Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » sneak peek: alissa and ryan of shop horne

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if you’ve ever checked out the online boutique horne, it will be no surprise to you that this incredible sneak peek belongs to alissa parker and ryan walker, the pair behind the beautiful shop. the two describe themselves as complete home-bodies, loving to curl up with a good movie and some pine street pizza. therefore, the goal is to surround themselves with as many beautiful objects as possible. their approach is to blend a mix of their two styles – ryan loving clean lines and order, while alissa prefers to fill her space with anything (and everything) inspirational. thanks so much alissa and ryan for sharing their home with us today (click here for more beautiful images), and don’t miss their shop right here. -anne

ps: the home tour continues well after the jump so be sure to click “read more” below!

[above: This is our living room. We wanted it to function as both a place to relax while enjoying a movie and also a conference room where we can meet with designers to discuss our boutique. The starburst clock on the wall was a $15 find at an estate sale in West Texas. The painting in the corner was commissioned by Ryan for my 25th birthday. It is an abstracted version of me and was entitled “The Love of Ryan” by the artist – America Martin. Isn’t he amazing? Too bad ladies, he’s taken - we’re gettin’ hitched in April.]

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This is my desk – where all the magic happens. This is where we designed the webpage, edited all of the photos and continue to work on promotional materials for our online boutique. We found this great desk at the Pasadena Flea Market, when were living in Santa Barbara. Believe it or not this is about as organized as it gets.

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We spend a lot of time cooking, entertaining and working in our kitchen/dining room so we decorated it with tons of color to create a vibrant energy. Our blue Formica table was a lucky vintage find from Santa Barbara. The painting is from an amazing artist, America Martin. She is such a tiny-thing-of-a-girl who creates the most wonderfully large paintings. Who knows where they come from. The crazy floral rug was our first foray into vintage rugs. We were hooked after this one- it’s like art for your floor!

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It was important that our bedroom was inviting and cozy without feeling cluttered. We accented the room with only a few select pieces, kept the colors subdued and then created depth with the textiles. The photograph above our bed is by Mona Kuhn and was our first large art purchase together. The chandelier has moved with us from apartment to apartment. It is an old chandelier given new life by the addition of amber crystals.

CLICK HERE to see the 7 more photos of Ryan and Alissa’s beautiful home after the jump…

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Our bookshelf is a good example of our combined decorating style – a collection of our books is surrounded by pieces that I have used for inspiration, put together with “orderly chaos.” My inspiration wall started when my desk was located in this room. I wanted to surround my workspace with objects of significance – a drawing from my cousin, some magazine tear outs and old family photos – so I could continuously be inspired while I work. When I moved my office to a bigger space we decided to leave the inspiration behind.

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ooh! i’m geeking out- i just realized i have the same tea towels that are on ryan and alissa’s dining table. but in purple- i got the cloths at tortoise in LA and they’ve become my favorite kitchen go-tos.

i said it before, but this peek and nicolette’s are seriously rocking my world today.

honestly, grace, this is one of my favorite sneak peeks to date. i love when i connect with a home this much!

ditto rifferaff…i’d love to know about the blue artwork above the desk. it’s fantastic! reminds me of matisse…

love the rugs – my first one was a blue and orange kilim (i think it’s a kilim anyway) that someone was selling on craigslist for $15 – apparently her former roommate had left it and she hated it and didn’t know where it had come from!!

I can’t see the pitures either. :( I just checked out their blog and there is a picture of the diningroom/kitchen. I love the juxtaposition of the rug and the art work. I really want to see the rest of their home!

Hey guys! Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments. We are going to try to answer as many questions as we can.

Grace – we got our towels at Tortoise too!!! They’re handy for everything. The owners of Tortoise are so nice — Ryan and I instantly fell in love with them (and their dog too).

The sofa was reupholstered. We got it from a local philly store — Vintage Modern.

The lamp was a $36.50 sale find from Anthropologie about 2 years ago and the shade (costing more than the lamp!) was from Rooms and Gardens in Santa Barbara.

The Coffee Tables may, or may not, be Florence Knoll marble tables we found at a vintage store. You can find new versions directly from Knoll, but they are expensive!

Alissa got the Matisse (blue cutout) print from the Matisse Museum in Nice.

The rug under the kitchen table is unfortunately an antique. It is Russian from around the 1950’s.

Michelle — Of course we’ll come decorate your home :-)

The dining room chairs are indeed Moller – our first ebay purchase!

The valet stand was found at an estate sale (for $10!) and Ryan had to have it!

We will try to figure out the paint color but we cannot take credit for it.

We noticed if you view the blog in FireFox the images do load but don’t seem to load in Safari. Hope that helps some of you.

