Bronte Athearn and her partner, Jordan Lovelis, were ready for a change.

It was spring 2021, and the duo had spent the last several months living in a van, zigzagging across the country and visiting 32 states, also stopping in Brooklyn for four months. The couple loved life on the move, but they realized Los Angeles was where they needed to be for work, as Bronte is an interior stylist, while Jordan is a musician.

So, Bronte and Jordan made their way back to the West Coast and set their apartment-hunting sights on Downtown Los Angeles, a neighborhood where neither of the creatives had previously lived. “We wanted to do something different,” says Bronte.

Craigslist led the couple to a loft in an old warehouse building. As soon as they walked in, they fell in love with the exposed beams, 12-foot ceilings, wood-burning fireplace, and original hardwood floors. Plus, at 1,500 square feet, the industrial-style loft was just a tad roomier than their 16-foot-long van. “It was just a big empty space,” Bronte says.

While the couple stored a few personal belongings at Jordan’s parents’ house before they embarked on their #vanlife adventure, they had sold or donated the majority of their possessions in advance of the trip. When it came time to move into their L.A. loft, the couple did so with just a mattress, their clothes, and a few pieces of decor. “It made me really eager to fill the space,” says Bronte.

While some would find starting from scratch daunting, the interior stylist found it “more fun than overwhelming.”

“I really thoughtfully picked each piece,” says Bronte. “I wanted to curate what would work in the space and go well together.”

Because this marked the couple’s first home together, they wanted to furnish it in a way that was reflective of their personal tastes. Bronte spent hours obsessively scanning online platforms such as Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp, searching for the perfect “lived-in, modern” pieces. Her efforts paid off; nearly everything in the home is vintage or secondhand.

For Bronte, the wide, low-slung leather sofa from HD Buttercup that she found on Facebook Marketplace was perhaps her biggest score. “The deal was crazy,” she says. “It’s the perfect couch for friends to crash on.”

Midcentury-modern pieces like the wooden dining table and a pair of leather armchairs from Saasaan, a vintage European furniture showroom in Los Angeles, are mixed with custom solutions like a 10-foot-long desk Bronte made from a slab of butcher block set atop Ikea cabinets. Shearling throws and jute and cowhide rugs warm the space and add further texture, while plants enhance the bohemian air in the former warehouse setting.

“Because it’s obviously a very industrial space, we wanted to bring a natural feel to it,” Bronte says. She repainted the kitchen cabinets—which were “an ugly maple wood”—with a dark-green hue to complement the loft’s exposed brick walls and tawny-stained floors. Bronte also whitewashed the interior doors, which were previously painted a fire-engine red, and swapped standard light fixtures for hanging Rice Paper Shades from Hay.

The star of the space, and Bronte’s favorite feature, is a custom, 12-by-8-foot bookshelf that separates the living area from the bedroom. At first, the couple thought the shelving unit would be super expensive to create. “We have friends who are woodworkers who told us it would be about $5,000,” Bronte says. “We almost scratched the idea altogether because we didn’t know if it would be worth it in a rental.”

But with all the other furniture in place, the couple knew the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf would be key in bringing the space together—it couldn’t be cut. So, they turned to Jordan’s dad, who happens to be a carpenter. He made the shelf for just $500 using construction pine, which the couple decided to leave unfinished so it will naturally age over time.

Bronte regularly restyles the custom bookshelf with items that are personal to the couple, such as rocks and branches collected on their road trip, vintage candlesticks, and a few ceramics. Each piece adds to the loft’s lived-in, wabi-sabi aesthetic. “It’s a space I really love coming back to,” says Bronte. “It feels like home.”

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Project Credits:

Interior Design: Bronte Athearn