My Houzz: Candy-Colored Collections Wow in Manhattan

Jeanie Engelbach describes her candy-inspired home as, “[If] Pee Wee Herman opened a pop culture museum in Candy Land.” For 20 years the photo archivist, interior decorator and color lover has amassed an impressive collection of sentimental treasures — from lunch boxes to Pez dispensers and bobbleheads — in her apartment, a one-bedroom in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood.

“My personal design influence is based on my 9-year-old self: candy, cartoons and late-’70s pop culture,” Engelbach says. “I love bright colors and anything that sparkles and shines.”

Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Jeanie Engelbach and her English bulldog, Tater Tot
Location: New York City
Size: 800 square feet; 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom

Every surface of Engelbach’s 800-square-foot apartment is stamped with playful nostalgia.

Decorative furniture painter Kerry Beasley, one of her closest friends, transformed a plain white table by adding a leopard pattern to the base. Instead of a traditional chain sleeve for her pink chandelier, Engelbach used faux flowers to create the illusion of a garden sprouting from the ceiling. “When the windows are open, I can hear people comment about it from the street,” she says.

Painted shelves hold a teacup collection from her grandmother. “One of [my grandmother’s] talents was embellishing and painting china,” Engelbach says. “Not only did I receive her name, but her passion of collecting as well.”

Dining table: The Conran Shop (now closed); pink chandelier: ABC Carpet & Home; oil painting: Leonard Creo


Engelbach’s vintage lunch box collection started when she was in college, when manufactured metal ones were still sold in stores. “The collection was modest, but friends started to pick them up for me,” she says. “Flea markets and yard sales have been how I bulked up my collection.”

A collection of vintage soda bottles makes up a centerpiece. “I admittedly drink a lot of soda and love the painted graphics and diverse shape of soda pop bottles from the ‘40s and ‘50s,” she says. She occasionally uses them as candleholders.

Photo: “Now Where’d I Park?” by Ryan Roberts, Fab


Engelbach bought this orange plastic mod chair from Las Venus for her previous bulldog, Little Bit. She says, “It suited him perfectly, as there are no cushions to chew up.”

A bobblehead collection lines the back of the wall. “I’ve tapered off amassing more, although the Kiss collection has been an itch I have avoided scratching,” she says.


A chaise bought on sale at ABC Carpet & Home, where Engelbach once worked as a visual manager, anchors a library corner. Tater Tot, shown here, is also a fan.

The framed poster is from a 1984 show of Jonathan Borofsky‘s work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “I was semiobsessed with his work, and this poster has graced a wall in every apartment I’ve lived since,” she says.

Next to the poster is a DIY art project using wine corks that Engelbach found next to a city trash can. Below it sits a framed art piece of a deconstructed Scooby-Doo lunch box she bought at an auction more than 20 years ago.


Globes found at flea markets and secondhand stores across the country dot the library area.

Engelbach lined the back of her Ikea CD shelves with floral gift wrap and added orange polka dot grosgrain ribbon to the front. For the center bookcase, she added a contrasting yellow grosgrain.

CD shelves: Benno; bookcase: Billy, both by Ikea


Engelbach positioned the sofa and box bench seating facing each other to allow for conversation, TV viewing and entertaining. “Floating the living room in the center of the space allows me to see and appreciate the dining room, library and foyer all from the sofa,” she says.



Engelbach describes the living room as “the essence of me.” She says, “Each component — my collections, love of bright color, crafts, oil cloth, flea market and Dumpster finds, family photos — all this craziness is swirled together, but somehow ends up looking and feeling serene.”

The midcentury modern red Naugahyde sofa is from the Winter Antiques Show at Manhattan’s piers.


A vintage Coke crate from the 26th Street Flea Market doubles as a magazine holder. “Functional always prevails over flair for me, so I started rolling the pile of mags that were once stacked on the table,” she says.

Inside the Harry Allen Reality Banana Bowl are Polaroids printed from an Impossible Project camera of a Prohibition-theme dinner and a murder party Engelbach hosted. The commemorative Oregon whiskey bottle is from a trip to Portland.


