IntroductionThroughout my life, color has served as my constant comfort, and creativity has always been my way of expressing how I feel. And although my career is now rooted in helping others transform their spaces, I lived twenty-six years before having a space that was all my own.
I was raised in a very small house in San Gabriel Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles, California, with a large Asian and Latinx immigrant community. I shared a bedroom with my mom, dad, and sister. My grandparents, aunts, and uncles shared the other two bedrooms and the garage. Living with nine people under one small roof sparked a curiosity in me about layout and organization. From the age of thirteen, I constantly wondered,
How can we save space, keep things tidy, and improve functionality and flow of movement? So, I began to test my ideas. Whenever my mom was out of the house, I took the opportunity to rearrange the furniture: the beds in our bedroom went from an awkward L-shape to parallel. In the living room, I moved the couch around to improve the flow, and I added a desk for myself to create a more multifunctional space. I’d chip away at mountains of family members’ belongings that seemed to pile up over the week and find clever places to stash things. In some ways I felt trapped in the circumstances of my improvised home, and these were the little things I could do to take ownership of my environment.
Without a space to call my own, I took shelter in exploring color at the same time through art—it was an escape for me and an outlet for self-expression. My love for color started at a very young age. As a kid I was obsessed with Lisa Frank’s school supplies. Those vibrant, saturated, ombré colors were so outrageously beautiful and mesmerizing. But nothing brought me more joy than Sanrio, the Japanese brand made up of colorful characters like Keroppi and the famous Hello Kitty. Ahiru No Pekkle was my favorite. From fourth to seventh grade, I participated in many Sanrio-sponsored coloring contests, and I won most of them. Even though I was a shy kid, I was fiercely competitive (I’m an Aries through and through).
Not only did I love coloring, but I was also good at drawing. In sixth grade I drew a bird-of-paradise flower on the cover of my journal because I admired its sculptural shape and the bold combination of orange, yellow, and green with a hint of purple. This is one of my earliest memories of my love for color, and these colors continue to influence my work to this day.
In junior high school, I hit a rough patch. I was bullied. I was called
faggot. Even though I had no idea what that word meant, I understood the shame that the slur was meant to impart on me—and it affected me deeply. I didn’t feel comfortable talking about this at home, so I had no safe space where I could express my feelings. But one day that all changed. An IKEA catalog addressed to my aunt Holly arrived in the mail. When I opened the catalog and flipped through the pages, I saw colorful, clean rooms full of happy people. I fantasized about making ramen in their Swedish-style kitchens. This catalog became my bible. I flipped through it daily, ritually. This routine helped me pacify all my negative feelings and experiences. In some way, that was where I found my safe space. And that’s where my initial love for interiors was sparked.
By my senior year of high school, I was done sleeping in the same room with my parents and sister, so I moved out on my own . . . to the living room. By then, I had accumulated three years’ worth of styling inspiration, and I was finally ready to create a safe space of my own.
I went outside to our front yard and clipped snake plants, putting them in vases to decorate my living room–bedroom. Just a few plants instantly made the room warmer and calmer. Even back then, I understood the healing energy that plants could add to a space. I also began to experiment with taking my love for color and infusing it into my surroundings. I begged my aunt Holly to take me to IKEA to get patterned yellow curtains to update the living room. Touring the showroom for the first time was mind-blowing. I did not know that every well-worn page I’d obsessed over and studied would be right there before me. Walking through each of the staged rooms in the store was better than Disneyland. Seeing these spaces in real life provided examples of what a home should look and feel like. It was monumental for me to realize that living in a beautiful place was within my reach. I still remember how amazing it felt to finally have some ownership in our shared home—the sight of those yellow curtains offered a daily improvement on my mood and sense of self.
I started college the following year at UC Santa Cruz. Go Banana Slugs! It was exhilarating to go somewhere new and leave my tight, shared quarters for a freespirited place like Santa Cruz. I started off my studies as a chemical engineering major, but after a year I knew it wasn’t for me. I decided to take a few intro-to-art courses, and this was when I fell in love with printmaking and photography. I had found my calling. I was finally able to channel everything I felt into my art. This was therapeutic for me after years of holding in my feelings. As a shy introvert, I found that experimenting with bold colors was exciting. Learning to mix inks also helped me to understand how different shades and hues played off each other (or didn’t). It was more obvious than ever to me that color was my thing.
During college, I was glued to the interior design makeover show
Trading Spaces. My favorite designer was Vern Yip. It was my first time seeing someone who looked like me on TV doing something creative, and it helped me to imagine a creative career for myself. Soaking up the Swedish modernism from my beloved catalog pages, the approachable designs shown on
Trading Spaces, and the bohemian spirit of Santa Cruz, I began to explore my own decor style in my dorm rooms. I drew murals in them, hung art that I made myself, and draped orange sheets from the ceiling to create a faux canopy. I was thrifting, repurposing, and having fun with my space. And it was liberating.
After I graduated, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to travel and see the world. When a friend of mine became a flight attendant, I decided to apply for a job there as well. I didn’t think I was going to get the job, but I did, and suddenly I was flying internationally several times a month. I traveled to Thailand, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Sydney, Paris, and back. I was inspired by wandering the streets in different countries and seeing how they used color in creative ways.
When I wasn’t flying around the world, I lived with my now-ex-heartmate in a downtown Los Angeles loft, and I got really serious about decor. This was the year I had four—four!—different sofas. I was a vintage vulture. Craigslist was essentially my design community.
I moved frequently. I explored different parts of LA and even lived in NYC briefly. Each rental had its own quirks and challenges, and I treated each one like a new client that I had to please. In 2010, I was inspired by blogs like
Design*Sponge and
Apartment Therapy. With my background in photography and graphic design, I thought I might give blogging a try, so I started to document my art, thrifting, and decorating adventures online. I called my blog
Old Brand New. The name came to me one day because I wanted to write about how you can take old or vintage things and give them a new life or transform a space to take it from
old to
new. And the word brand represents you, your story, your identity, your experiences, your style. You put these three words together and it’s all about the new touch, the new idea, the new floor plan. It’s the revealing of yourself.
Through blogging I found not only a new passion but also a creative community and a new job as a graphic designer at a gardening company. I finally felt like I was on the right path. I grew my blog little by little and was thrilled when my work began appearing in publications like
ELLE Decor. Throughout the years, I honed my styling game and photography skills to capture interiors. I don’t believe you need to be a formally trained designer to have a beautiful or stylish home. Or even be a trained photographer to take a great photo of your space. We can all tap into our creative selves to make our homes feel special. If someone like me can do it, then I believe anyone else can do it, too.
Copyright © 2023 by Dabito. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
