Tour this rom-com inspired living room by Oho Interiors

It is fair to say we’re in the midst of a rom-com winter. The lived-in comfort of these movie set homes is something we are all drawn to, and long to recreate in our own homes – particularly this time of year when the weather calls for us all the retreat into the warmth of the great indoors.

That sense of movie magic is something that interior designer Melissa Oholendt, founder and design principal at Oho Interiors managed to encapsulate and bring into reality in this charming project.

Using a toolkit of personality and pattern, the brief was to take the living room of this classic early 1980s Arts & Crafts style home, and create a cozy spot for the two owners to read and relax, host frequent party guests, and exude an air of ‘nothing is too precious’.

Situated on Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota, the couple, who are in their late 60s and 70s and had lived in the home for almost 20 years, wanted a change after decades with the same furnishings.

They found their match in the team at Oho, who worked alongside the original Arts and Crafts decor to maintain the architectural features and inject the warm and fuzzy feeling of a Nora Ephron movie.

‘We wanted to take, balance, and soften the architectural point of view with pattern play and color while still allowing the neutral warm oak-based look of the Arts & Crafts architecture to shine,’ Melissa explains.

‘We really wanted the space to feel like a natural gathering of different styles of furniture collected over the course of a lifetime, much like our favorite Nora Ephron movies like You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle – a comfortable mix of nothing feeling too fussy or precious but rather impossibly livable and cozy,’ she continues.

Describing the homeowners as ‘warm, funny, incredibly trusting’, Melissa and her team worked to ensure they didn’t hinder the couples’ lake view while working with the open-plan living room and dining room.