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RUGS Safavieh Natural Fiber Rectangular Indoor Woven Area Rug lowes.com Safavieh Tunisia Ivory Rectangular Indoor Machine-Made Moroccan Area lowes.com COFFEE TABLEAEON Furniture SD9153A-Am Walnut Starlight Coffee Table, Walnut atgstores.com SOFA Control Brand FEC3719GREY3 Dexter Sofa, Grey Wool Blend atgstores.com SIDE TABLE Modway EEI-280-WHI Lippa 20-in Side Table, White/White Marble atgstores.com POUFS nuLOOM NUSAPOU1G nuLOOM Living Leather Moroccan Pouf Ottoman, Blue/Green atgstores.com CHAIRS Stilnovo USA FXC917 Teddy Bear Chair atgstores.com BAMBOO SHADES lowes.com PAINT Valspar Gray Palisade
see inside the actress’s redesigned living room and bathroom.
produced by ALYSSA CLOUGH
photography by DAVID. A LAND
products provided by LOWE’S and ATG STORES
Furnishing your first solo apartment is an exciting, yet overwhelming, endeavor. One that Adrienne Moore, who you know as Cindy “Black Cindy” Hayes from hit show Orange Is the New Black, recently began… With the help of an old friend from college, interior designer Nicole Gibbons. Together, the pair worked with Lowe’s and ATG Stores to redesign Adrienne’s living room and bathroom to create a space that is, as Nicole said, “comfortable, and grownup, and sophisticated, and really suits her personality”.
Due to the two #girlboss’s busy schedules, the duo relied heavily on email correspondence and Pinterest boards to communicate and collaborate, which is not how your average redesign goes down. Though unusual in process, the end result is even more beautiful than we expected—a stunning, mid-century inspired space that both women are happy with.
Adrienne took a break from filming season five of OITNB to speak with us on everything from her newfound obsession with interiors to what she loves most about her new space. But first, we’ll hear from the designer who made it all happen, who said, “The best part of working on any project is knowing that the client is super happy.”
Mission accomplished.
FLOOR LAMP Housing Works
Nicole
HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH ADRIENNE?It was great! She was super open minded, she was super receptive to all my ideas. I think that she really learned a lot, she had a lot of fun with the process. One of the first things we did, we had been talking, and then our schedules were super busy and we weren’t able to connect, and I had co-chaired Design on a Dime, [a Housing Works fundraiser] and she attended the event. So we walked around the event together and looked at furniture styles, she pointed out things that she liked. Actually, the floor lamp in her living room was one of the pieces that she bought, she fell in love with it.
From there, I went to my partners at Lowe’s (where Nicole is a Style Ambassador) and ATG Stores to see if they could help out with providing some of the furnishings that we needed for her space. And so, they were super kind to collaborate and from there I started curating a look for her home using products that I found online at Lowe’s and ATG and we just sort of went back and forth just sharing moodboards and inspiration, and it was a really fun process. She was fun to work with, she had a lot of enthusiasm and I know that she was so thrilled with the end result.
ART coattail by Misty Hughes minted.com
HOW DID YOU SETTLE ON THE AESTHETIC OF THE SPACE? I showed her a bunch of different sofa styles—she knows what she likes when she sees it—so when I started showing her more of a mid-century vibe that seemed to be what she gravitated towards… So the rest of the space came together once we had that main piece selected.
The way I like to use color is just by infusing really fresh pops of color on neutral bases. And the one limitation we had here, because I love color on the walls and wallpaper, but Adrienne is renting, which is a story everyone can relate to… So we just did a super bright white on the walls, which creates a very airy feel and then yeah we just brought in colors that were super vibrant, so even though the space is neutral there are still these really lovely pops of colors that make the space feel warm and alive.
“The bar cart is one of Nicole’s favorite styling moments!” ART marbled wake by SylvieCeres Designs minted.com BAR CARTArteriors Home 4039 Myrtle Iron and Marble Bar Cart atgstores.com
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE ITEM IN THE LIVING ROOM? When I design a space, I don’t know if i always have a favorite item. It’s really for me big picture and how it comes together. And I think given the space, it actually had a really kind of tricky layout, as well, so where it was before to where it is now, it’s so dramatically different. The feel is different, it was very dark before, and her furniture was very dark, and it just felt very heavy, and now it’s just light, and bright, and airy.
GARDEN STOOL Safavieh 18.5-in Robins Egg Blue Ceramic Barrel Garden Stool lowes.com MEDICINE CABINET allen + roth 20-in x 26-in Rectangle Surface Mirrored Aluminum Medicine Cabinet with Lights lowes.com SHOWER CURTAIN ROD Moen 60-in Tension Mount Chrome Curved Adjustable Shower Curtain Rod lowes.com FAUCET lowes.com LIGHT FIXTURE Kichler Lighting 45657CHLED Trinsic LED Bath Bar, Small PAINT Valspar azure snow
AND THEN WHAT ABOUT THE BATHROOM? And yeah, and even the bathroom, it’s such a simple space, but the cabinet was brown, we painted it white, we changed out the medicine cabinet, the faucet, the knobs, just a few small changes, like it’s a great example of just taking three or four things, and it made all the difference. Because, she had this shelf thing that was over the toilet that was just filled with stuff, and so we brought in a much larger medicine cabinet that she could have a little bit more storage to store things and put a piece of artwork up in place of where some of the clutter was before, and now it just feels super serene. Like she said, I want my bathroom to feel like a spa, I love taking baths… It’s a typical New York City rental bathroom and it looks very peaceful and just crisp and clean and cool and fresh.
