We gush about readers all the time during our Cup of Jo team meetings, and Lauren O. is a name that often comes up. A reader from the beginning, she has left many hilarious and heartwarming comments (think: “Hang loose my goose“, a birthday realization, and what happened when she deleted Pokémon GO from her phone). Other readers have asked to learn more about her, so today we’re thrilled to feature her one-bedroom Manhattan apartment, which she shares with her husband, Joe, and two darling cats…
LIVING AREA
Chairs: vintage Niels Otto Møller from Housing Works Thrift. Throw pillows: Pendleton. Stereo: “Joe’s audiophile ‘Frankensystem’ — it’s a Linn turntable on a custom plinth with a Leben amp beside it, and DeVore Fidelity speakers.”
On moving to New York: Joe and I came from San Francisco to Manhattan in 2003 so that I could intern at a PR magazine. We originally thought we’d just stay for the summer, so the move felt low pressure. But then we sneaky fell in love with the city. Before New York, I’d never really found a city that spoke to me. So, at the end of my internship, when I was offered a full-time job, my answer was ‘Of course.’
Red lamp on record shelf: Nicholas Furrow. Record shelves: “Joe and our friend George made them.” Media center: Design Within Reach thrifted via Craigslist, similar. Red lamp on coffee table: Mantar.
On personal style: Our design vibe is similar to the Bergdorf Goodman holiday windows, if they were made by and for raccoons, since we love shiny things. I’d also describe it as a metropolitan goblin feel — there’s lots of records, books, orbs, minerals and rocks.
Art mural: thrifted from Housing Works. Record shelf: CB2, similar. Pink lamp: vintage, via Furlong. Plant shelf: Ethnicraft. Coffee table: Jordan Crowell. Red lamp: Mantar. Sectional: Saba Italia. Moth throw pillow: Timorous Beasties. Rug: Saint-Ouen flea market in Paris.
On bursts of color: Before the pandemic, there was definitely less color in the apartment. But once we were stuck here all the time, we wanted to brighten things up. Joe was actually the one who said, ‘We have to get a pink sectional.’ So, we went for it.
On a travel tradition: I used to volunteer at the Housing Works bookstore, and one day a mysterious Frenchman came in asking if we had any copies of George Orwell’s novel 1984. We pulled out all these different editions, and he was over the moon, saying that while traveling, he always goes to local bookstores and asks for an edition of 1984 from their country. I thought that was the best idea. The book was published in a zillion languages, and it has been released in new editions. If you read the various introductions, people love to frame it in terms of their country’s current political moment; it’s an interesting lens through which to see other places. I’ve now taken his tradition on as my own.
On fibre art: I go through random phases where I get the urge to make fibre art. I made a Debbie Harry portrait during our first summer in New York, when Joe was as a paralegal and never home. A few years later, I embroidered a portrait of David Bowie on a handbag for a contest held by the now defunct handbag brand Rachel Nasvik. I ended up winning!
Lauren and Maya
On beloved cat children: We adopted our cat Matty in Anaheim, California, while I was down there visiting family. He had been a stray running around in some parking lot, and we found him on Petfinder. Then we adopted Maya a year ago. She was originally living with her five kittens in a kill shelter in Tennessee, and then somehow they all ended up on Staten Island? The fact that she ended up there with her babies always makes me laugh because it reminds me of Madonna’s music video Papa Don’t Preach.
BEDROOM
Basket: Swahili African Modern. Blue bench: West Elm. Tiger throw pillows: Williams Sonoma. Duvet: “A white West Elm comforter I got on super clearance and then tie-dyed and appliquéd with a bunch of quilting scraps.”
On a long-time love: Joe and I met 26 years ago, while studying abroad at the University of Oxford in England. For one of our first dinners, he made me this fantastic, complicated, vegetarian Thai soup — even though he lived in student housing with a crappy kitchen shared with a dozen people, and he had to shop for groceries in a small town in 1999 where good ingredients were hard to come by. That gesture meant so much to me because in the past, previous boyfriends made me feel like shit for being a vegetarian. Like it was a hassle to work around. But Joe has always taken my needs seriously and my eccentricities in stride — like when I wake him up in the middle of the night because I’m sad about the way people are mean to pigeons — and he always really hears me and makes me feel taken care of.
Gold dachshunds: vintage via Atlantis Home.
