Kim Pickett took Vancouver Television’s Maria Rincon on a tour of her gorgeously designed condo in downtown Vancouver. In the episode, Kim shares unique pieces that reflect her minimal and modern style, how she brings the West Coast flavour indoors, Karim Rashid and other design inspirations, and the mask and vinyl record collections in her “creative cove”.
Here is a full transcript of the interview.
Thank you for this opportunity for you the viewers to see my personal space and all the design elements that I have created within my home.
So, let’s get started.
So, let’s start off with your kitchen first Kim.
Sure, Maria. So, when I first moved in to this space I wanted to have an open concept. So, there was shelving actually all along here and it was kind of dated so what we did was took out the shelving so that the kitchen could connect to the dining room and the living room.
Mostly, the most important part was that you wanted an open space here?
Yeah, the open space so when you’re cooking or entertaining, you can see everybody. See people in the living room and the dining room and on the patio too.
Great!
All set here are all made by Alessi so I follow everything to do with design. So, eat design, I live design, I breathe design. So, when I’m going shopping anything that is very unique and looks very well designed, I’ll buy. So, these pieces are classic pieces and they come from Alessi which is a design and industrial design manufacture in Italy and they started in 1920s and there’s designers that have designed each of these pieces. So, this is kind of a famous kettle. So, when it boils, the bird actually tweets and whistles so it’s really cute. And then, they just came out with another kettle that has a T-rex on top for the 30th anniversary and it does the same thing so this is kind of the kettle that it embodies pop art, art deco, and also it has a cartoon like field too. So, this piece here is the lemon juicer so our citrus juicer and it was designed in the 1950s and again its Alessi product as well and it’s more of a conversational piece than anything else. You don’t really use it. So, it’s a piece that is an object that has to be appreciated and talked about when you’re in the kitchen and I just love the concept of this piece because it looks like an octopus. So, if you think about squeezing a lemon on a calamari, you know, you think about an object like this and that’s how it was designed. In the back here is the famous toaster and it’s a bun warmer as well. So, it’s pretty cool and it’s really out there in terms of a piece in your kitchen so when people come over they always ask about this and what does it do, they don’t even know it’s a toaster but all these pieces are very– they’re classic and they’re modern and very minimal and so that kind of fits my style as a graphic designer.
So, Kim how is the interior design of your home influence prior City of Vancouver?
Well, my home is definitely influenced by the City of Vancouver just because of the outdoors. So, when I was designing my home, I wanted the outdoors to come in and that’s the West Coast modern field but I also wanted a lot of color so you can see the painting and the background to have that sort of energy mixed with the wood and the nature inside. So, I think definitely the city influences me and also when I’m shopping in certain neighbourhoods, I pick up certain local products that I incorporate into the design of my home.
That’s great. Now, tell us about the furniture were sitting on right now.
So, the dining room table is the tulip table with the chairs. These chairs are very famous because they can swivel and they were designed at the 1950s, I think. So you still see this table and these chairs everywhere. They’re timeless and that’s what I love about modern furniture is that it’s timeless and that kind of transcends into what I do as a graphic designer and what I create all the designs are timeless and they’re going to stand overtime and not go to fashion.
Exactly and what about the cutlery here. I love this bowl you have in front of us.
Yeah. So, I love black. I love black on black and I love black flatware. So very different in terms of your normal kind of silver flatware but you do have to hand wash this. That’s for sure but it’s worth it because a lot of people compliment me on the flat ware and it’s a detailed but it does standout as a conversational piece when you’re eating the meal with people. This cylinder globe I picked up at a store on Main Street called “The Inform” and I just I loved that I walked into the store and it just, it drew me in the geometric shapes and it just made me go up to it and want to touch it and it’s actually made out of plywood and it’s put together and I actually put it this whole thing together. It took me about four hours but it was totally worth it. The only downfall to the light fixture is some people do bang into it just from walking around but its light so it doesn’t hurt them so it’s okay. So, this painting I just completely fell in love with because of the colors. It’s vibrant, it has energy and it has a graphic design kind of feel to it and it really fit in with the rest of the colors in the living room. I’ve tied it all together. So, it really kind of balanced out the whole west coast modern with that flare attitude.
So, tell us about the stylish broom we have in front of us.
Sure, so this broom I got on Davie Street and it was the most expensive broom I have ever bought in my life because it was $90. But I again it looked like a sculpture in a window and so that really attracted me to it and it’s intelligent design in terms of how it actually works. You don’t have to bend down and sweep up, you can actually just bend over and then sweep everything up and it’s amazing how nobody actually thought of that and so I researched more into this sort of design that Karim Rashid has done and he’s done other products like it and I just love how he can think of things on such a simple level and it really works for the everyday person too.
I definitely agree. It’s so much nicer on your lower back and you don’t tie this in the closet, right?
Exactly and it’s also nice to handle too and it looks like a sculptural piece.
So, now let’s talk about your living room, really comfy in the seat right here.
Sure. So, the couch I wanted to keep very neutral and have accent pillows that created a statement. So, this pillow right here, I got from an art gallery in Central Town and Gastown and these guys are a local company and they do these awesome pillows and this one I really love the day of the dead and I love all the masks and so this one had a lot of color in it and on a very neutral couch, it just popped. Some people are afraid of it but I love it and it’s a great pillow.
Yeah, it definitely gives your couch personality.