Family photos and mementos, like her mother’s bronzed baby shoe, decorate a wood shelf. Engelbach‘s favorite is the black and white photograph of her Georgetown Academy kindergarten class.

She redecorated the body of a halogen floor lamp with gold glitter contact paper and old keys. “It is an excellent light source, but it was so generically hideous, it required a glam makeover,” she says.

The custom coffee table was made in Japan and came from Engelbach’s childhood home.


Engelbach splurged on this mammoth brown wood box bench from Anthropologie for her birthday one year. The orange seat cushion was custom made at Zarin Fabrics. “It is just an explosion of color and pattern and relatively zero room for an actual body,” says Engelbach.


Engelbach’s Pez dispenser collection started in her childhood. “Candy and a toy — seriously, how could I not?” she says. “It is an ideal collectible in that there is always a new set available; they’re cheap, cheery and ubiquitous.” She displays the collection on painted drawers by Brooklyn artist Steve Keene.

The clock is made with a vintage Twister game board.


This wall-mounted light fixture used to be a carousel railing. The media console holds Engelbach’s favorite chalkware pieces, a set of pink and red resin Buddhas from Thailand, a tiny bulldog bobblehead from Pearl River in SoHo — and a set of Murano glass bottles that once sat atop her grandfather’s dresser. The latter serves as a happy memory of all the time she spent with him later in his life. “This wall represents so many facets of my life,” she says.


Engelbach framed a secondhand mirror with faux flowers. During the holidays she tucks cards into the sides, and the entire mirror is covered by January 1. The yellow case holds the rest of her bobblehead collection.

The light fixture is made of five plastic lightbulb cages split open and bound with cable ties. “One day my sparkly light fixture dream is to have an original Adam Wallacavage chandelier,” she says.

Panda poster: Andy Warhol, Warhol Museum; print: “Dancing Flavor,” by Glenn Barr, Billy Shire Fine Arts


The hallway “is a small spot, but it still deserved to be a happily adorned one,” Engelbach says. There is a mix of art and family mementos here, too, but she tried to restrain them and keep color the focus of the space.



White in the bathroom “just feels clean and antiseptic, especially being such a tiny space,” she says. A shadow box displays vintage beauty items from Schwab Dry Goods Store in Memphis, Tennessee.

Engelbach painted the light fixture hot pink and added a tiara with the word “queen” on it to remind those who look in the mirror of “exactly who she should be,” she says.


Engelbach likens the experience of being in her bedroom to living in a candy dish.

Art above bed: “Shoes” (1980), by Andy Warhol


Engelbach’s desk is a curbside find. She attached a clamp light, reinforced the drawers and added shelves wrapped in oilcloth below.


This wall is dedicated to some of Engelbach’s favorite art pieces by Plankton, Greg Gossel and Joshua Petker. The yellow and baby blue dresser by the window is custom made and was a gift from Engelbach‘s mother.

The TV stand is a 70-year-old telephone table that Engelbach covered with a patch of faux turf, shells, starfish and a paper hula skirt.



She painted this pagoda table in a vivid lime green, adding red flames that crawl up the legs. An Ikea mirror next to it is covered on the sides with color copies of photos from a Gil Elvgren pinup calendar.



Engelbach is not wild for window treatments, but she wanted to cover the sliver of wall between the ceiling and window, so she created a valance with a few sets of Pop Ink plates hung with plate hooks on the backs.


Engelbach painted the kitchen’s back wall in a high-gloss fireball orange and added an oilcloth backsplash. With the landlord’s approval, she also replaced the original linoleum floor.

A collection of filled, painted soda bottles decorates the upper cabinets. Engelbach is especially drawn to bottles from Stewart’s.


“I consider my apartment more like a jigsaw puzzle,” says Engelbach, shown here with Tater Tot. “It’s an accumulation of acquisitions, and I have to consider how to incorporate all the disparaging elements and how they can harmonize within each space.”

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