After college I moved from a tiny town in Indiana to the big city of Los Angeles to pursue a marketing career and soon found myself at Ikea shopping for my tiny apartment I shared with my significant other and two large dogs. Things were great, super cramped, but great. LA’s pristine weather, opportunity, and amazing food were so much more than I could have ever imaged.

For someone just settling down, Ikea is a perfect go-to solution to pick up all of the basic essentials. Another year passed and I was fortunate enough to find a new place within my budget with triple the square footage of my first apartment. The dogs couldn’t get enough of their new yard and room to play but my new space didn’t feel like home, not even a little. It was so much larger than my last place and my tiny Ikea furniture was dwarfed by the 11′ ceilings while the walls felt cold and bare. It didn’t help that the previous owners of the building completely neglected any sort of maintenance or updates. It was going to be a huge job updating and decorating this place to make it feel like home. So naturally, I turned to Amazon, the most convenient place possible to decorate now that I was over an hour away from Ikea. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months.

I spent month upon month searching for decor that fit my Anthro-WestElm inspired styles within my young professional budget. It was a nightmare going through hundreds of pages and dozens of keyword combinations to try to find modern designs at an affordable price. As it so happens, it’s not so easy to describe home goods on large retail sites. A theme surfaced of outdated mass-market kitschy trends that just didn’t appeal to me whatsoever. I don’t want to decorate my home in something that’s so ‘trend’ specific that it will look outdated in a very short  period of time. I want to spend my hard earned money on things that will be timeless yet totally authentic. I was looking for designs to be flexible, adaptable, and effortless. I wanted something unique, fresh, and authentic but what I found was that all of the styles I liked we’re extremely overpriced luxury goods. So my creative self started coming up with diy solutions that turned these outdated pieces into more stylish ones.

Doesn’t it sound a bit ridiculous to buy a brand new item after searching for one with the right bare bones for months and then immediately have to DIY customize to it in order to make it feel more modern? I would go on to hand paint murals instead of buying wallpaper, cover outdated, but brand new, mirrors with brass spray paint, and paint giant artworks on cardboard hot glued together all in an attempt to make this huge space feel like home. As Millennials we have little job security in this gig economy and we can’t afford to spend our entire paycheck on the items we ‘like’. We feel under-represented that we can’t find products that fit our style and lifestyle of moving every 2-3 years. Why should we have to make a trade-off between authentic designs, price, function, and quality? We shouldn’t have to turn to DIY solutions to create the products we’re looking for. It’s not our fault that brands are failing to innovate.

In the era of Instagram, we’re aesthetically inspired by indie artists, photographers, and creators more than ever but the affordable brands are not keeping up with authenticity, social responsibility, or quality. We’re young professionals that can afford more than Ikea but not as much as West Elm and we feel left out. We’ve turned to vintage shops to try to fill this gap but even that requires hours upon hours of searching for just the right items. It’s such a hassle to find home goods that represent us and now that we have a several years of experience under our belt our time is more valuable spent growing our skills as the job market becomes increasingly competitive. I’m lucky to live in a place where I’m allowed to hang things and paint the walls and I can’t imagine the angst of being unable to make your space yours at all given the restrictions of renting. A major purchase consideration for our nomadic generation is the move-ability of home items and I believe there’s a better way of bringing effortless style into the modern nomads’ home.

We’ve created Evascape to fill this void. We believe your decor should effortlessly fit your wanderlust lifestyle and ever changing mood because you shouldn’t have to compromise on making your space yours. Nomadic by design is where form meets function. We’re not about mass-market trends. We deliver authenticity by curating the experiential designs that modern nomads crave. We’re bluring the lines between memorable destinations and the your ever-changing abode. Let’s start the conversation about expecting more from your decor!

Stay tuned for the LA Home Collection Launching August 2018.

All the best,

Katrina Brinson

CEO & Co-founder Evascape