Melanie Gnau
Credit: Melanie Gnau

Design Changemakers 2021: Melanie Gnau Aims to Be ‘Sustainable-Ish’ Even in the Smallest of Spaces

published Jan 19, 2021
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Credit: Apartment Therapy

The Apartment Therapy Design Changemakers Class of 2021 is made up of 24 of the most talented and dynamic people in the design world. We asked an assortment of last year’s Design Changemakers and Apartment Therapy staffers (and you!) to tell us who we needed to spotlight — see the rest of the list here.

Who: Melanie Gnau, small space expert and blogger at A Small Life
Nominated by: Adrienne Breaux, Apartment Therapy’s house tour editor
Where to follow her: Instagram

Why Gnau is part of the Class of 2021: “I nominate minimalism coach and small space stylist Melanie Gnau of A Small Life as a Design Changemaker. She embodies everything we try to do at Apartment Therapy — create meaningful, beautiful homes no matter the size of your house or your wallet. Her own small home is a living laboratory of her small-space maximizing and DIY philosophies, but she also excels at budget and money-saving advice, minimalism, and more. She’s also quite generous with sharing tips and advice on her Instagram; follow Melanie for a treasure trove of inspiration for design and life.” —Adrienne Breaux, Apartment Therapy’s house tour editor

Credit: Melanie Gnau

Melanie Gnau has a penchant for designing and dwelling in small spaces. She, her husband, and their dog, Bambi, spent four years living in an Airstream they remodeled together. Now they live in a small home in Asheville, North Carolina. And though her blog is called A Small Life, she packs a lot of beauty, warmth, and thoughtfulness into her home. 

Gnau’s love and talent for DIY projects has been passed down from her parents and family. “As somebody who is Native, I come from a long line of very resilient people. So if they needed something, they built it or they made it themselves with materials that were around them,” she says.

Finding the materials and creating things by hand also lends itself well to Gnau’s focus on sustainability. She made the Airstream extra cozy with a collection of handmade pillows. She used reclaimed barn wood to create the kitchen cabinets in her current home. Around the holidays, she took to Instagram with quick tutorials on how to reuse household items like yarn and paper bags to create more earth-friendly gift wrap. But even as she encourages her readers to follow her sustainability-focused lead, Gnau acknowledges that everyone is on their own journey toward more thoughtful consumption.

While a brief scroll of her Instagram feed shows an ever-tidy version of Gnau’s “small life,” she has a timely reminder for anyone looking at these picture-perfect snapshots: “We’re all doing our best right now and we should be kind to ourselves,” she says. “We should not feel pressured to have the most beautiful house, especially right now. Things get messy because we’re all just living and working and doing the same thing in our house every day.”

Credit: Melanie Gnau

Apartment Therapy: What were your design inspirations growing up? What is your inspiration now?

Melanie Gnau: The DIY spirit is really strong in my family. Most of the time, if things needed to be fixed around my house, my parents would do it themselves. My mom is especially crafty. She’s a talented seamstress and quilter and she made a lot of my clothes, and she also made costumes for everybody in the plays that I was in. 

Online, especially on Instagram, I’m inspired by a lot of the friends that I’ve made there and just seeing what they do. Lea Johnson, @CreekwoodHill on Instagram, she’s very inspiring to me. I love how she incorporates vintage pieces into her designs. Vintage is really a great resource because the stuff is already out in the world. And then also my friend Sandy, @ElleeHome, has a challenge that she does with another blogger called $0 Updates. She literally does it with no money at all. It’s just stuff she has around her house to do different updates or flips with furniture or something like that. And I just find that really inspiring and I really enjoy following both of those women.

AT: What’s your favorite project you worked on in 2020, and why?

