Monkey lamp lights up his dining room and his heart
The favourite things in our homes, how we got them and what they mean to us
Interior stylist Red Barrinuevo can’t help but laugh as he tells the tale behind a favourite design accessory in his home: a white, ceramic monkey lamp.
The story starts when he was a young lad in the Philippines and involves his mother, a jumping elephant and his chosen profession.
His mom, Madonna Barrinuevo, loves decorating “but doesn’t have the best taste,” chuckles the award-winning home stager, interior decorator and principal designer at Redesign4More in Toronto.
So when she was out of the house, a crafty 10-year-old Red would quickly rearrange the furniture “to make it look better.”
One day, she brought home a jumping elephant that was, well, a lamp? A foot stool? Or a combination of the two?
In any case, “it was so ugly!” Barrinuevo recalls, adding that it mysteriously broke soon after.
As he grew so did his interest in design and decorating but his parents didn’t see
it as a worthwhile, paying career. With the rest of his family in the medical profession, Barrinuevo opted for a degree in business.
Years later when he moved to Toronto, the design bug was still biting.
“Every apartment I’ve lived in, I always made it nice,” he says, adding that building superintendents would show off his place to potential renters.
He also helped friends decorate their homes before he finally decided to turn professional and started his business in 2011.
Several years later, he was visiting a flea market with his mother on a trip to Houston, where she now lives. He lit up instantly when he spotted a black ceramic monkey lamp from the 1970s but wanting a pair, he went off to look around.
After a futile search, he decided to buy the lone lamp but it had been sold. That Christmas, it reappeared — as a gift from his mom.
“I carried it home on the plane all the way from Houston” so it wouldn’t get broken, he says.
Now painted a glossy white and sporting a new cord, the chimp is “the star of the show” on the console in his apartment dining room.
“It just makes me smile every time I look at it. It’s beautiful. I like it because it’s very whimsical and because of the monkey holding the light.”
But it has added significance because his mother now approves of his profession, telling him “you were born to do this,” he says with pride. “It’s a complete circle from the elephant lamp to the monkey lamp … it’s validation for me because I stood up for myself.”
Barrinuevo, whose staging projects range from small condos to big luxury homes, is now a resident stager and stylist for HGTV Canada’s real estate series, “Hot Market,” which airs on Slice TV. His accolades include being named top home stager for Canada in 2016 and top redesigner in North America in 2013 by the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA). He was named one of 2020’s most influential people in real estate staging by RESA Global.
Finishing touches can make or break a home’s style, according to the designer. In his own home, the monkey lamp illustrates some of the tricks of the trade he employs.
Holding a globe-shaped light in his hands, the primate perches on a neat stack of magazines as part of a display that includes artwork and a glass vase of flowers.
Barrinuevo, who notes it’s both a focal point and conversation piece, uses the monkey for mood lighting during dinners. The mid-blue wallpaper plays up the lamp’s alabaster finish while adding depth to the room.
To create your own Instagram-worthy grouping of accessories, use meaningful pieces you really like that “tell your story,” advises Barrinuevo, who’s a big fan of restoring and repurposing items. Objects grouped in threes or fives work best because they appear centred and are more pleasing to the eye.
From there, it’s all about experimenting: try different pieces, placements and combinations; mix-and-match art with accessories; play with colour.
And if you have your own version of a monkey lamp to brighten a room, so much the better.