Design Inspirations · April 21, 2024

Flowers Got This L.A. Photographer Through 6 Months in the Hospital, So She Made Her Home an Ode to Them

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Sunflowers. Poppies. Wildflowers. Teeny-tiny, blown-upward large, textural. Framed past piped edges, splashed across beds, painted. Flowers jump upwards everywhere inward the dwelling of lensman Nicki Sebastian; her married man, Roni; too their ii daughters, Cami and Cece. 

The blossoms aren’t exclusively meaningful in their exuberance. For Nicki, they’re a symbol of community and healing through what she calls the darkest part of her life. Following a routine checkup simply iii weeks later moving into their circa-1940s ranch in L.A.’s Westchester neighborhood, Nicki was diagnosed with needlelike myeloid leukemia, an aggressive cancer that meant she would directly have to decamp from their dream scenario. “I was plucked out of my life too position in a hospital inwards a bubble for half-dozen months,” she remembers. “My novel habitation became UCLA.” 

Over that stretch of time, “flowers became the way inward which people supported me through the cancer experience,” Nicki says. Friends too followers would portion photos of blooms on Instagram as well as tag her. Since she wasn’t allowed to accept visitors, a grouping of her closest friends even dressed up as sunflowers and held upwardly signs outside of her window that read ”Nick This in the Bud.“ “It was both heartbreaking too beautiful together with wonderful and but intense all now,” she recalls. 

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The family unit dining tabular array, usually covered inwards puzzles, is the Avers blueprint from Hedge House Furniture. The pendant lite is from Serena & Lily, and artwork commissioned from Steph Hendrix hangs to a higher place. Jenni Kayne’s Hampton Dining Chairs business upwardly underneath.

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An Evermill spice rack keeps things organized in the kitchen. Nicki is an amateur sleuth when it comes to sourcing rugs on Etsy.

Through it all, Nicki remained thankful for the home they had constitute afterwards a 2-yr-long hunt. Reconciling her as well as Roni’sec taste in interiors took fourth dimension—he leans modern; she is drawn to traditional bordering on cottagecore—but every bit before long equally they stepped inside inward January 2021, at that place was no call for to draw up a treaty. They non alone loved its proximity to the beach in addition to the quaint character of the neighborhood, only the price for the square footage wasn’t bad either. 

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The Sebastian family.

“I could merely motion-picture show our family growing upward hither,” Nicki says of the warm, light-filled interiors. It besides surprisingly reminded her of the home she grew upwardly inwards on the other side of the state, inward Pennsylvania. The curved doorways, doorbell nook, in addition to long hallway amongst a coat cupboard—all were characteristics she didn’t know were so familiar to her. She initially wanted whitewashed walls in addition to to figure things out from at that place, simply after finishing treatment, the abode took on an alone new meaning, becoming a sanctuary.

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In the living room sits a Miramar Sofa past Jenni Kayne, piled amongst pillows similar this Sarah Sherman Samuel number for Lulu together with Georgia. The impress is from Nicki’sec Prints for a Cause line of work, too the carpeting is from Xasmin Interiors.

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“It was really of import that I was surrounded by colour too cheer as well as positivity, and things that reflected my girls.”

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In the reading nook, Butter, the family cat, snoozes on a chair upholstered in Block Shop Textiles textile. The shelves are past RGB Painting as well as Decor, as well as the walls are painted in Farrow & Ball’s Dead Salmon. The Peace candle is from a Nicki favorite, Midland Shop.

While the ample natural light had initially driven her to go along things airy in addition to bright, joy took the steering wheel inward the aftermath of her affliction. And afterwards and then much time in a bare infirmary room (“That’second all I stared at for half dozen months”), Nicki wanted vibrant, abundant energy. “I wasn’t able to become out together with nigh for quite just about time because of my compromised immune arrangement, and so it was actually of import that I was surrounded past color in addition to cheer too positivity, and things that reflected my girls,” she says. So she turned to a powerful sign of rebirth: flowers. By infusing the family’sec everyday objects in addition to spaces with botanical patterns, whether on art, bedding, or wallpaper, Nicki says she’sec e’er reminded of the support she received.

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A trio of wallpapers hang inward the bathrooms as well as laundry room. The sunflower pattern is from Vera, The Pattern Collective; the wildflowers are Hygge & West for Schoolhouse; too the poppies are Lake August. Here, the mirror is from Pottery Barn, too the exhibition poster is from an Anna Weyant demonstrate at Gagosian.

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A work from Late Summer Flowers reflects its surround in the laundry room. You can’t run across it, merely in that location’second a plaid Schoolhouse carpet inward front end of the machines.

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A photograph from Nicki’sec Prints for a Cause serial hangs inward the corner.