Thanks again!
R+A

A-MAZ-ING! So casual/comfortable, yet so elegant! I am so happy to see another designer without a perfectly organized desk! Shows that you have a lot going on!

I was not able to view the images in Apple Mail but I use Firefox and it’s fine.

I love how they were able to use all their selection of mid-century pieces and antiques together in a fresh and modern way. Very often people don’t know how to accomplish this, making their homes look like gradma’s place. But mixing them with great timeless art work and colorful tapestry do the trick. Very beautiful and tastefully done.

It’s a lovely home but is anyone else tired of the faux set up shots that are so obviously staged. Isn’t the purpose of good design that it functions in reality? So why all the fake posturing in so many home tour photos? Show us how you really live. I’d find that more impressive than a pair of shoes always so perfectly laid out to make it “appear” lived in.

Looking passed all the set-up, it’s a lovely home.

I agree with you in certain cases of obvious over-styling, but I think some people to happen to live more highly stylized lives than others.

I’m not one of them, but I have a number of friends who always keep their homes clean, in order and with things like fresh flowers everywhere. Obviously some things like a set table aren’t an around the clock fixture in a home, but I’ve found that readers here like to get equally angry about homes that look “too boring” “too ordinary” and “normal”. In those cases people often leave comments like “why couldn’t they have styled it up for the shoot?” So a little bit of styling is ok in my book- people certainly seem to respond to the photos more strongly when they do. (Also, I think all of us would clean up and style things in some way if we knew thousands of people were about to see our home)

But perhaps Ryan and Alissa happen to genuinely live in a way that’s a bit more photogenic that someone like me- who’s always finding beer cans under the couch left by a certain someone. Those people do exist and man do I envy them. I feel like I’m always picking up something unsightly on the floor (namely used Breath Right nose strips- disgusting!).

Grace

Oh I agree completely. It all comes down to you can please some of the people some of the time, not all of the people all of the time.

I guess from just my own personal aesthetic that some things seemed a bit overstyled to me but I am sure they were right on for others, and thank goodness! If we all had identical tastes the world would be dullsville for sure!

You bring up an interesting point that Ryan and I have both commented on to each other while looking at other sneak peeks – this whole concept of over stylizing. Admittedly when Grace asked us to take photos of our home it did finally get us in gear to hang a few pieces of art that were still propped against the wall and lay out a rug that we had been meaning to move. That being said, we really believe a home lives and changes with its occupants throughout the day – especially for people like us who spend a lot of time in their home. What we had to do was choose which “version” of our house we wanted to photograph. Take the dining room table for example. That is pretty much a normal breakfast (toast with jam, berries, water, coffee the Wall Street Journal for Ryan and Domino for Alissa). The flowers that are in the shot were actually a Valentine’s Day present from Alissa’s father. Shortly after breakfast, though, the same table is cleaned off and it becomes one of Ryan’s makeshift desks. After that, it might be cleared for lunch, back to Ryan’s desk, cleared for dinner and then finally used as a place where Ryan and I do some late-night ordering. Some of these iterations of the same table are obviously more photogenic than others. So we had to pick and choose. What we wanted to steer clear of is styling an area of our house in a way that isn’t true to how we would use it. As I’m sure many of you will agree your home is not always clean (neither is ours), but it is also not always messy. We saw no benefit of capturing our house in disarray as we find it can be distracting from the interior design. What we can promise is that each of the rooms has been captured in one of its many states found throughout the day. Oh, and as for the boats… Ryan refuses to wear socks unless ABSOLUTELY necessary so those Aigle boats have become one of his East coast staples as he can wear them without socks and still keep his feet warm.

This is one (if not THE ) all-time favorite. Sometimes I look at a sneak peak and I’m inspired, and then when I go back and look again I’m kinda over it already. This is one I will NEVER get over!! 8)

A+R, this is wonderful! Michelle told me about it. This has been one of my favorite blog sites since I found it a few months ago. It is so awesome to see your place featured here. It is stunning and I know it is exactly your style. You two are are so amazing. I hope all is going well with horne and the upcoming wedding!

I for one do not want to see other people’s messes..I have plenty of my own so I love to see a well designed,neat living space..it is wonderful to see other people’s collections and placement of furniture. It is also nice that it gives them the impetus to tightup up and finish projects ..love love these sneak peaks!

i love seeing places that look nothing like anything i’d dream up, are full of stuff that doesn’t remotely resemble any of my stuff and, yet, make me think i would feel right at home plunking myself down on that couch. fabu!

Hi,

I feel like I have been to your home for a visit. It was great seeing your desk (really quite neat) and remembering when we picked out your office chair. Nice to see some familar things from SB and your old apartment. See you in 2 weeks.

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