunk of white coral and a tiny shark jaw. On the bottom shelf of the table is where I store my collection of home magazines along with some other objects from the sea.

I have many more objects and pieces of art that I couldn’t fit in all the pictures that are near and dear to me. While Cate and I are looking forward to moving into a house someday soon, this apartment will always have sentimental value to us. And the location will be hard to give up!

Thanks, Adam!

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