Leah Ring’s Los Angeles Apartment Is a Geometrical Wonderland

Katja Vujić

Home is where we make sense of our crazy lives. We digest the day’s events and decompress. For a lot of people, a muted, minimalist, or neutral-toned space helps us get there faster. But multidisciplinary designer Leah Ring of Another Human is decidedly not one of those people. “I need constant stimulation,” she says. “I think it's just the way my brain works, but I'm calm in my living room. I need a lot of stimulation and a lot of novelty.” To contextualize, Leah’s living room contains the following items: prototypes of the weirdly wonderful pieces she’s designed for Another Human, a purple couch with yellow cushions and blue velvet pillows, a wavy IKEA mirror with a green border painted around it, and a colorful vintage Moroccan rug. See for yourself:

A vintage rocking chair from Etsy, reupholstered with lime green denim, connects Leah’s curated furniture with her own designs, seen on the right: the Zorg Chair, the Pool Table, the Jacuzzi Table, the small Tubular Bookshelf, the large Tubular Bookshelf, the Stacks Bench, and the Bordon Chair.

Leah’s (rent-controlled!) two-bedroom apartment in a duplex in Los Angeles’s Atwater Village neighborhood was a lucky Craigslist find after weeks of mostly fruitless apartment hunting. “I had applied to all these spaces in Silver Lake," says Leah. "I was sure I was going to get one, and then I was sure I was gonna get the next one. I was so defeated by it. I kept not getting these apartments, and I was going to give up.” The posting for her current home had been up for 20 minutes when she saw it. She called immediately, then attended an open house the next day at which she hung out “forever,” and by the end convinced management that she would be an amazing tenant. Now, she’s lived there for four years, which she says is the longest she’s lived anywhere.

In her twenties, Leah moved from city to city—New York, Chicago, L.A., San Francisco—and never stayed in an apartment for more than a year and some change. That meant she was accustomed to remaking her space and her style a lot. “I used to always be like, well, new apartment, new project, I get to change up the decor,” says Leah. Predictably, after staying put for a while, Leah was itching to transform her place, starting with her bedroom. “I just got so bored of everything, and I was so sick of my bedroom the way I had designed it when I moved in, and it didn't feel like it was reflective of my style anymore.” So she gave herself a $1,000 budget and, with some lucky vintage finds and a lot of DIY-project elbow grease, she created a lizard cage–inspired space that was both reflective of her interior life and literally very reflective.

“I used a super-matte paint, so it sort of has a velvety finish,” she says of the blue circular artwork. “The stripes are pieces of rubber sealer that you would use for a screen door.” The Egyptian plaster squiggles beneath it are by L.A.-based artist Jackie Rines. Light purple paint ties it all together.
In Leah’s bedroom, a Soviet-era vintage green clock (an Etsy find) sits atop a Corian-topped bedside table (a Craiglist find), next to a headboard made of mirrors that she bought online and mounted on the wall. The only semi-splurge was the holographic bolster pillow, a custom piece.

“There's a lot of color. I think once I made the commitment to go in bright, I just went bright. I would throw in whatever felt right to me,” says Leah of the rest of her interior decor. Her home is full without feeling crowded, a pleasant sort of organized chaos, structured in visual vignettes, which she says happened gradually. “I've layered in things, I switched out a rug, I added some art…and all of a sudden it became this space that, when you walk in the front door, is really bright. There's a lot of color, but it makes me really happy. I'm always really happy to come home.”

Here, Leah reinvented an IKEA sofa she already owned, converting the cushions with a fabric she found on Etsy. Then, she had blue velvet pillows custom made. The acrylic coffee table, also an item she’s had for years, is livened up with the colorful rug beneath it.
Here, Leah reinvented an IKEA sofa she already owned, converting the cushions with a fabric she found on Etsy. Then, she had blue velvet pillows custom made. The acrylic coffee table, also an item she’s had for years, is livened up with the colorful rug beneath it.
Photo: Mikael Kennedy
One of the home’s many small vignettes, which consistently includes neon, texture, sparkle, shape, and so much invention.
One of the home’s many small vignettes, which consistently includes neon, texture, sparkle, shape, and so much invention.
Photo: Mikael Kennedy

Perhaps the most immediately noticeable aspect of Leah’s interior design is the painted blocks of bright color accenting some of what’s hung on the wall. “I just sort of went nuts and started painting all these color blocks,” says Leah. Ideally, she would’ve liked to paint the walls, but the prospect of moving all the furniture to paint a fairly enormous amount of wall space—plus the knowledge that she’d have to return the paint to its original white before moving out—made that feel like too big a project. Instead, “I did all these color blocks around the room to create little moments of color and saturation and brightness, but it'll be so easy for me to paint over those.”

Leah created her version of an indoor garden using a laser-cut metal hanging—a gift from her sister, who lives in South Africa—hung above a tree next to an unconventional sun. “Love that clock. It's from the ’80s, obviously, and then I painted that red squiggle around it. It's my favorite moment in my apartment probably.”
Leah’s Stacks Bench functions as a loose divider between her Another Human prototypes and her more lived-in space. “I really use my Stacks Bench,” she says. “More often than not, it's because I can take two cushions and make an ottoman, or if I have a friend over and we want to watch a movie together, I can create, essentially, a giant daybed by stacking the cushions.”

