Make Your Apartment into an Ultra-Cool Resort
Nothing is quite as relaxing as the moment you walk into a sparkly clean, well-appointed hotel room – partially because it is typically a super-aspirational variant of what we would want our own bedrooms to look like someday. When it’s the perfectly-made bed, the locally sourced mini bar, or the kind of mid-century furniture which makes most twentysomething hearts palpitate, luxury resorts often leave us wishing we could pack up just a bit of the style and take it home in our luggage. From Barcelona to Portland, five designers of the trendiest hotels we understand have shared their tips for how to bring a small amount of hospitality to your dwelling.
- Limit the amount of bits per room
An opulent 19th-century neo-classical mansion might not look like the first stop for nominal design inspiration, but Brooklyn’s ever-hip Studio Tack (the masterminds behind Scribner’s Catskill Lounge) relied on the building’s bones to set the air at Casa Bonay, their new hotel in Barcelona.
Their tip? The cozy guest rooms in Casa Bonay just have five pieces of furniture and decor within them, including beach coastal furniture or bohemian rugs. Small rooms can sense intentional, composed, and open by restricting the amount of bits in a room and giving the furniture room to breathe.
- Original artwork does not have to be costly
The Nines is a relatively luxurious Refuge for Portland, Ore., town better known for kombucha, fixed-gear bicycles, and handlebar mustaches, but the art-adorned land has retained it local, right down to the canvases in their guestrooms. No stale Monet Water Lilies prints here – all guestrooms feature original artwork from students at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.
If you are ready to upgrade your Ikea published canvases and art.com prints of Starry Night, have a look at the art department at a local university or college. Many have earnings throughout the year where students can sell their work. You get to support a local artist, which Endless Summer poster you snagged freshman year can eventually retire.
- Insert a lounge chair to your bedroom
When designing the slick new Thompson Nashville, commercial realestate designers Jeremy Levitt and Danu Hassik of Parts and Labor specifically wanted guests to take inspiration back to their own homes. The duo stated that their expectation was that visitors that are building new homes or renovating existing houses would be inspired by their stay in the resort.
The property is rife with details and comfort items which are easy to replicate in your own place, such as textured throw blankets and soft pillows, but there is one element you do not always see in a house: a lounge chair in the bedroom. Levitt said it is something commonly found in your hotel room but not always located in residential flats. It is not just a place to throw your jeans at the end of the night, but also a fantastic place to decompress and undoubtedly adds style.
- Use something unexpected for a structural pop of curiosity
If artwork on canvas is not something, look to your hobbies and environment. At New Orleans’ Henry Howard Hotel, designer Lauren Mabry desired to make a space with an underlying theme of tributes to the Big Easy. Mabry ended up paying homage to the city’s strong jazz culture by using structural brass instruments on the walls, rather than classic art.
Want to try it at home but do not have a spare saxophone lying about? An assortment old timey tennis rackets, coastal home decor or even well designed wall planters (if you are into that type of thing), are great places to begin. But really: go with whatever you would like. Blending modern and traditional design elements and displaying pops of interest make the room so much more fun and interesting to be in. A gorgeous area becomes that much more unique once personalized.
- Make the most of every square inch
City dwellers understand just how vital a space-saving hack could be – and no resort does this better than the new Moxy Times Square in New York. Design team Yabu Pushelberg is famous for cushy properties such as Ian Schrager’s London Edition and the Four Seasons Downtown in Manhattan, but their latest project channels a cozy boat’s quarters with cleverly-designed furniture which maximizes the chambers’ minimal footprint.
Many people live quite fluidly, and our houses need to be equally flexible when we sell a commercial property, according to Glenn Pushelberg. High-quality foldable furniture in solid wood makes it effortless to host friends at a moment’s notice without compromising aesthetics.
Other things in the area do double-duty: side tables function as extra seating if needed, and the beds against the wall can double as couches, with throw cushions hanging on the adjacent peg wall. Multi-purpose furniture that matches our lives’ is a terrific solution for smaller spaces.