122 • AMERICAN FARMHOUSE STYLE
STARTING
FROM SCRATCH
Use deconstruction in your
renovations to make your
home unique.
BY AMELIA CARROLL
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARIKO REED- Bookshelf •
Renovating can be a daunting task, but
it can also be fun and even cathartic. When Serena Mitnik-
Miller and Mason St. Peter renovated their fi rst space—a store
they call “General Store,” they fell in love with the process and
wanted to do more. In their new book Abode: Thoughtful Living
with Less, written with Melissa Goldstein, they chronicle the
renovation process again—this time with their California home.PLANNING
The fi rst step is to choose a design
theme for the space to refl ect. “For
us, the process usually starts with
dreaming,” Mitnik-Miller and St. Peter
write. “We begin by brainstorming all
the possibilities, [then weigh] what
we can do logistically and what our
budget will allow.” For their own
home, they were drawn to open fl oor
plans, and wanted to incorporate the
original architecture into the home
as much as possible.DECONSTRUCTION
Mitnik-Miller and St. Peter prefer to
start with a clean slate—they knocked
down walls and pulled up the fl oors
to bring out the original architecture,
while making the space as open and
connected as possible.