00:01Hi, I'm Nikki and welcome to my sweet digs, my labor of love.
00:06Come on in.
00:13I'm an interior designer and my company is called Ode, Studio Ode.
00:17And it's all based around holistic design and looking at design from a different perspective.
00:23I like to say that I am a spatial artist because my canvas happens to be people's homes
00:31and my mediums happen to be furniture and rugs and textiles and paint.
00:35So I am a designer of space.
00:45I've owned this place for 12 years, but I recently moved in and did a huge reno.
00:53The place is quite small, although it's 800 square feet, it's chopped up, there's rooms,
00:57but I wanted the space to feel open, which I think it does.
01:06This is my kitchen, one of my absolute favorite places in my home.
01:14People say their kitchen is the heart of their home.
01:17I'm going to say that mine is the soul.
01:19It really just speaks to a lot of things that I have been going through personally in my life.
01:25So a lot of the design is focused around this duality between yin and yang, light and dark, good and
01:30bad,
01:30those sort of things, and embracing it as a whole.
01:33So the peninsula is light.
01:36I've encased the entire thing in this deck of material, which is pretty cool because it's literally indestructible.
01:41I could light this on fire, cut directly on it, do all sorts of things to it, and it is
01:45perfectly fine.
01:46And then the backdrop, the cabinets, the backsplash, everything has this really dark, rich tone to it,
01:52so it really allows everything else to pop off of it.
01:54And the gold accents, because you always have to have a little gold in everything.
01:58The other thing I really love that requires no renovation whatsoever but is completely functional is this right here.
02:05It is an Ikea product called Burginis.
02:08It is made of renewable bamboo material, and all it does is hold your phone.
02:13I know it's really simple, but when I'm cooking, FaceTiming with my mom when I don't know what I'm doing,
02:18it literally just keeps my phone where I need it to be at all times.
02:24This is my bedroom, where I reset and recharge.
02:30This space really needed to be relaxing for me, and I have this sort of love language with willow trees,
02:36so I wanted to feel like I was sleeping under a willow tree.
02:40When things feel chaotic, I tend to go to things that are absolute, things that don't change.
02:47And for me, that's nature.
02:48So you see, I have murals throughout the entire space.
02:52And as soon as I walk in here, it's almost like I take a breath.
02:55It's like, all that kind of just makes me feel grounded.
03:00And then keeping in vain with this whole movement and flow of the space, everything is curved.
03:11And this is a piece of my paper collection.
03:13You can actually sit on it, not in this fashion.
03:15You have to turn it around.
03:16But it adds another element of that curve to the space.
03:24This is my bathroom.
03:26And when I designed it, I wanted to feel like I was bathing outside in Morocco.
03:31Like the bedroom, I wanted the bathroom to feel like another place to unwind.
03:37And that's why I have everything monotone.
03:40So I have floor-to-ceiling tile in this kind of like marbled concrete.
03:44The tub is custom-built and blends into like all the tile that's going on.
03:48And then the same gold finishes that we have in the kitchen.
03:52This curved glass that makes you feel like there's nothing even there.
03:56And this mirror that kind of blends in.
03:59You have the faucet coming out of it, so it's really sexy.
04:01Again, with the willow trees.
04:03And then this knife-edge lighting.
04:05I love the way it feels in here.
04:07It reminds me of being on vacation.
04:09Or in a spa.
04:11Both of them are very good.
04:16This is my dining area.
04:18And I'm really looking forward to getting some good use out of this space once we can see people again.
04:25My dining room was one of the easiest things to design in my space.
04:29It kind of just came together on its own.
04:31I found this table on Facebook Marketplace for $100,
04:35which is a steal considering I found the same table at the store for $1,500.
04:40I might rough it up a little bit and give it a little texture, take away the shine,
04:44but it just adds a lot of warmth to the space and makes it feel a little bit more homey.
04:48One of the things that I wanted to change in moving here was I had a lot of decor items
04:53that I didn't feel connected to.
04:55So, in coming into the space, I needed pieces that spoke to me
04:59because they told the story just by sitting there.
05:03And my sconce, ooh, this is one of those pieces.
05:06I found this fabric in Mexico, and it's actually a shawl that you wear like a piece of clothing.
05:11But it reminds me of something called ikere.
05:14I'm Nigerian from Yoruba descent, and there's this chieftain accessory.
05:18It looks kind of like a horse's tail, but it has the same texture.
05:21And when I saw this, it totally reminded me of it.
05:24It brought me back to my childhood when we used to dance with it.
05:26So I knew when I saw it that I needed to bring it home with me.
05:29And yeah, I just drape it on the sconce and give it a little bit of life.
05:39My living room is where I spend a lot of my time.
05:43It functions for so many different purposes.
05:45I work here, I work out here.
05:48It's kind of like my mini gym when I need it to be.
05:51It is light, it is airy, and it is totally inviting.
05:58The light in here is phenomenal.
05:59I am south facing, so I get full sunlight all day long, which I love.
06:04But it can also get really hot in here.
06:06So one of the things that was really important to me was to have some sort of light control.
06:10So I have these theater blinds from Ikea.
06:13Amazing automatic blinds made from recycled polyester, so they're sustainable.
06:18And the cool thing is you can control it from an app on your phone, individually or together.
06:24Pretty cool, huh?
06:25The sofa is probably my most expensive item.
06:30I'm not sure if it's 100% the right choice for this space.
06:33Now I feel like I need something that's a little bit softer.
06:35Something where you just want to sink into it and like never leave.
06:38But I'm still loving it.
06:40This wall is all about function.
06:42It is floor to ceiling cabinetry.
06:45There's not a lot of storage in this space, so I wanted to make sure that I had something that
06:48kind of captured everything.
06:49But it also looked great.
06:50So we have the black interior with the white paneling on the outside.
06:55I used the same cabinet doors in a different finish for this paneling.
07:01I just cut them to size so that it kind of had this little cool detail that plays off of
07:04the sofa.
07:05And it just looks really great.
07:07When you allow yourself the space to connect with items, I think they last longer in your home.
07:13So you're not throwing away things as often or replacing things as often.
07:17And we just have a greener world.
07:20And in a more organic way, we're living sustainably.
07:24When I work with people, I challenge them.
07:26I ask them to kind of dig deep so that I can get to the heart of what it is
07:30that we're actually creating.
07:31And when I started designing space for myself, I had to do that same thing.
07:35It was super uncomfortable, super vulnerable, and I hate that sometimes.
07:39Really annoying.
07:41But in me creating this home, it was very much about starting life now, taking full bites and living life
07:47to the absolute fullest.
07:48That's why there's a lot of openness, inviting a lot of things into my space.
07:52So yeah, very weird designing for myself.
07:55Very difficult.
07:57I'm going to take a break from doing it because it leaves me super vulnerable.
08:01But I love the results.
08:03I love my home.
08:08Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my sweet digs.
08:11See you later.
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