Yeah, and then all the other pillows I’ve kind of just take in colors from the painting, gold from the wallpaper, and I just layered all the pillows. So, then I have a love of designer chairs and so, I follow all the designer chair collections and but my space is only so big that I can, I can’t get everyone of them so I bought the Eames chair and the Barcelona chair, they’re reproductions but they’re just as good and I love the Eames chair because it was again designed in the 1950s so it’s that modern style but very classic. And then the Barcelona you see everywhere and it’s crazy that it’s actually, it was designed in the 1920s but again it’s timeless, classic, modern, minimal design which is a love of mine and I love to have these things in my personal space.
Awesome and tell us about this table right here and then the rug that runs underneath?
Okay. So, this table is a waterfall table and its glass and so you can see right through it. Again because Vancouver were living in small spaces and what you want to do is try to open up the space and so I kind of done that in my living room and the kitchen area creating that open field. So, the waterfall table it’s really handy, you could move it around, it’s very light you just don’t want to fall on it because you’ll get hurt very badly but I haven’t had any accidents yet and also because of the corners, it’s great for kids too. You can’t really bang your toe or your knee so it’s nice. Now, then I have a circular shaggy rug. So, again that circular encompassing feel I wanted to have that throughout the dining room, on the wallpaper to have that energy and that inclusiveness so people feel like they’re in these environments and sitting as one.
Yeah, exactly and right now we’re facing the entertainment side of the room and you have a magazine here and I can tell that it has a lot to do with the wallpaper on the wall.
Yeah. So, this was New Vogue Magazine. I think they’re a local publication. I have no affiliations but I just got it and I thought it was on my dining room table so Karim Rashid again, I loved his work. He’s an industrial designer and his design is very smart and intelligent and I’ve followed him for a while now. So the wallpaper that you see here is from his line of wallpapers. So, it’s that black and that gold. It’s almost like there is something moving and again I wanted to have that energy come through my personal space. Okay. So the wallpaper is the focal point in the whole living room and I wanted to do a whole wall with wallpaper and Karim Rashid came out with this line of wallpaper that I just loved so it has a lot of energy, it’s very graphic and it’s dark. So, what we’ve done here is we put the TV on the wall. It’s almost like the TV is hidden in the wall and so you can’t really notice it. Sometimes when you go into a living room that TV just sticks out like a sore thumb and I wanted it to be just a little bit more settled. The shelf in here is something that I designed. It is the floating shelving system that is stacked kind of offset stacked and it has lights in the bottom so it’s kind of like floating. Again, I wanted to create a sense of openness. Again, you know we live in small spaces so you’ve got to really use your imagination and see what you can do to open up your tiny spaces.
Tell us about this incredible space if you have here.
Okay. So this is my den and it’s called the “creative cove”. It’s a place that is very zen like for me. It holds a lot of objects that have a sentimental value and so I’ll take you through some of these pieces and we’ll talk a little bit about them.
Sounds good.
Behind you, we have masks. So, I love masks, I love — I showed you the day of the dead pillow and that’s based on a lot of masks and that kind of caries through a lot of the paintings and a lot of the things that you see in my home. So, I collect masks so everywhere I travel in the world, I bring back a souvenir which is a mask and so all the masks is kind of everywhere I’ve been in the world so and I just keep on collecting.
And what countries do we have up here?
Yeah, so we have Mexico, Italy, Thailand and I think that there’s a couple from Mexico and because I’ve been there a few different times and Indonesia and Africa and that’s about it.
Wow, very cool I’ve hope you keep collecting and collecting more.
And also Ontario and that’s a mask that I found in a convenience store in Ontario but it’s a beautiful mask and it was only $20 so…
Wow, what a steal. So tell us about those turntables on the side of the room.
Sure, so I have a extensive record collection as you can see. So, one of my good friends passed away last year and I inherited her record collection. So, her family was just going to give all the records away and so I purchased them all and with the turntables. So, I have parties and our friends come over and we’re able to enjoy her music still even though she’s not here but we can connect with her on a musical level and on an emotional level and we’re working on digitizing all the records and putting out a music station for everybody to enjoy so that’s my next big project.
Wow, very cool!
So, this record collection is pretty extensive. I have around 1,500 records and there are more records in my bedroom. So, you can see that some of them are just classic jams. The Humpty Dance, Bob Marley records that you know you don’t see anymore and just the level of also graphic design that are on a lot of these records is pretty interesting to me as a designer too. So, we’ve been playing some of them and going through the boxes but you can imagine there’s a lot to play but it’s always fun just to pick a random record and play it and start dancing. Okay. So, this painting is by Scott Billings he’s a local artist here in Vancouver and he’s also my personal friend and I went to high school with him and I was in his art class. So, we connect on artistic level. This painting, I bought from him because I felt like I was part of the process and it has a lot of energy and I asked him to put in an accent color which is the blue and it really, the painting really came alive when that accent color was added. So, I always felt that I was collaborating with him as artist to artist. So, this piece is very special to me and sentimental. So, as you can see behind me there’s a lot of great architecture to look at every day and I bring that into what I do as a designer and it’s really inspirational to see the buildings and see the landscape and the mountains and to wake up to this beautiful place that we live in.
Well thank you for visiting and I hope you got inspired by what I’ve done to my place and just know that anybody can take a small space and make it appear bigger than what it is. With a little bit of imagination and inspiration you can really create a really nice home for yourself.
Welcome to Vancouver Television I’m your host Maria Rincon. Today were here with Kim Pickett, she’s the creative director and principal of KIMBO Design and she’s going to be showing us her home today.