Editor’s Miscellany: That Personal Touch

One of the great things about having a blog is that it gives us the chance to show and talk about more cool stuff. Not infrequently, in the course of day-to-day business, we come across living spaces that are compelling and imaginative, but for one reason or other aren’t quite the right match for New England Home’s printed pages. I’ve always hated turning those projects away, and wished we had a venue in which to feature them. So . . . here we are.

Photos courtesy of David Ekizian and John Lawler

This very compact little house in Hingham is definitely a space by and for guys, albeit guys with a notably developed design sensibility. Not surprising, really, since owners David Ekizian and John Lawler are, respectively, a graphic designer and a photographer.

The spare but quirky rooms speak with a very personal, individual voice. A particular favorite of mine is the smoking room, whose crowd of pictures—what Ekizian calls “a mishmash of everything we’ve picked up over the years, from paint-by-numbers to vintage posters to serous photography, some of it by John”—occupies nearly every square foot of wall, even squeezing in behind the sofa back. (Some of John Lawler’s work, by the way, was commissioned by Cheryl and Jeffrey Katz of C&J Katz Studio for their interiors at Barbara Lynch’s No. 9 Park restaurant in Boston.)

His appetite whetted by work on this house and years of helping friends with their paint color selections, Ekizian is now in the process of launching a new room-design consultancy, Design Edit. Here are a few other spaces that come to mind, sharing a similar level of eclecticism and individuality (click on the photos to see more of them):

From New England Home. Photo by Michael Partenio

From Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles. Photo by Mali Azima

From New England Home. Photo by John Gruen

—Kyle Hoepner