When designer Claire Thomas decided to help her close friend David Wappel, a screenwriter, make his white-box San Fernando Valley rental kitchen feel a little more like him, she knew she’d have to speak his language. And that language is movies. “Right out of the gate, he told me his favorite space on film is Bilbo Baggins’s home from The Lord of the Rings,” Thomas recalls. To her, that translated to cozy countryside interiors and Arts and Crafts design. “I was like, what if we do Hobbit–meets–Soho House?” she says.
After fine-tuning Wappel’s inspiration for his new space, Thomas had another major task at hand: She had to figure out how to give her friend his dream kitchen without making any renovations that were permanent. Luckily, she is an expert in that department. Having worked on set designs for years, she’s used to finding unique, temporary solutions that can be torn down and replaced in a single day. With approval from Wappel’s building manager, the two set out to revamp his small kitchen with paint, fresh hardware, Command hooks, and plenty of contact paper. “Everything in here can get taken down, filled in with a little putty, and then painted white again to be returned to the state it came in,” says Thomas.
The Tonal Paint Combo
To nail down a new color palette for the space, Thomas turned to her client—literally. “I like choosing colors that are flattering on a person,” she says. “David has brown hair and hazel eyes, and his wardrobe has a lot of green tones. So I thought this is obviously the direction we need to go,” says the designer.
One shade wasn’t going to cut it. After landing on Dunn-Edwards’s Moss Covered for the cabinets, Thomas scoured the fan deck for a light green for the walls. “People sometimes think that if they are doing a dark color on the cabinets, they should keep the walls white, but that creates a lot of contrast,” she explains. “I didn’t want contrast here. I wanted it to feel soft and cozy.” So the rest of the space got swathed in a coat of Dunn-Edwards’s Turtle Trail.
The Faux Counters
Thomas got acquainted with contact paper while working on shoots where kitchen countertops needed to be tweaked in a flash. “You just fake it out,” she says. Wappel’s granite worktop wasn’t quite feeling Hobbit-worthy. Thomas combed through Amazon for butcher block–looking alternatives. “Honestly, I went off my gut. I was like, which one seems the least bad?” she says with a laugh. She was impressed when the option she chose showed up. Because the product has an embossed texture to it, it sells the look of real wood grain—at least from far away. “It doesn’t look like paper with wood printed on top,” she says.
The Fridge Disguise
With no budget to replace her friend’s basic freestanding refrigerator with a retro one from Smeg, Thomas decided to order another batch of contact paper. This time, she went with a solid green that matched the cabinets. After comparing five or so swatches, she committed to peel-and-stick wallpaper that was a mere $1.15 per square foot. With gravity working against her, she needed help applying the stick-on sheets. “It’s a two-person job. You absolutely need a friend to suffer with you,” she jokes. When a bubble or two would pop up, Thomas would let it sit overnight and then tackle it with a plastic trowel and a hair dryer the following day.
The Brass Upgrades
Every detail matters in a small space like this. Swapping out the hardware for unlacquered brass knobs and the overhead light with a vintage-looking fixture—both from Rejuvenation—made the mini reno feel grand. “I love that the wire netting gives it a little bit of an antique feel,” she says of the fresh flush mount. Even a tiny utensil rail makes the space feel more homey and, yes, Hobbit-y.