ART outside the lines by misty hughes minted.com kestral minted.com crescendo minted.com ambunctious minted.com
Adrienne
ARE THERE ANY CAST MEMBERS YOU GIVE—OR GET—STYLE ADVICE FROM? I would say a lot of the girls. I’m thinking of a conversation I had with Uzo the other day. She recently moved and we were talking about our spaces and size and dimensions and where to find the furniture and who has the sales going on. I was actually just talking to Elizabeth Rodriguez, who plays Aleida on the show, yesterday because I was telling her I’m interested in doing a Moroccan or Persian kind of theme, and she said she has a friend who sells that furniture, so she sent me the link to his furniture sale and I was just like ugh, this is perfect. And now I’m making plans to go by and look at his stuff in more detail when I have a moment.
I feel like since I’ve taken on the task of redesigning my entire apartment, because my roommate moved out about a year ago, and it’s just this daunting task of figuring out what is it that I want. We finally got to measure everything. I was literally over at Taylor Schilling’s house the other day and she was showing me some new furniture she had purchased was like, I didn’t know I had to measure everything! And I was like, I know! I’m finding I always have to measure stuff, and if I don’t, I end up, which I did this Tuesday, I bought all this furniture because they were having a liquidation sale and the couch couldn’t fit up my stairs and I was like oops, didn’t take that into account. It’s my new conversation that I have with people now, furniture.
TABLE LAMP ON CREDENZA Surya Ava 31-in 3-Way Cream Crackle Indoor Table Lamp with Fabric Shad lowes.com CABINETS Zuo Modern Linea Walnut Rectangular Television Cabinet lowes.com
HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN THIS INTERESTED IN INTERIORS? I’ve always had an interest in beautiful things and how furniture can be more of a, you know kind of like, I love going to museums and things like that. I’m always looking at how beautiful the paintings and the architecture and the structure and the dimensions all kind of come together. So I think in a way, I‘ve always kind of admired that. But obviously since now I’m decorating, I’m obsessed with not just having a couch in my room, but a couch that when you sit on it, you feel a certain way, you have an aesthetic… I remember when I first started working with Nicole, I was like okay this is the aesthetic that I want to feel when I walk into this room, I want to feel like ahhhhhhhh. [Editor’s note: Like a long, peaceful sigh, not a scream.] I literally said that to her
WHAT WERE YOU LOOKING TO ACCOMPLISH WITH THIS REDESIGN? In my apartment, the living room is the first room that you enter. So I want people to feel comfortable and relaxed and to be able to let their guard down. To feel comfortable, and happy, and invited.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO MOST IN YOUR SPACE? My living room, so right now because I don’t have my dressing room done, my living room has become my chill space… But, I want my dressing room to become that eventually, and then my living room will become the place where I entertain people. I definitely want the living room to be that and my dressing room eventually to be, like you know when you go to a spa and they give you a chillax room? That’s kind of what I’m looking to make.
HOW DID YOU TWO CONNECT ON THIS PROJECT? HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH HER? A mutual classmate of ours, she and I were just kind of kicking around, catching, up, what’s been going on in your life, and I said I’m in the process of redoing my apartment and I don’t know quite know what I want yet, how I want it to look, but I want… This is my first apartment, this is my first place. There’s not a pressure to do it right, but there’s this sort of feeling to design what I want and to make it look like what I want.
So anyway, she said I should reach out to Nicole… So that’s how we got in touch with each other and from there she mentioned this opportunity to connect with Lowe’s and ATG Store and I thought it was this great idea and then next thing I know I’m getting two of my rooms decorated. And it was great because for a first timer who’s still kind of figuring out what they want, it was good to be guided through that process about what things are important to consider when you are decorating a space. What features do you want to invest in versus things you know, like this curtain might not be transferrable to all of my apartments, so let me save on curtains, but let me really invest in a nice couch, a nice chair, a nice bed, and a nice table, things like that.
HOW MUCH DID YOU WORK WITH NICOLE ON THINGS LIKE THE OVERALL VIBE AND COLOR PALETTE? We worked really closely to figure out the colors, and I told her, she made a good point that it’s furniture that could possibly transfer to other spaces in the future… We chose neutral colors as foundational furniture pieces and then we splashed it with throws, tchotchkes around the house, like vases, bookends, and things like that. The windows in the apartment give really, really, really good light. So we wanted to emphasize that for the day, but then having the flexibility of taking it down in the evening. And so we chose white linen curtains that were nice and long and emphasized the length of the windows, and then during the day, the light shines beautifully, and then if I went a little bit of privacy but still want the light to come in, the bamboo shades provide that. And then the wood and the bamboo gave it a very calming effect. And the couch has this square effect, some of the chairs give kind of an art-deco, mid-century feel, but the color and the curtains soften the place up to create more of a present day look.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE ITEM IN YOUR NEW LIVING ROOM? I honestly would say, I have already started getting in some amazing naps on my couch… There’s a really nice depth. Everyday when I come home, it’s the first place I go to. And I’ve been going there to go through my mail and answer my emails and answer text messages and return calls and next thing I know I’m getting a little tired on my couch and I lay back and I’m out for the count.