Decorating & Design

This Quirky Design Blogger’s Home Will Make You Smile

Author: Iris Benaroia

Published on October 29, 2020

In our new series, Following Now, we go inside the homes of cool Canadian creatives.

The very last place where you would expect to find campy decor is in military housing. “Everything is beige and brown, it’s so boring!” says Fredericton’s Ariel, the flamboyant blogger behind PMQ for Two (the old acronym for military housing which stands for Permanent Married Quarters). Ariel lived in several rental PMQs with her husband, Dan, who serves in the Canadian Armed Forces, unleashing her exhilarating aesthetic along the way. “Since we knew we weren’t in a place for long, it was always an opportunity to explore a fun colorful take on any number of spaces,” she says. “It really sparked my love of color and pattern.”

Ariel parlayed a master’s degree in War Studies into a successful blogging career, where she shares tons of tips and tricks over at PMQ for Two. “These days, it’s more like PMQ and a Zoo,” jokes Ariel, who has over 22,000 followers on Instagram. She and her husband live in a joyfully jammed mid-century home, which they bought in 2018. Their roommates include their toddler, June, and a menagerie of animals: two cats named Boots and Toby, Bruce the dog and a brood of hens. “They’re indoor cats, so the closest they get is gawking and drooling at them from a window,” says Ariel.

Scroll down to tour this family’s vibrant 1960s fixer-upper home that Ariel took from “mid century to mid-century modern,” as she likes to say.

Photographer:

Courtesy of PMQ for Two