Hana Park moved into the loft on a Tuesday, with nothing but an old writing desk, a chair from her grandmother, and a brass lamp she'd argued with a dealer about for twenty minutes. Six years later, the desk is still there, the chair is still there, and the lamp has been joined by — by her own count — eleven other lamps. "I know," she says, sitting cross-legged on a rug she bought from a friend of a friend in Mexico City. "I have a problem."

But standing in her living room on a bright Thursday afternoon, it's hard to see anything as a problem. The space is generous without being grand. The ceilings are tall. The floors are scuffed in that specific, unreplicable way that only comes from actual living.

The idea behind the mix

"Nothing matches," Park says. "That's the whole point. If it all matched I'd be living in a showroom." She walks me through the room — a 1940s armchair beside a 2018 modular sofa beside a stool she found on the street in Queens. It shouldn't work. It works.

"I want a room that looks like somebody lives here. Not somebody — me, specifically. A room is a self-portrait if you're doing it right."

Her rules are few. Never more than two saturated colors in a room. Wood beats metal. Always buy the lamp. And — the one she repeats most often — live with a thing for a month before you decide it's finished.

The lamp rule

"A room is lit or it isn't," she says. "You can have the most beautiful sofa in the world, but if the light is bad you'll leave the room at 6 p.m. and not come back." She points to a small ceramic table lamp in the corner. "This one cost me forty dollars. It's the hardest-working object in this apartment."

The kitchen tells the same story in a different language: a 1970s cabinet from a salvage yard in Philadelphia, a counter she and her brother poured themselves over a long weekend, a single expensive knife, and a truly alarming number of ceramic bowls. "I collect them," she says, unapologetic. "I'm going to die with a lot of bowls."

What she's learned

Six years in, Park is less precious than she used to be. "I used to think every choice was permanent. Now I move things. I paint a wall and then I paint it back. A room is a draft." She laughs. "A very slow draft."