Clever
Designer Megan Hopp in her newly designed living room.
How One Designer Transformed Her Brooklyn Rental From Top to Bottom—On a Budget
By Shoko Wanger | Photography by Kelsey Ann Rose
“It was a bit of a happy accident,” says Megan Hopp of discovering the Park Slope one-bedroom she and her fiancé would soon call home. “Another rental we were interested in had just fallen through, and we had one weekend left to find a place,” she recalls. “Then a real estate agent told me about this apartment, basically saying, ‘If you want it, it’s yours.’ It was a true disaster, but it was in the perfect location, the price was amazing, the bones were good—and I’m always up for a little spruce-up.”
The designer, known for interiors brimming with color, texture, and pattern, made sure to receive her landlord’s permission before moving forward with alterations to the 600-square-foot home. But another hurdle lay ahead: determining how to achieve the bold look she envisioned, on a budget. “Because it’s a rental, I wanted to be as frugal as possible,” she says.
For Megan, this meant hours of careful price comparison, and taking on much of the required labor herself. Changes ranged from the relatively small (affordable bamboo shades on the windows, for example, or new pulls on kitchen cabinetry) to the seriously statement-making. In the latter case, paint—both the addition and the removal of it—was a key player: A dilapidated entryway, once dark and cluttered, was given a fresh marigold facelift; in the living room, layers of high-gloss pink paint—“150 years of it!” the designer says—were painstakingly peeled away and replaced with Portuguese-inspired wallpaper and baby blue trim.
BEFORE: “Every square inch of the living room was covered in high-gloss pink paint,” the designer says. “It took hours to scrape off.”
AFTER: “I chose the print because of the vertical nature of the pattern,” Megan says of her Hygge & West wallpaper. “The apartment has really high ceilings, and this was a way to make them look even taller.”
