Sirs Mix-a-Lot
Highland Park’s Shawn Aversa and Jamie McAdams spill style secrets when it comes to their cool, eclectic home
Got Mantles?
Be loud and proud! It’s the centralist central center of your room, so go for broke. I love a fun modern geo print paper to mess with the old lady lace Victorian architecture in our space, but I like to layer it again with a classic vintage French mantle mirror. 2) Always have an organic element. I think this adds an element of warmth and sincerity. I love the way the rounded edges of these planters soften the hard lines of the built-in elements and the aloe casts a California vibe (that’s what I call it, at least). 3) Do something random and unexpected: something only you “get” or a color or texture only a mother could love. For us, it’s the subtle rainbow felt ball trivet under the plant pots.
bar of hearts
The truth is, while bar carts are über-trendy, they’re not all that functional when it’s time to actually make a cocktail (but we’ll suffer for fashion). Our cart is actually an antique pastry trolley that we’ve repurposed to both store and display some of our favorite decanters, glassware, and “pretty” bottles of liquor. We stick to some styling basics: Keep it clean and uncluttered, pretty bottles to the top to catch the light, and dark and not-so-pretty bottles below in steerage. If you’re lucky enough to have middle shelf, keep your beverage service here for quick and dust-free access (as if dust has time to collect). We accidentally added the lemon print to ours while we were trying to figure out a home for it and realized it was right where it needed to be, and now it just always make us want something with a twist!
Color Guard
Our approach to mixing color has always been focused on the objects we love — we want those things to be our color palette. We tend to keep walls neutral and simple (nothing too busy), so those objects do the talking. The colors of those objects change routinely — whatever we’re feeling we need more of in our lives (we’re feeling all shades of pink and flat black right now). My best advice for anyone struggling here would be to love what you own and own what you love… and don’t underestimate the power of spray paint.
My Chair Lady
I love this chair. It’s vintage, ‘70s, unexpected and random. My husband hated it at first, but it’s growing on him. Sometimes something just speaks to you: You walk past it in an antique shop, and something makes you turn around and imagine where it came from or how it was used and who used it? It doesn’t make sense, but you’re drawn to it. It doesn’t have to make sense, you just have to love it. If you love it, you’ll figure out the rest.