Oddities Intrigue in an Ohio Lease and Quirky Art

Oddities Intrigue in an Ohio Lease and Quirky Art

Oddities Intrigue in an Ohio Lease and Quirky Art

Not being able to paint the white walls inside their Toledo, Ohio, leasing home could not prevent artists Jose and Danielle Herrera from adding their own creative strokes. The walls became their blank canvas. Dramatic nature-inspired hand-cut vinyl stickers, crazy collections of artfully displayed butterflies and bugs, and original art using repurposed materials turned this interior to the family’s own gallery.

at a Glance
Who lives here: Jose and Danielle Herrera, son Elijah (10), daughter Dahlia (5) and 2 parakeets
Location: Toledo, Ohio
Size: 1,009 square feet; 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, basement artwork studios

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

Framed butterflies, animal skulls, hand-cut art and brightly colored thrift store frames entertain in the living room.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

The couple cut on these tree-branch wall stickers by hand from black vinyl. The family’s pet parakeets, Oodie and Yuki, are put together in this room; they served as inspiration for a couple of original paintings.

Wood cube ottoman: T.J.Maxx

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

Danielle makes much of her original art, such as the parakeet portrait of Oodie, from repurposed fabrics, intricately cutting and piecing together different pieces. She clarifies the pet bird because the “manager of the house,” thus the sheriff’s hat.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

An appreciation of the beauty in bone structure inspires some of the decor. Here a gray coyote skull discovered on eBay is exhibited in a cloche on top of anatomy books.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

A vertical screen of art gives the perception of more height in the living room. The pieces are a set of preserved insects.

“I have always loved the detail and beauty of something as small as an insect,” Danielle says. “I love the fine detail seen in tiny animals and love to really start looking to them.” Her favourite bug in the collection is your tarantula near the ceiling.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

The flat is short on storage, so the couple used a space-saving stacking bookshelf in the living room alongside more original art, including a painting inspired by Roy Lichtenstein.

Vertical bookshelf: Array, CB2; accent seat: Coaster Home Furnishings

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

The couple plans to continue adding to their gallery wall set and are always on the lookout for one-of-a-kind pieces.

Lamp: Goal

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A compact table and chairs helps maximize space in the dining room. Danielle and Jose cut out the foundation of a decorative paper vase out of T.J.Maxx and put it as a light fixture.

Table: Fusion, Ikea

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A coat of green spray paint changed this thrift store moose head to the kitchen wall.

Wall stickers from Target brighten up yet another wall.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

From the unit’s half bath, Danielle’s Mr. T artwork bit reflects her love of the 1980s and its pop culture.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

Jose constructed the couple’s bed and coated it in shaggy cloth.

Bright bedding, spray painted thrift store deer heads and dandelion decals cut by Danielle add an additional graphic punch.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

The master bedroom includes a faux fireplace and a hand-cut vinyl mural of a moose drinking in the stream.

Fireplace: Meijer; metal seat: T.J.Maxx

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

Feminine details such as pink paper pom-poms and colorful frame stickers perk up daughter Dahlia’s bedroom.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

Son Elijah’s room comprises a loft bed with room below for a little couch, TV and personal computer. Elijah’s set of license plates started out of a household auto game of pointing out various states. He would love to collect some from his birth state of Arizona.

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The couple repurposed bits of cardboard to make a unique wall screen to their son’s set of paper cutout robots out of Cubeecraft.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

Jose and Danielle split the basement for their own studios. Jose creates critters from polymer clay. Even the “creaturitas,” as he calls them were born of his love of particular effects in sci-fi films.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

Danielle creates custom artwork and portraits by piecing collectively stitched fabrics. Here she works on a portrait of Willie Nelson motivated from a portrait in Rolling Stone magazine.

“I’m a recycle artist, along with the vision I have would be to recreate things — denim, zippers, paper and even dryer lint and other materials that could otherwise be considered crap — and then turn them into art,” she states. “I like to take scraps of cloth and transform them to portraits of people, things and places. I have chosen the zippers and buttons of trousers and made them”

Danielle’s art is regularly displayed at galleries throughout Toledo, and was recently shown at Gallery 27 at Chicago and Bottleneck Gallery in Nyc.

Jeff Jones Snap It Photography

Elijah, Dahlia, Danielle and Jose relax in their living room.

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