The DIY bull’s-eye

Kyle Schuneman is only 26, yet the Chicago native has worked as a stylist, set decorator and interior designer for nearly a decade, ever since he deferred admission to Loyola Marymount and moved to Los Angeles when he was 18.

“I’ve been subscribing to Architectural Digest since I was 13,” he said. “I always wanted to design.”

By 2010 House Beautiful had named him one of the “Next Wave of Top 20 Designers,” and he art directed 75 episodes for “Giada at Home” on the Food Network. Now Schuneman is at work on a Woolite pop-up fashion store to open for New York Fashion Week as well as the House of Rock, a Santa Monica design showcase and party venue sponsored by Rolling Stone magazine that’s scheduled to launch Sept. 15.

With his camera-ready looks and a well-stocked bag of decorating tricks, Schuneman has one more new role: author. Next week Clarkson Potter/Random House will release “The First Apartment Book: Cool Design for Small Spaces.”

It’s all a remarkable feat for a decorator who will celebrate his 27th birthday next week and whose first design gig, if you could call it that, was as a production assistant on a Super Bowl commercial.

“I made $150 for sweeping up confetti after every take,” Schuneman said, laughing. “That was my glamorous entrance.”

After years of “going above and beyond to overcompensate for my lack of experience,” Schuneman launched his own firm, Live Well Designs, with a style that’s part contemporary and part retro, punctuated by quirky, unexpected touches. He said he hopes his book’s easy, how-to format will inspire other twentysomethings to graduate from dorm decor to more stylish, personal environments.

“My peers see my design work for clients who have a lot of money, but most of them have only lived with their parents or in a dorm -- and now that they finally have their own space, they can’t afford to hire a designer,” he said. “Still, all I know is working with a budget. For me it almost helps when there is that creative constraint.”

With photographer Joe Schmelzer, Schuneman singled out 10 young apartment dwellers around the country and gave their spaces affordable makeovers. He discovered that while most people his age have a strong opinion about fashion, they don’t always have a sense of their own decorating style.

“I had to ask them questions like, ‘What kind of hotel do you like?’ ‘What’s your favorite landscape?’ Or, ‘What’s in your wardrobe?’ ”

From those answers, Schuneman devised personality-driven decorating narratives with labels such as the Art Lover, the Bohemian and the Homebody, the theme for his home at the time, a 700-square-foot apartment in L.A.’s Miracle Mile district.

“This book is for people who aren’t going to be able to hire a designer, but they can spend $25 for a hard-working resource filled with great ideas,” said Schuneman, who has since moved out of his apartment and put his belongings in storage while he shuttles between projects in San Francisco and New York.

Each profile in the book comes with floor plans, cost breakdowns, how-to instructions and shopping resources, as well as Schuneman’s explanations for his design choices. He shared a few of the easiest ideas here:

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Spaced out? Help on the way

Our L.A. at Home blog is launching a series on small-space solutions. Look for design profiles, DIY ideas and how-to advice starting next week.

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MODERN TOUCHES THAT YOU CREATE

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Kyle Schuneman’s forthcoming “The First Apartment Book: Cool Design for Small Spaces” plugs into some popular themes among the post-college crowd: crafts infused with a modern sensibility, and mass-market purchases tweaked with a personal touch. Here are three projects that even a hapless DIYer could handle, with instructions adapted from Schuneman’s book:

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YARN FRAMES

Supplies

Wooden picture frames of varying sizes

1 skein of medium weight yarn in your color of choice

Light-duty staple gun with quarter-inch staples

Buy enough yarn knowing that one skein would be enough to cover five 8-by-8-inch frames. Put a movie on, pour a glass of wine and get cozy.

Staple the loose end of the yarn to the top left corner on the back of the frame -- just to the right of where the two sides meet at an angle. Loop the yarn around the frame twice, pulling it tight. You want it to be flush but not so strained that it could break. Staple the yarn against the backside of the frame again. This ensures that your yarn is secure and won’t unravel.

Start wrapping! Working in a clockwise motion, loop the yarn a dozen or so times, and then scrunch it toward the wrapped end to make the effect more substantial. Do an extra layer around the corners, where yarn tends to slip. Don’t worry about things being perfectly straight or the same thickness.

Once you’ve covered the frame, staple the end of the yarn to the backside of the frame. Wrap twice, and staple again. Cut the yarn, leaving about an inch extra after the staple to ensure against future slippage. Staple every 3 inches along the backside of your frame. Put an extra staple at an angle on each corner.

You can complete one frame in about 30 minutes.

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RACING STRIPE CHAIRS

Supplies

Modern Stacking Chairs from Target.com

Paint

Paint brush or roller

Masking tape

Perhaps you’ve heard of the IKEA hackers, the folks who turn budget buys from the Swedish superstore into pieces of custom furniture? Well, how about some Target tweaking: Schuneman found these “very basic blue chairs” that sell for $67.99 for a set of two -- free shipping, no less.

He felt they needed a little something though, so he added racing stripes with leftover semi-gloss paint.

“Remember, customizing isn’t just for old or expensive pieces of furniture,” he writes. “There’s always the possibility of making something brand new feel special and unique.”

The chairs are budget knockoffs of Danish designer Arne Jacobsen’s famous Series 7 chairs, authentic versions of which sell for $500 and up apiece. With the addition of the stripe, the chairs avoid looking like copycats and instead have their own spirit, one that reads young and fun.

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DIP-DYE CURTAINS

Supplies

Curtains, preferably a sturdy fabric such as cotton or linen (not polyester, acrylic or rubber-backed fabrics)

Drop cloth

8-ounce bottle of liquid fabric dye

4-gallon bucket (or larger)

Dishwashing gloves

Cover work area with the drop cloth. In the bucket, mix half the bottle of fabric dye with 3 gallons of warm water.

Run the curtains under warm water and wring them out. You want them damp, not dripping wet. Then submerge half of the curtain in the bucket. Let it sit for five minutes.

Put a glove on your dominant hand. With the gloved hand, pull about one-third of the submerged part of the curtain out of the bucket. Two-thirds of the dyed area should still be in the solution. With your ungloved (clean) hand, add half of the dye remaining in the bottle to the bucket, making sure not to pour it directly onto the fabric. Mix the dye carefully with your gloved hand. Let sit for five minutes.

Pull the submerged curtain partly out of the bucket again, so only one-third of the dyed fabric remains in the bucket. Add the dye that’s left in the bottle to the bucket, again swirling with your gloved hand. Let it sit for five minutes.

Remove the curtain from the bucket. Hang it straight, so it dries over the drop cloth. Schuneman said he has done the project twice: once in a bathroom, where he hung the curtain over the tub, and once outside, where he hung the curtain from a tree.

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Debra Prinzing