Michelle and Forrest’s Vibrant Atlanta Wonderland
Photographs by Tropico Photo
Photographer Michelle Norris is one half of the creative team behind Tropico Photo. Norris runs the Atlanta-based photography company that with her husband and business partner, Forrest Aguar. Their 800-square-foot, one bedroom condo is proof that a small space can hold even the biggest design ideas.
“We painted on every wall in the condo, tiled the kitchen backsplash and our friends painted the cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom,” Michelle remembers. The result is an explosion of bright colors and expressive patterns that make the space feel energized and creative.
For Michelle and Forrest, finding the right balance for their home was as simple as expressing their professional collaboration in a physical space; a combination they call, “Maximalist Modernism.” Tropico Photo itself is a combination of Michelle’s love of colors and Forrest’s fascination with shapes and lines.
Nothing in this space is ordinary, drab or boring. In Michelle and Forrest’s world, even something as mundane as a bookshelf is an opportunity to create something amazing. The couple’s trademark combination of colors and shapes is on full display in this unique storage unit. The turquoise cabinet doors and slatted, blue sliding doors at the bottom add an interesting mix of texture as well. This piece is the couple’s choice for their favorite thing in the whole home.
The dining room is an intimate moment in the couple’s home and an example of Michelle’s excellent grasp of color. “We mocked up our plans for painting beforehand,” she recalls, “and gave each space its own color story.” The palette for the dining area is full of warm colors, contrasting it from the bright yellows and blues of the living room. The warm colors give the dining room a cozy feel from the walls to the credenza to the rug. Best of all, they still took the opportunity to create shapes without painting the entire wall.
Michelle reveals that, “Since the condo is a very open concept, we had to do the work of making sure that the palettes of the different rooms played well together. They’re each distinct, but they make sense cohesively.” When splitting a small space into distinct “rooms,” there’s no space for walls, so divisions have to be made more subtly. For Michelle and Forrest, color is the biggest way of showing the transition from one space to the next, but small physical divisions, like this colorful, blue partition that doubles as a bookshelf helps make the point as well. It shows the level of work and thought that went into designing this part of the home. As Michelle remembers, “The transitional spaces between rooms were some of the most challenging parts of the design.”
The bedroom continues the fun mix of colors, shapes and lines that started in the front of the house, but now with the added element of textiles. “Our old bedroom felt a bit chaotic and shared space with our workspace,” Michelle says. With the workspace now in the living room, the couple has even more room to expand their vision with plants, bone-inlay bedside tables and a dazzling array of patterns on the bed. “This bedroom has a really fun flow with the painting and decoration and we love that its eclectic but cozy.”
The unique personality of this room is cemented with a playful wall mural. Picking up the colors and shapes of the plants in the room it creeps its way upwards. The mural brings interest to the bedroom’s one white wall while, connecting the hues in the room’s many accessories. The deep green color gives the room a cohesive feel to go along with its bold look.
The bold colors don’t stop on the walls for this creative couple. They extend all the way into the closet as well. Colors explode from this closet in many of the same shades that make up the home. Bright blues and yellows, warm oranges, and even a bit of royal purple all make an appearance, leaving guests to wonder whether it was the clothes that inspired the home or the other way around. Either way, when asked about their favorite thing about their home decor or their fashion sense, this couple’s answer is the same: “The color-blocking.”
The bathroom has one of the home’s more relaxed color stories, which adds to it’s tropical oasis feel. It may not have the same colorful mix as the bedroom, which is the couple’s favorite room in their home, but they love it for a different reason: “The bathroom was the easiest for us to design,” Michelle reveals. “Because it is so contained, we could just focus on how that space felt as a stand-alone without blending it with other rooms.”
This home is an amazing look at the world of a truly creative couple that weaves their unique perspective into a physical space in the same way that their photography does. Like their work, the home is a labor of love. “What we love most about our home is that it's beautiful and functional. It's a really comfortable place for us to relax and unwind, which is what we need most out of our home space.”
