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Photography by Alise O'Brien
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WEB EXCLUSIVES: CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMAGES OF JOI AND DAVID SVEZIA'S HOME. WATCH A VIDEO TOUR BELOW.
Highland, Ill., one of the oldest Swiss settlements in the country, is headquarters to PET evaporated milk, the site of the Wall Street Journal’s Midwest printing operations—and home to Joi and David Svezia, two young teachers who bought their first home, a 1,100-square-foot ranch, in 2005.
Until about two years ago, Ms. Svezia says, “All I knew was what my parents did. They went to a furniture store, and they were like ‘OK, I’m going to buy this.’” Eventually, she realized that wasn’t her. “When I really got into my blog and other people’s blogs and looking at inspiration pictures, I gravitated to things that complemented each other, but weren’t a set,” she says.
Now, she writes her own design blog, Nuestra Vida Dulce (daveandjoi.blogspot.com). She’s been on Great Day St. Louis, talking about everything from Christmas parties to DIY style, and last fall, within the space of about two weeks, she appeared on The Nate Berkus Show and won our very own “Living Space of the Year” contest. Oh yeah, and the day before we came out to visit her, the mighty Design*Sponge (designsponge.com) blogged about her kitchen renovation.
Kitchen Switch
“In fact, the kitchen was the first thing we did,” says Ms. Svezia. “When we first moved in, we painted the cabinets.” The colors changed fairly recently: “I repainted it on senior prom,” she says. “I remember, because I had to chaperone…so it’s been almost a year.” She loves color, but favors neutrals like browns, and then uses lots of bright colors for accessories. The contemporary farm table and the kitchen island were designed and built by her father-in-law. After showing him a kitchen table she was going to buy, “He was like, ‘I can make that better.’ And he did. He put reinforcements in it. I told him what I wanted it to look like, I helped him cut some pieces, but he was the mastermind behind it,” she says.
She found the chairs on Craigslist, painted them white, and reupholstered the seats in burlap. The pendant light is a $50 eBay find; its sea-creature shape echoes the William Morris floral patterns in the curtains, which were sewn from material purchased at Jo-Ann Fabrics and hemmed with no-sew tape. The kitchen counters are (shock!) Corian, from DuPont’s Private Collection; Ms. Svezia first spotted the material at a Missouri Botanical Garden display. The campaign dresser came from Craigslist and displaced a curio cabinet, which went to
Ms. Svezia’s mother’s house. The plates, Ms. Svezia laughs, “are just random things—some are from Pier 1, Z Gallerie, Etsy, thrift stores…”
Rules for Living
Ms. Svezia says people ask her about the white medallions behind the TV a lot. Though they resemble plaster or porcelain, they’re neither, which is why they can be hung with 3M Velcro tape. “I didn’t want square frames,” she says. “I saw these online. They’re not heavy—they’re made out of a kind of resin.” Another item that looks heavy, but isn’t, is the antique gilded frame on the dresser in the foyer. It’s from Craigslist, and it’s plastic, more vintage than antique. Ms. Svezia aged it with a fine mist of black spray paint. “It used to be, like, holy gold,” she laughs. It could fool even a professional eye now. It sits atop another Craigslist find, a little girl’s dresser, which now functions as an entry table.
The gray contemporary couch is from Phillips Furniture, dressed with pillows from CB2, as well as two pairs sewn by Ms. Svezia’s mother, one from sheets, the other from towels purchased at HomeGoods. The chairs with the jade-green bamboo-pattern pillows are from Overstock.com, with white cushions reupholstered in white linen—it’s Sunbrella outdoor fabric, for extra durability. The glass coffee table is from a garage sale, and was perfect as is. The console between the chairs is a Craigslist find, which entered the house as a shiny brown midcentury piece and now sports a meticulous paint job. The lacy white vase, Ms. Svezia says, was something she “wanted for forever, but when I saw it online, it was like a hundred bucks. Then I found it at HomeGoods for $30.” The Arco-style lamp, whose silhouette is one of the most famous in modern design, she found at La-Z-Boy for $200. The photos on the wall include a silhouette portrait of the couple’s dog Niko, a black-and-white photo of their wedding in Maui, and butterfly pictures that remind Ms. Svezia of her best friend.
Sleeping and Dreaming
When Ms. Svezia realized she didn’t like matchy furniture, the bedroom set was transferred to the guest room. The miniature crystal chandelier is from Urban Outfitters and throws a lovely, lacy pattern on the ceiling—sadly, Ms. Svezia says, it has been discontinued, though the store still carries the multicolored version. (“I love color, but that was a little too much even for me,” she says.) The art hanging behind the white wicker headboard is a collage of paint swatches, which Ms. Svezia cut out and framed. The sliding 1960s closet doors were frumpy-looking until they got a coat of paint, which magically transformed them into something chic. The curtains here are also made of material purchased at Jo-Ann Fabrics.
In the master bedroom, two Craigslist nightstands got updated with hardware; instead of chucking the shades on two older lamps, Ms. Svezia painted them white. (They almost look like cedar-bark shades when the bulbs are lit.) She sewed the Roman shades herself, using an online tutorial as a guide. The keys were purchased from a gift shop in Spain during a trip with her Spanish class, and she created the art below on a piece of wood-grained paper from The Container Store. In the corner behind the bedroom door is a really neat surprise. “I love bamboo chairs,” she says. “I found six of them. I silver-leafed that one. I think I might still have the others. I didn’t silver-leaf it perfectly. You can still see some of the pieces [of leaf], but it gives it a kind of patina, like I meant to do that!”
Tips from Joi Svezia
• “Go off the beaten path. Look in thrift stores; look at Craigslist. You are going to find unique, vintage items that…aren’t going to break the bank.”
• “Having a color scheme in your head is good, but you don’t have to limit yourself to two colors. I do have colors that I gravitate toward…but I don’t let a two-color scheme define what I’m going to do.”
• “I started by finding things that I loved. And I looked at pictures, saying, ‘OK, they’ve got a striped pillow and a floral pillow.’ And I tried it, and it works, and I was like, ‘Huh!’”
• You don’t have to buy a specific piece for a specific nook in the house: “Use furniture in unexpected places.”
• To find goodies on Craigslist: “I search often, and I have an app on my phone. I put in keywords like vintage, bamboo, midcentury, cane, modern, old, retro… I check in every day; if you don’t, you are not going to find what you want.”
Joi Svezia Home Tour - St. Louis AT HOME - May/June 2011 from St. Louis Magazine on Vimeo.
Joi Svezia gives a tour of her home, along with tips on small-space decorating on a small budget.
