At the height of Seattle’s real estate market in 2003, when Leah and Chad Steen bought their first home, the property was far from picture perfect. “There was no landscaping; the previous owners even left us a note about the sad-looking Charlie Brown tree in the front yard,” says Leah, who owns Revival Home & Garden (revivalhomeandgarden.com), a shop in Capitol Hill. “But the house had tons of character, and there weren’t holes in the ceiling, like other places we’d seen.”
The early-1900s house’s footprint (1,300 square feet) is small, and the high sticker price left little cash for decorating. But limits only bred creativity. “Designing a small space means you can be discriminating, and vibrant decor updates don’t have to be pricey, just imaginative,” says Leah. Besides, “when I met Chad, he was living part-time in a VW bus, so this was definitely a step up for him.”