Design*Sponge in the House

Grace Bonney brings her new book and a craft workshop to Malaprop's on Tuesday. Photo credit Jamie Beck

Design*Sponge in the House

While foodies across the region are counting down the days to Anthony Bourdain’s arrival at the Asheville Civic Center on November 5, local DIYers and style lovers are anxiously awaiting an interior design icon, Grace Bonney, who incites home greatness with her blog Design*Sponge. Her posts on topics ranging from flower arranging and crafty projects to reader-submitted room and furniture makeovers have jumped off the computer screen and onto the 400 pages of her new book, Design*Sponge at Home. Her whirlwind book tour includes a stop and craft party on Tuesday, October 25, at Malaprop’s Bookstore & Café in Asheville. From the road, she was kind enough to share thoughts on her blog’s success and interior sprucing ideas with WNC. Read on for inspiration, and then find more of the interview online at www.wncmagazine.com.

When you started the blog seven years ago, did you think you’d inspire the likes of interior designer Jonathan Adler, who wrote the forward in your new book?
Absolutely not. I was pretty much just hoping to inspire myself. I was in a job that I didn’t really enjoy, so I was just looking for a way to talk about the things I loved. It was more about inspiring myself to find my voice and hopefully turn that into a job in the design industry. I never imagined that the blog itself would become the job. But it’s great how it worked out that way.

What’s your latest DIY project?
I’ve been doing a lot of iron-on transfers lately, but the box storage bench in the book is the last big thing I did. I’m sort of obsessed with vintage wooden boxes. Whenever we go to flea markets, my friends have to stop me from bringing boxes home. I love either adding castor wheels to use them as rolling storage or making an upholstered bench top to create an extra seat as well as a place to hide things. An object that can do double duty is always my favorite to do.

Do you have any advice for someone in a major design rut?
The easiest and fastest way to (move forward) is to clean the slate. I did this when I moved. I fought it for a long time, then I was like ‘why did I fight this?’ I sold almost everything in my apartment because it didn’t feel like me anymore. I had outgrown it or I wasn’t inspired by it. Then, when I was left with just the things I really loved and had a clean space to work with, my head flooded with ideas again. I think most people don’t ever really, truly give themselves a blank space to start with.

Are you going to visit any interior designers while you’re in Asheville?
Not interior designers. I have a lot of friends who are artists in Asheville, so I mostly associate Asheville with artisans—people who do ceramics and textiles and appreciate the craft behind a specific skill. I think a lot of times in big cities, people lose the history of the craft behind what they do. Asheville is a city where that doesn’t seem to be happening, which I love. I’m hoping we have time to do some studio visits.

What have you learned on this wild ride from being someone who started their own blog to having more than a million hits on your site each month?
It all boils down to trusting who you are and what you love. I knew from the beginning that I’d found something and, for me, that was design. It was an area of the world that I felt really comfortable in. I had confidence in my voice to talk about things in this industry and I just really went for it. You see people in different industries do that all the time, and when you find your passion you really have to be brave enough to just go for it.

Malaprop’s Bookstore & Cafe is hosting a craft workshop with Bonney from 6 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, October 25, followed by a free party from 7 to 9 p.m. 55 Haywood St., Asheville; $45 for workshop, includes a copy of Design*Sponge at Home. (828) 254-6734; www.malaprops.com/event