How Alexandra Tolstoy made a rental house her own | House & Garden

Comments · 843

• TH

  @TheAndrewRitchie · 5 years ago

  I love seeing people LIVING in their houses, filling it with the colours and patterns they love, surrounding themselves with objects that have a past and a story… This home isn’t done to anyone’s taste but her own. So refreshing!

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• DO

  @doyouknowaboutemmah · 5 years ago

  finally a house that resembles the person who lives in it. truly personal and mesmerising

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• PA

  @Pachelbel_PaperDarts · 5 years ago

  In an age of minimalism and bland decor, it is a breath of fresh air to see how exquisitely bohemian Alexandra&apos;s house looks with all the sublime patterns and colours. I love the look of antique Victorian crazy quilt on the bed at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7QcPIJZ3Cc&amp;t=660">11:00</a>.

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• CR

  @CrimsonNClova · 4 years ago (edited)

  As the daughter of arty and intellectual Ukrainian immigrants to California, this is basically a version of our own home. It’s all a mad but somehow harmonious mishmash of Mexican folk art, Persian rugs, Russian iconography, Dutch tiles, nineteenth century California plein air landscapes, Chinese jade, carved wooden tables, lacquer boxes, medieval instruments, Hmong tapestries, Turkish copper ware, Swedish embroidered towels, towering plants, African masks, Quaker quilts, Indian textiles, thrift store Buddhas, matryoshka (nesting) dolls, Hopi Kachinas, Japanese prints, abstract paintings, bronze sculptures, tall oak bookshelves filled with art, lit, poetry and philosophy tomes, east-facing decorative corners crammed with gilded Madonnas, golden samovars, dried willow sprigs and hollowed-out painted pysanky eggs left over from all-night Easter vigils of years past. The kitchen shelves overflow with brightly painted roosters of every folk tradition imaginable. Color and a wild eruption of patterns dominate. Slavs just can’t help themselves.

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• RA

  @rachelhendrickson7555 · 5 years ago

  Did the story of the photographer bother anyone else?

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• CH

  @chattykathie7129 · 4 years ago

  She inspired me so I woke up with the sun in my eyes and turned the head of my bed into the windows and completely changed the mood of the room and my husband says it’s magical.

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• AN

  @AnnaMaledonPictureBookAuthor · 2 years ago

  It&apos;s so refreshing to see a small pretty rental house. Most interviews seem to be with owners of giant houses.

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• RO

  @rosecolouredglasses · 5 years ago

  I love that everything is interesting and has a story and is used. It looks like a house to live in and enjoy as opposed to a house that you have to slave away wiping every blemish and hiding everything behind fitted cupboards

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• JU

  @JuneJohnson-eb8yv · 3 years ago

  I agree-that is SUPER WEIRD. As a mother myself I would never leave someone alone with my kids……

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• LI

  @lilacseason5187 · 5 years ago

  Alexandra Tolstoy&apos;s home is beautiful with her personal touches.

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• MC

  @mck7067 · 11 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7QcPIJZ3Cc&amp;t=261">4:21</a> The genre change from home design to true crime is insane.

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• FR

  @fringedwellermccatintyre730 · 5 years ago

  I just love her design sense, combined with her lack of rules philosophy.

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