The Latest: 2021

Apartment Therapy’s lifestyle director Taryn Williford lives in a beautiful loft in Atlanta that over the years she has designed with a calm and comfortable touch. The loft is one of seven in a converted pickle factory, which gave the building its sweet (but briny?) name of the Pickle Factory Lofts.Taryn describes her style as Industrial Eclectic, an aesthetic that embraces her space’s former life but warms it up with cheeky tchotchkes, well-placed dramatic colors, and plants.

Carrie is a thoughtful artist whose upstate New York home reflects her personality with a combination of mid-century furnishings and whimsical decor. And while her office setup featured bold colors and playful accents like a glasses holder in the shape of a hand, that character did not extend to the walls, which were blank and bare. She wanted her workspace to have a little — make that a lot — more fun.

Open-concept living spaces are big on airiness and charm — especially when they’re awash in SoCal sunlight, like Katie and Cody’s place in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. But open layouts can also feel a bit muddled. Katie and Cody wanted to make their living area stand out from their dining area: two spaces separated by an archway that, lovely as it is, didn’t help them feel distinct. Their walls weren’t helping either.

Between work and play, Sarah spends about 90 percent of her time in the living room of her Washington, D.C., apartment. The space had been well-suited to her sophisticated style, with a gorgeous period fireplace and striking built-in bookcase, but it just didn’t feel complete — not even with an upgrade to new modern furniture. The culprit: the gray walls, too ho-hum to help the space pop.