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Alyssa Neilson sitting at the dining table in her Amsterdam apartment.

What makes a purchase “worth it”? The answer is different for everybody, so we’re asking some of the coolest, most shopping-savvy people we know—from small-business owners to designers, artists, and actors—to tell us the story behind one of their most prized possessions.

Alyssa Neilson is a stylist, a strategist, and the founder of Studio Marie. Her social media marketing consultancy specializes in taking category-defining and emerging brands to the next level, and some of her clients include Bread Beauty Supply, Buffy, Glossier, and Kin Euphorics. If you’ve been following the Houston native on social media for as long as I have, then you already know she has an enviable closet full of the coolest clothes and sneakers. Alyssa is always on the move—quite literally—and you can never pinpoint where she might be going next.

But what you might not be aware of is that Alyssa went through one of the most unconventional pandemic experiences of all time: She spent her third trimester in lockdown, and three months after giving birth to her first child, they both boarded a plane from New York to Amsterdam, where they would live for the next two years with her husband, Mikel van den Boogaard. It was a major shift, but for Alyssa the biggest challenge that she faced while adjusting to life in her new environment abroad was the weather. 

“I knew my home had to feel really good,” she explains on a Zoom call. “The weather there is awful so they don’t really live outdoors like Americans do. They have to really live inside…. So it was really important that I had a comfortable inside experience.”

Alyssa sourced this vintage IKEA dresser through her her mother-in-law from a secondhand shop.

Alyssa wasted no time making herself at home once she moved into her husband’s apartment. Given that his style leans toward dark and masculine (she compares it to a library), the first order of business was brightening the space with pops of color. “I’ve always loved a lot of colors, that’s always been really important to me,” she explains. “With Amsterdam, I knew that it’s so dark and gray there that I really needed some color everywhere I looked.” Luckily for her, their home already had huge windows for natural light to pour in on the light floors, which made everything feel more airy. Though she’s a huge fan of Scandinavian design, Alyssa didn’t want to “live in a total Copenhagen house that’s super colorful and everything looks like a toy.” With that in mind, she kept the color strictly to accessories purchased from stores like HAY and Finnish Design Shop. 

According to Alyssa, their daughter is “pretty low maintenance,” so they didn’t need to go overboard with baby-proofing the house. “We never needed safety locks or those child safety plug outlets, so I never really felt like I had to alter my home for her,” she adds. Aside from making sure she didn’t spill on their white rug, the only object that ever seemed to catch her eye were the Flos lamps on display. “She loves to play with my Flos, she thinks they’re toys so she’s always passing them off,” Alyssa laughs. “She did break one, I had to replace it…. Other than that, I think she understands what is to play with and what’s not.” 

After meticulously editing the four-bedroom unit, the couple noticed that they were accumulating clutter because they didn’t have anywhere to put their massive collection of coffee-table books. “We needed somewhere to conceal some of them because our bookshelves were not what we really wanted,” Alyssa says. Although her heart was set on a Dieter Rams shelving system, Alyssa didn’t want to commit to anything too expensive—or too permanent—because truthfully she wasn’t set on staying in Amsterdam for the long-term. So she decided that something vintage made the most sense. 

Alyssa’s daughter is a huge fan of the Flos table lamp.

Unfortunately, there’s no culture of street finds in Amsterdam or chains like Goodwill or Salvation Army, but Alyssa had faith that they would find what they were looking for eventually. As fate would have it, her mother-in-law happened to be browsing at a secondhand shop on the outskirts of Amsterdam when she spotted a bright blue dresser. (Later on, the couple found out that it was vintage IKEA.) 

After taking measurements to confirm that the vintage IKEA dresser was a perfect fit for an awkward corner in their living room, Alyssa’s mother-in-law negotiated with the seller on their behalf and bought it for €60 (which converts to around $64). Once the dresser was in her possession, Alyssa gave it a makeover with a fresh coat of paint—the supplies actually cost her more than the piece itself. “I knew I wanted to paint it white,” she says. “At first I wanted to paint it like an eggshell white, that’s what I had intended to do, but it was a bit more bright than I anticipated.” 

The all-white kitchen pops with colorful accessories on the counter from Alessi, HAY, and Finnish Design Shop.

In an effort to dress it up a bit, Alyssa decorated the vintage IKEA dresser with a framed David Shrigley, one of her favorite artists from the UK, along with stacks of books and accessories on top. “It was really special and created a nice accent wall in our home,” she adds. “You just can’t replicate stuff like that.” Alyssa and her family have since relocated to Los Angeles, sacrificing space for sunshine. They sold “pretty much everything” in terms of the furniture, but held on to any small, portable products “that had value” like lamps, bowls, bath mats, towels, and linens. 

Of all the items that they parted ways with during this process, the dresser was the most painful for Alyssa to bid adieu. “That was really a special project for me,” she says about the dresser. “I painted it by hand—I had to code it and do all this stuff that I didn’t really know how to do very well, but it worked in the end. I was really sad to let that go, we sold it on Instagram when we were moving to LA, and I felt really bad because the person who picked it up definitely doesn’t know how hard I worked on that, so it was a bit intense.”

Now that they’re settled in LA, the couple is excited to play with mid-century modern aesthetics, but still holds space for objects that remind them of their life in Amsterdam. Even though it’s a completely different space in terms of the size, design, and location, Alyssa insists that this new house will still look and feel the same because of all the accessories from their previous residence. “I wish I could have picked up my Amsterdam home and brought it here,” she admits. “That was definitely the hardest part about leaving, seeing it get packed up and people coming to give us cash for our furniture.”

By María Noval-Quílez

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