Remodel Residency with Hannah Freedner

Hi! Of course. Studio Bookmark is a multidisciplinary design studio. We do branding and interiors, and we also have a line of home products and architectural hardware that we design and fabricate ourselves. My partner Dustin Coffey and I started Bookmark in the fall of 2020 after we lost our jobs due to Covid in March. We’d always wanted to start our own studio, but we just needed that push off the cliff!

My mom and stepdad built our house when I was a kid, and seeing that process likely inspired me. When I was in college I had a summer job painting houses with some friends, and that was my first real experience with manual labor. I found that I enjoyed it, and still find working with my hands very rewarding

Dustin and I began our DIY journey in the winter of 2019 by designing and remodeling our kitchen. We completely gutted the kitchen, drywalled, plastered, built a custom island and shelving, all of which we designed and fabricated ourselves. I’ve been doing smaller projects throughout the rest of our house for a few years, the biggest of which was learning how to use a lime plaster finish in our main living spaces. I definitely needed that experience before taking on the tadelakt process in our bathroom.

Going into this project I felt pretty scared, although I didn’t fully understand what I was getting myself into to be honest! If I had known, I don’t know if I would have taken it on. I think that’s part of doing anything difficult for the first time.

Our house is from the 1940s, and it had been updated in the 1990s with some pretty ugly finishes. We’ve slowly been replacing things, but that bathroom in particular was a real eyesore. Also, I’ve always been really into skincare, and enjoy the process of getting ready to go out, or having an at-home spa day. I was craving a spa-like space in our home, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. I think this was a huge driving factor in taking on this project.

Logistically speaking, it’s our second bathroom (we have another one off of our bedroom), so it made sense to tackle it as soon as I had the time, knowing that we had another bathroom to use while we renovated.

My biggest takeaway from this experience is the importance of humility. If you’re learning how to do something for the first time, you’re going to make a mistake. Related to this is the importance of asking for help. I found this especially difficult at first as a woman treading into spaces like the plumbing Reddit board (enter Matriarchy Build!), but you have to put yourself out there and talk to the experts. They might pick apart your job, but taking criticism is an important skill to develop. This leads me to the importance of being kind to yourself; it’s all a learning process.

I’m most proud of myself honestly. I quit drinking in January 2020, which was a real “face the music” moment. At that point I was sort of starting over, relearning what I was capable of. Taking on a project like this was very therapeutic. Proving to myself that I could stick with something for this long, problem solve, execute a vision, create something with my own hands–I highly recommend it for anyone going through something similar.

I love the lime plaster finish on the walls. It took five coats, and about 70 hours of labor, and it is water-resistant! I used a process similar to Moroccan Tadelakt, which is what you see in Moroccan hammams for reference.

It takes triple the amount of time you would expect for each step when you’re doing something for the first time, and research research research. And don’t be afraid to ask questions!

I read this in an interview Ben Sinclair gave somewhere, and it’s really stuck with me: 

“Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick two.”  You can have something good and fast, but it won’t be cheap. You can have something good and cheap, but it won’t happen quickly. And most things that are fast and cheap aren’t very high quality.

“I think you have to have a bit of that “if they can do it, why can’t I?” attitude to get into DIY-ing, and I’ve always had that, for better or worse,” Hannah says. Hard work and a dash of stubbornness–we love to see it!