In many ways, the interiors are equally much a study inwards collaboration and friendship equally they are family unit. Nicki notes that the brands she plant with regularly on shoots—Jenni Kayne, Heather Taylor Home, Dôen, Everhem—have been influential in how she decorated. “Being about all of these elements in addition to photographing them for and then long, it but seemed like a natural progression to take them inward my own living infinite,” she says. Surrounding herself alongside the creations of people she knows in addition to loves alone contributes to the happiness ingredient.

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The master bedchamber, aka “the nest,” equally Nicki puts it. Jenni Kayne’second Pacific Bed is covered inward bedding in addition to pillows by Bliss in addition to Mischief, Heather Taylor Home, as well as Nickey Kehoe. Sunlight streams inwards over the Jenni Kayne Marin Side Table. The wallpaper is by Schumacher, in addition to the carpeting comes from Garnet Hill. A photo from Nicki’s Prints for a Cause hangs on the wall.

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Artwork on the dresser includes Jimmy Marble‘sec Every Yes Ever print and a floral slice by Kayla Plosz Antiel.

Nicki mixes in secondhand finds from Facebook Marketplace or vintage stores to round everything out. Her eclectic bear on is specially felt in the pair’sec second-floor sleeping accommodation; she refers to it equally the nest, where she says she has “spent more time than I ever imagined.” Their bed is piled high amongst patterns: floral sheets as well as pillows by Nicki’sec friend Hillary Justin from Bliss as well as Mischief; gingham pillows by Heather Taylor; a patchwork quilt from Nickey Kehoe. The neighboring armchair adds to the cozy, collaborative experience. After thrifting it, Taylor sent her a few monochrome gingham tablecloths she had inwards stock; instead of saving them for dinner parties, Nicki smartly had the place reupholstered with them. 

But perhaps her favorite object is propped upwards on their vintage dresser. Designed for Nicki past Jimmy Marble to score the beginning of her remission, the Every Yes Ever impress holds a pregnant home inwards her centre. “The starting time low-cal from sunrise simply happens to hit the slice foursquare inward the heart, which I know to be Jesse,” she says, acknowledging her friend together with Jimmy’sec late married woman, Jesse Chamberlain Marble, who passed away in June 2021 due to lymphoma.

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Cece’s room is painted inwards “dinosaur light-green” aka Farrow & Balls Lichen. The beds are made upward inward Dôen sheets.

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The bunk beds are from IKEA, together with the triangle banner is from Heather Taylor Home. The carpet? Etsy, of form.

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Cami’s room is painted head to toe inward Farrow & Ball’sec Cinder Rose. A Crate & Kids pendant calorie-free hangs from the ceiling, spell artwork past Jamie Street adorns one wall. The quilt is from Suay Sew Shop.

The girls’ rooms are drenched inward colors—pinkish as well as “dinosaur dark-green,” Cece’s asking—that Nicki says reflects just who they are correct right away. That is, amongst a picayune assist from Mom. “I gave them the Farrow & Ball palette to take from,” she says, laughing. The bright trick of turning two closets in Cece’s room into a reading place too storage corner extended the foursquare footage amongst rattling piddling attempt. “As a child, I was obsessed amongst forts too nooks and lilliputian hideaways. I would always claim corners of closets and brand them my clubhouses,” Nicki says of her inspiration for the alter. Another form of obsession too factored inwards: throw pillows. “You genuinely cannot max out on ruffled gingham pillows,” she declares, laughing, every bit evidenced past how many Taylor creations are scattered around.  

The statement embodies Nicki’second current mentality. She insists in that location hasn’t been a infinitesimal that she hasn’t had fun giving life to their space. “It could be because of what I had been through, and only feeling this immense gratitude for having a moment take a chance too the chance to make a haven for my family unit to grow into,” she says.

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Cami and Cece bouncing around on an RH Sofa that Nicki constitute on Facebook Marketplace. A Pisces Coffee Table from Sixpenny Home curves around the chaise, as well as a Sally Breer Noodle provides endless amusement. A Jen Garrido for Room & Board artwork hangs nearby.

Finally at a phase where the family tin host, they do then regularly. (There were many months, due to both the pandemic together with Nicki’s recovery, when they had to restrict guests.) Now she loves to encourage play for both adults together with petty ones alike. There’s about always a ane,000-slice puzzle on the dining room tabular array; a Lego spread has taken upward residence inward the living room’s bay window; and the dorsum couch (RH by manner of Facebook Marketplace) acts equally a “large foam pit” for kids speeding between bespeak A and B. The energy that the dwelling house radiates is life-giving for Nicki.  

“I discover myself merely taking moments away from my laptop and looking around in addition to grin to myself,” she muses. “I know that sounds so cheesy, merely it’second 100 per centum true.” And wherever she is, she’s never far from flowers. 

The Goods

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