MG: This year we built a back porch and a chicken coop. You can sit on the porch and watch the chickens. It’s really cute. We built it on a really tight budget because 2020 has been so challenging, and we didn’t have a lot of budget for extra projects this year. So we tried to use a lot of reclaimed or repurposed items, and I just loved the way it turned out, and I love sitting on the porch and watching my chickens because they’re so goofy. I really liked the idea of being able to provide for myself. I have a garden that I love working in and I felt like chickens were a little bit like the next step.

Credit: Melanie Gnau

AT: What three words would you use to describe your work or style?

MG: Warm, minimal, and sustainable-ish, but the ish is very important. Being completely sustainable in our world, especially in America, is very difficult. I think that it’s important not to put too much pressure on yourself. So pick a few things that really appeal to you and explore sustainability through that vein.

AT: Where should a person start if they’re trying to make small, simple shifts toward sustainability?

MG: I would look at it and see what’s important to them specifically. Everyone’s life is so different. Everybody should do one thing. For example, I have really bad outdoor allergies, so it’s difficult for me to dry clothes outside, but for somebody who lives in a warm climate and doesn’t have those allergies, it’s super easy for them. So I think just looking at your specific circumstances and seeing what would be easiest and best for that person is probably the best choice. 

AT: Is there a specific piece or design of yours that you think is particularly indicative of who you are or what you’re trying to do?

MG: My whole house is kind of that way. There’s pieces that my husband and I have created to fit our space specifically. We also use a lot of vintage or reclaimed materials to create the look that we want. That is something I’m really proud of.

AT: What makes you feel at home in your own space?

MG: Comfort. Specifically, pillows, soft places to lounge, knowing that nothing in my house is really “precious” and it’s okay to spill on or to get dog hair on.

I like warm materials, like velvet and things like that. I also think that color is really important. I really like these sort of warm, desert-y colors — yellows, oranges, pinks.

Credit: Melanie Gnau

AT: How do you think the past year will impact the design world moving forward?

MG: I hope that it’s going to impact it in a positive way. I think that in this last year, it’s pretty hard to ignore the impact of both climate change and inequality. I think we need to start holding these companies accountable for their environmental impact and also their practices. I think that we’ve seen how fragile and difficult it is to be a small business in this country. And I hope that we’ll see more support for small businesses, especially those from Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

AT: How has 2020 changed your perspective on or approach to your work?

MG: I think it’s changed life for everybody, right? You’d be really lucky if it didn’t change your entire life. I think it’s made me realize two different things. It’s made me realize how important it is to have multifunctional space. One where you can work, but also one where you can turn that off at the end of the day and get that separation. 

It’s also made me realize the importance of being more vulnerable online and showing people that I’m a multifaceted person and we’re all just really trying to do our best. I’m big on being nonjudgmental and meeting people where they are, especially on their sustainability journey. That’s really important to me.

AT: This year, people have spent a lot more time at home. Is there anything different about how you think about helping other people to downsize?

MG: A lot of us are now doing everything from home, working and living. But if we’re not careful, then you can sort of get that overlap where it feels like you also work all the time, which is not great either. 

In my own home and in some of the clients’ that I work with, we’re really trying to see how we can separate the spaces out, even if they don’t have a designated room where they can close the door. You could put up a little curtain or a foldout desk that you can fold up and just not think about it for the rest of the night because our lives don’t need to always revolve around work.

Credit: Melanie Gnau

AT: Any big plans for 2021 or beyond you can share with us?

MG: If anything, 2020 has taught me to not make plans. I do want to be open to opportunities, but I also want to accept that maybe the beginning of 2021 might look a lot like 2020. I do have a decluttering course that I’m working on to make it a little easier and be more of a reflection of what’s going on in everyone’s life now.

AT: What, in your mind, is the power of good design?

MG: Really good design can make your life easier. I think that’s really important in our world today.

AT: You work a lot with small spaces. What impact does that have in how you interact with design and DIY even in larger spaces?

MG: I always come back to that William Morris quote: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” You really have to think about everything that you bring in and be conscious about taking stuff out as well.

Interview has been edited and condensed.