The ‘DIY + vintage finds = visual excellence’ formula that was so successful in Leah’s bedroom is equally powerful throughout the rest of her home. She is not ashamed to spice up an IKEA piece, like her couch or her mirror, but she also has fun vintage pieces scattered through the room. “Some friends of mine moved back to Paris, and I bought their cobalt blue Robert Mallet Stevens chair, which is so cool,” she says. “I have this weird, vintage rocking chair from Etsy that I reupholstered the seat in a lime green denim. I have a lot of weird stuff like that.”

A vintage Robert Mallet Stevens chair stacked with old interior design books, which Leah collects. Above it is a George Byrne print, one of Leah’s favorites photographs of his. “He had a show several years ago in L.A., and he released a series of limited-edition prints. So I went to the opening. I think I got number two out of 50.” On the ground, a stone pot by John Zane Zappas, and a metal sculpture by Eric Trine propped up on a cinder block that Leah painted a bright blue hue.
This little corner is full of Leah’s own creations: a bright green planter she made with climbing rope and carabiners, a black-and-white painting she made once for a photo shoot, and a DIY particleboard table. “That is a $10 piece of material that I bought at Home Depot and had those sweet men cut it for me, and then I just painted the insides blue,” says Leah. “I just wanted a new console and couldn't find anything that I liked, and I like the texture of that particleboard.”

“The colors of my own work really led me to make my space multicolored and bright all over, just so that it feels balanced, in that the crazy is everywhere,” says Leah. The prototypes currently on view are from Another Human’s futuristic and fantasy-inspired ET collection and the summery, playful Pool collection, united by an unusual mixing of materials that excites her. “All the pieces look really different, and I'm working on defining my visual language,” she says. “It was more experimental than a lot of my previous work, and it was really fun for me.”

Leah, seated among her otherworldly creations.
Leah, seated among her otherworldly creations.
Photo: Mikael Kennedy

One particularly happiness-inducing aspect of her home is the fact that she’s able to look around and see reminders of her design community. “Throughout the space, I started to collect little pieces by other artist and designer friends that I like,” says Leah. “I just got the silicone plant holder from Body Language Shop. I bought this weird wall hanging from Ugly Rugly; I bought one of the lamps that Joseph Algieri did for the recent Clever x Urban collaboration. I have a Chen & Kai planter, I have an Eric Trine plant stand, I have a Mansi Shah mirror. I actually know and respect and really like the people who made these pieces that I get to enjoy every day. That's a fun thing.”

This tapestry is actually a tea towel Leah bought on Etsy years ago, and next to it is Joseph Algieri’s sconce for Clever x Urban Outfitters. “I snatched that up the day it went on sale. I'm obsessed with his work,” she says of the sconce.
This tapestry is actually a tea towel Leah bought on Etsy years ago, and next to it is Joseph Algieri’s sconce for Clever x Urban Outfitters. “I snatched that up the day it went on sale. I'm obsessed with his work,” she says of the sconce.
Photo: Mikael Kennedy
Leah’s planter from Body Language Shop, a project by Jackie Zdrojeski, is made from braided silicone and zip ties.

Leah’s approach to interior design follows the same principles that a fine artist might. “I feel like you're painting, but with objects, and there's an artful way you can approach that,” she says. Like an artist, an interior designer is creating an ultimate picture or vision, but both must carefully select proportions and shapes that will create interest, letting the eye rest or pulling it in to a particular corner. And for an interior artist like Leah, it’s an intuitive process. “It's a process of layering brush stroke on brush stroke, but with objects and colors and materials,” she says. Luckily for us, the landscape she ended up with is an absolute adventure for the eye.

Loved by Leah

The design mind behind Another Human shares a few of her favorite places to shop and find inspiration.

Insta feeds to follow: @newagecocaine, @jpegfantasy, @the_80s_interior, @tacky.with.love

Dream buys: Ultra Fragola Mirror by Ettore Sottsass; Shiro Kuramata Cabinet de Curiosite; Raquel Floor Lamp by Wendell Castle; Roma Chair by Marco Zanini; Shadow Armchairs by Gaetano Pesce

Last thing you had delivered: “Ceramic pulls from jujumade for a client's built-in dresser.”

Home decor shops: Etsy, 1stdibs, Decaso, Chairish. “I'm all about weird vintage.”

Destinations for design inspiration: “Milan! I went last summer and it blew my mind.”

Favorite detail in the apartment: “This isn't a detail, but I love all of the color. I like walking into my place and feeling a burst of energy from all of the colors all around me.”

Biggest design inspirations: Ettore Sottsass, Shiro Kuramata, Gaetano Pesce, Peter Shire, Alessandro Mendini, Richard England…the list goes on and on!

Favorite thing about your neighborhood: “It really feels like a little village. It's super quaint and there are cute coffee shops/restaurants and a farmers market and young families around. It feels very warm and community focused.”

Favorite Sunday activity at home: “Cooking a nice dinner at home with my boyfriend and watching a cheesy movie on Netflix—been revisiting a lot of ’80s classics lately. The weeks right now are so crazy busy that I really treat my Sunday night chill time as sacred.”

Last but not least, a little Keith Haring on the door and a little Henry David Thoreau on the wall.
Last but not least, a little Keith Haring on the door and a little Henry David Thoreau on the wall.
Photo: Mikael Kennedy

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest