Sometimes people grow up in small-town America and, even from a young age, think: I want to go places. I have an opinion about life. I want to share all of my thoughts with the rest of the people in the world.

David Hopkins went to design school in Chicago in the late ’90s and subsequently worked for a series of progressively better design firms before co-founding a design firm called Praed Projects in 2014. Eventually, he saw the industry shifting and felt that his love of creating spaces for people to use was becoming diluted. So he turned his attention to short-term rentals. Not the beige nightmares that so many people seem perfectly willing to book, but rooms that had opinions. Rooms with objects that might be slightly difficult to interact with or understand. And somehow, this became this rather remarkable collection of places to stay.

To answer a few of your questions: he really is a pretty nice person. He’s just as odd in person as he comes across in writing. You probably won’t be able to buy what he does off the shelf at Crate & Barrel or Anthropologie, but he’s always happy to tell you which obscure corner of the world produced the object you’ve become attached to. If he doesn’t actually remember, you’ll at least get a good backstory. Probably one involving an alley in post-Soviet Eastern Europe.

One question, however, keeps coming up with alarming regularity: what paint colors did you choose? Well, this is something that we can answer without inventing an import business based in Latvia. We consider our paint color choices top secret. But we’ve put together a page of David’s favorites that might provide some inspiration for whatever you’re trying to cook up at home.

The Colors We Love →

And on the subject of paint… don’t be one of those creepy ladies who climbs into the cabinet under the sink or the back of the closet to photograph the paint-can labels. Our painter will not help you when you call him. :)