We Are Thrilled To Announce That We Have Been Featured In i + D Magazine

Décor Revolution has been featured in ASID’s i + D magazine.  In this article, “Small is Big”, I was interviewed by Brian Barth about ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units) and their rise in popularity this past year.  Forbes even declared 2020 as the “year of the ADU”!

One of my favorite quotes from the article is “For Décor Revolution’s Steinberg, the space constraints of ADUs are like candy for a designer’s mind”.  This is so true!!

Want to read the entire article?  Click on the link here and start on page 34.

I first caught the ADU bug six years ago after converting our garage into a guest house.  For many years prior to that I had been using the garage space as my art studio when I had a textile design business. But, when I transitioned to interior design, I moved my office upstairs in the house and this space was not really being used much. When we decided to tackle our garage conversion, we completely gutted it.  We replaced the roof and refitted the existing structure as a studio apartment with a smartly designed kitchenette, bathroom, and living/sleeping space all in less than 400 sq ft! 

We chose to go with mostly white walls to make the space feel larger, with some accent walls in a warm gold color to tie in with the tones in the kitchen counter and backsplash. We designed built-in floating shelves for dishes and stemware, rather than closed cabinets, to provide a more spacious appearance in the kitchen.  Throughout the guest house, the furniture is multi-functional!  Since doing this first garage conversion, I have learned so many new design tricks for making a small space appear bigger, not only through the placement of windows and furniture, but also through the use of color and scale.

This space has comfortably housed relatives, as well as provided rental income over the years.  My son stayed here for a few months when he returned from a deployment with the military, before getting settled into his own home.  And we have rented it out on Airbnb over the years with huge success. We have had many lovely guests stay from all over the world.  It has been an incredible space for us, and I am thrilled to be able to design spaces like this for my clients!

Martin Zunkeler from bau10 in Venice Beach, CA (next two images) says that most of the lots sizes there are notoriously narrow and so he also uses design tricks to make the spaces feel more spacious. Things like light colored white oak floors, large windows and skylights, of course.

As I told Brian in our interview, there has always been a need for ADUs because of the housing shortage that we have in major cities across the country. But because of the pandemic, even more people are wanting an ADU in their backyard, whether as a work-from-home space, for visiting family, as isolation spaces in the case of a positive COVID test result, or to have parents or adult children living close by. Multigenerational living is back in fashion in a big way! ADUs are the future! Designing ADUs is my passion!

Read our article in i + D magazine here.  Perhaps you will be inspired to add an ADU to your backyard.