Tour a Producer’s Maximalist Minnesota Home Splashed With Chartreuse

Podcaster, improviser and musical creator Maria Bartholdi is a multi-talented creative professional working, entertaining and relaxing from her curated Craftsman home. But her Minnesota pad is anything but a boring, neutral work-from-home retreat — it’s specially designed to fuel more creative work rather than escape from it. “Going out and doing what I do is a lot of giving," Maria explains. "You’re on stage. You’re in front of the camera. You’re constantly giving yourself to the audience. So I wanted to come home and feel like I’m reinvigorated to do more of what I love. That was the vision behind everything being colorful [and] the maximalist style, just wanting to feel an explosion of creativity.”

"My [living room] is a burst of color and hopefully a very happy experience," Maria says with a laugh. "It started probably with the couch because I knew that I wanted to have a chartreuse green, ‘70s-style couch. I think everything else is an offshoot of that — the chartreuse went up onto the walls. It’s my favorite color. And so many things in my life are this color, I just love it so much."

The pets enjoy Maria's creative designs, too. "This is my cathode ray tube TV that has been turned into a cat bed," Maria says. "It's a super easy project. It’s just been gutted and then on the inside I painted a little 'starscape' so the kitties can have nice dreams when they go in there."

The guests and cats have a great view of Maria's favorite wall. "If I could wallpaper every room in a house, you know, I probably would," she says. "I agonized over [this wallpaper] for weeks and weeks ... I eventually landed on this black-and-white mural, which I think is a really cool idea."