Kate Gabrielle has a favorite color.
She’s painted her front door and shutters pink, and placed pink flamingo figurines on either side of the path that leads to it. Her plush sectional couch is upholstered in pink velvety fabric. The kitchen cabinets and countertops? They’re shades of rose.
You get the idea.
The 37-year-old illustrator goes by Kate Gabrielle on Instagram and TikTok, where she has amassed more than 251,000 total followers who track her colorful posts about the pins, keychains, stickers, purse charms, and accessories she hand-makes, as well as her interior-design and DIY projects.
She asked to be referred to by her social-media name for privacy reasons, but Business Insider has verified her identity.
In 2022, Gabrielle spent $340,000 on a 1,778-square-foot ranch-style house in Hamilton, New Jersey, a township about six miles east of Trenton, the state capital.
Since then, she’s poured her heart, soul, and about $20,000 into transforming the property on Hughes Drive into an oasis of youthful nostalgia.
The result is a dazzling cornucopia of pink hues, each room bursting with retro art and memorabilia that pay homage to the iconic movies, toys, and culture of the 1960s and 1990s.
“The comment I get the most, which is exactly what I hoped for, is that people feel happy when they walk in,” Gabrielle told BI. “My friends’ kids love it; it’s like a big playhouse.”
It’s also where she creates the inventory for her accessory-design company, also called Kate Gabrielle, which has a flagship product: purses with cup holders that keep water bottles or reusable coffee cups upright.
But when another supplier started selling a suspiciously similar version of her cup-holder purses on Amazon, Gabrielle started struggling financially.
“The knockoff went viral on TikTok, which has really hurt my sales,” Gabrielle said. “I’ve been trying for months to figure out how I could keep the house, but it just wasn’t adding up.”
She reluctantly listed the home for sale for $500,000 in July.
A buyer could choose to pay extra for the furnishings Gabrielle lovingly made and picked out. Either way, Gabrielle hopes the next owner will share her love for this one-of-a-kind home and preserve its distinct character.
“A lot of people will say, ‘I wish I could live somewhere like this, but my husband would never let me,'” Gabrielle said. “I also get comments like, ‘How on earth can you live here? It would drive me crazy.’ But I just think, ‘To each their own.'”
Take a look around Gabrielle’s dream home.
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