Last April, I bought my first apartment of my very own. It was a milestone that represented a fresh start and a new environment.  But before I put a bid down, I wanted to make sure I could make it my own.  I observed the spatial layout and surveyed all the decorative elements throughout the apartment, everything was perfect. Except, that the apartment came with these built-in bookshelves that ran along the full-length of the entrance, which were not really me.  To get rid of them would have been a huge financial undertaking and to keep them would have meant compromising my style. But, in Tim Gunn’s famous words, could I “make it work”?  

I took a picture of the built-ins and posted them to Facebook to get some thoughts from friends.  I received about 7  answers, ranging from “Adore them!” to ” Ditch them!”. Why? Because my friends have varying and divergent opinions on the subject of design and could only offer their advice, based on their own stylistic approach, not necessarily our shared love of a particular look. So, they weren’t able to answer my question.   

Simultaneously, I bought a million shelter magazines, scoured the design blogs, and used every tool there was imaginable to help me discover ways to integrate these bookshelves with my existing set of furniture or new pieces.  But, I realized that all these tools made the process overwhelming, it was just all too complex and too hard to find stuff that I liked, review style combinations, and get the opinions of others who shared my design sensibilities.  

So, I decided to create a tool that could help me (and others!) and came up with Roomscaper.  I believe that Roomscaper will solve the problem of furnishing your home with less friction and more fun, by allowing you to store and save products in one place and get advice from people who share your tastes.

It’s been a long road and we are not quite there, yet! But, stay tuned and don’t forget to register for early access to the beta-launch. Feel free to write me at anna@roomscaper.com, I would love to hear from you and what sort of design problems who are trying to solve.  

xo