That Instagram-Worthy Room Probably Cost $150,000. Here's How to Get the Look for Less.

Wall Street Journal

2 days ago

Instagram is a torture device that makes you want things you can't have. That influencer's abs. Those Loewe shoes. That Amalfi vacation.
I care about none of those things. It's high-end interior design that torments me. Specifically, Lucy Doswell's library in the 2023 Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Palm Beach. Summer Thornton's master bedroom in her Sayulita project. Literally anything Rita Konig touches. You haven't known pain until you've realized the Christopher Farr fabric on the sofa in Isabella Worsley's latest seaside escape will cost you around $223 a yard—and you need 24 yards.
For the past few years, I've devoted myself to decorating my San Francisco one-bedroom apartment in the style of something you might find in Architectural Digest—or better yet, the bible of eclectic British decor, House & Garden. Did I mention it's a modest rental? That I don't have an unlimited budget? No matter. Thanks to the intimacy of Instagram, the interiors I covet feel almost within reach. Plus: As a reporter, I have investigative journalism skills!
Indeed, I blame that potent combo for convincing me that, armed with grit and a little hustle, I could approximate the sort of results one usually only gets from professionals who might require a six-figure spend.
In pursuit of my mission, I've done some crazy and mildly annoying things, like requesting a quote for a rug that turned out to be $17,000, driving four hours to buy a banquette in a bank parking lot and messaging a designer about a chair, only to be told it was 'bespoke.' Which I think loosely translates to: 'You can't have it.'
Yet, I wasn't totally delusional. Despite some challenges and aided by a bit of reasonably priced professional help, I've managed to conjure a space anyone would be proud to post.
Would I still love for Lucy, Rita or Isabella to design my home head to toe someday? You bet. (And it would be worth every penny.) But today is not that day.
In the meantime, if—like me—you're striving for aspirational while bumping up against reality, here's what to do.
First, remember that many rooms on Instagram have been professionally photographed and lit. Commenters like to ask designers, 'What's that paint?' But chances are the color won't look the same in your home as it does in that photo.
Take it from someone who painted her bedroom Farrow & Ball's 'Setting Plaster' after spying it in a post by Olivine Design. In my place the designer-favorite reads more 'Silly Putty' than soft blush. To avoid the same fate, bring the picture to your local paint shop and ask for options that could achieve the same look.
Also: Ask yourself what you love in a room, and be sure it's a shoppable item and not a detail you can't replicate. It took my father pointing out that I don't have 14-foot ceilings and french doors to make me see that buying a pair of Schumacher bird-print chairs wasn't going to recreate a dining area I loved.
Some generous designers occasionally do 'Ask Me Anythings' on Instagram. Find those pros and follow them. Chicago-based Alexandra Kaehler and Katie Rosenfeld of Wellesley, Mass., are two of my favorites.
To improve the odds your question gets selected, choose one that other folks might also find valuable. When I queried Kaehler about pet-friendly sofa fabric, she suggested I just wrap my couch cushions in a Kantha quilt, and provided a link to a $28 Etsy option. While the colors didn't work with my scheme, her advice made me rethink buying a new sofa.
You can also message designers directly—but consider how aggressive you want to be. On the one hand, designers have a right to be gatekeepers of their own hard work. On the other, you can't win if you don't play. Last year I reached out to the Atlanta designer Cate Dunning to find out more about a lovely painting she'd posted. It turned out Dunning had painted the piece herself. She sold it to me—already framed—and it's a showstopper.
Can I tell you a secret? Some interior designers have junior employees sourcing furniture and art and saving it to public Pinterest boards. Others busily pin away themselves, giving you leads to track down their favorites. I've kept tabs on the finds of the staff of Redmond Aldrich Design, a firm in Berkeley, Calif., for about seven years now.
You may be surprised to learn that many design teams source items from all over, including some eminently accessible retailers like Anthropologie, Serena & Lily, Restoration Hardware and even Zara Home.
I hesitate to drum up even more competition on Facebook Marketplace, but to train the algorithm and score big, you must troll for goods beyond your zip code. I keep my search radius set to a cool 250 miles. My Samsung Frame TV, which displays digital art and spares my living room the black-box-on-the-wall look, enjoyed a previously unopened-life near Napa, Calif. I saved about $1,000 off the sticker price.
For smaller items that pack up easily like draperies, lamps and cushions, widen your search nationwide. I like to plug in the zip codes where people with deep pockets and good taste are known to live—think Rye, N.Y., Greenwich, Conn., or Winnetka, Ill. Then I use search terms like 'custom' or 'designer.'
Feeling ambitious? Bid on larger items and find someone on a service like uShip to deliver it to you. That's how my cousin got an Ilve range from Atlanta to Chicago and how I landed a vintage rug from a designer in Los Angeles who purchased it from A-list fave Nickey Kehoe.
Every once in a while you hit the jackpot. For me that was stumbling on a Redmond Aldrich Design client who was downsizing and tasked their personal assistant with selling stuff, as one does. I scored a room-size rug usually available only to the trade and, for $450, a bed upholstered in a Christopher Farr silk ikat (new: around $6,000).
But, beware: An incredible value can give you the design equivalent of beer goggles. That steal of a bed? After living with it for a while, I found the scale of the print on the headboard a bit too large. I think about recovering it all the time.
Some designers tag everything from furniture to fabric swatches in their posts, making it easy to track down what you like. Many don't. When that happens, take a screenshot and run it through a Google image search. That should give you the language you need to hunt down a similar version.
For instance, not long ago I became fixated on a dining table posted by designer Heidi Caillier, who has a cult following among the grandmillenial set. A Google image search revealed it was a French wine-tasting table. Caillier's was custom—but I found a near-dupe at an antique shop in Sonoma.
If you fall in love with textiles that are sold to the trade but you don't have a designer on retainer, use image search to learn the pattern's name, then search for remnants on eBay, Chairish or other auction sites. My beloved burl ottomans are upholstered in Wicker, a $286-a-yard linen fabric by Fermoie; I found remnants on eBay and a U.K. discount-fabric site for one-third of that price. The downside: Random bits may not be identical. Because I purchased the fabric from different places, one seat is slightly lighter than the other.
Design services are getting more democratized. On the online platform the Expert, prices for 55-minute consultations range from a few hundred dollars for lesser-known names to $3,600 for 115 minutes with my girl Rita Konig.
But in my experience, the better route is to find a designer in your area who's open to small projects and sells hourly blocks. I worked with Alexis Smith, who runs an interior design studio and a lethally charming boutique, Shoshin, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif. Smith saved me a bananas amount of money by vetoing items that would have been mistakes, paying attention to scale and dimensions and sharing her knowledge of things like fabric durability. She also picked out one of my favorite pieces, a bone-inlay settee that sits in my bay window.
This brings me to my last piece of advice: If you're planning to invest real money in your space—and thanks to a weakness for expensive lighting and designer fabrics, I did—there's no substitute for a little professional help. You can have great taste and be skilled at picking out individual items but the ability to envision how fabrics, furniture and finishes all work together (or won't!) is where Smith earned every dollar I paid her. Amateurs make mistakes and mistakes can be costly in the form of regret or actual dollars—both, more often than not.
My next mission: Decide on a new sofa fabric. Because the other thing I've learned in this process is that you're never done decorating.