Newlyweds Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli Take AD Inside Their First Home Together
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Photo by Emily Berl
When Lauren Morelli first hired Stefani Stein, Morelli's girlfriend Samira Wiley had yet to move into her Los Angeles home with her. But according to Morelli, Wiley was "always a consideration" in her design process. Actress Wiley backs up her wife of just seven months, saying: "I always knew I was going to move in."
The couple first met in 2012 when Morelli, a writer and producer for the Netflix dramedy Orange Is the New Black, wrote an episode that Wiley appeared in (Wiley now appears on another Emmy-winning show, Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, as well as the comedy Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television, which just debuted on YouTube Red on October 25). The pair officially became a couple in 2014, and Morelli proposed in 2016. They married in March 2017.
"Starting a marriage, and coming into a house that you weren't a part of in the beginning, and learning how to make it part of your own is something I'm having to do after the fact," explains Wiley.
Adding Wiley to the equation was hardly a stumbling block for Stein, whom Morelli calls her "design soul mate." (Stein calls Morelli "an absolute dream client—we clicked, in part, because we both appreciated one another's creative fields, which fostered a fantastic design dialogue.")
Since the television writer and designer started with a fresh slate, and Morelli and Wiley were already dating, Morelli was able to ask Wiley's opinion on things. "We started totally from scratch, and it's my first adult home, so it felt really nice to let go of the cheap, gross couch," admits Morelli. "I wanted it to feel both like it was a representation of us, and I felt like we had an opportunity to be uniquely feminine because it's two women in a house together.”
This included the Lips on White wallpaper by Voutsa that Stein selected for Morelli's office, which she says "added a level of drama and femininity that resonated with both of them," and the Alicia Savage photographs which were "one of those finishing touches that really pulled the living room together." Stein adds, "They were particularly interesting to Samira, not only because they are dramatic, but also because they are actually self-portraits!" Wiley agrees: "Everyone is struck by those when they come into the house."
Both the actress and television writer may have admittedly fallen into the novice category when it came to design, but Wiley tips her hat to her wife and says: "I'm just not used to decorating a house. We're both new to it. I'm just starting to learn I can have opinions: 'Yes, I love that wallpaper. Yes, I love this.' And it's just great learning from Lauren."
Much like their wedding in Palm Springs, California, last March, the "cozy little Californian bungalow," as Morelli calls it, is infused with color and patterns, just as Morelli had always hoped. "It was such a treat to have color as the focal point. Particularly at a time when many of my clients were all about neutrals and monochromatic spaces," says Stein. "As a designer, I love getting to explore the interplay of color, pattern, and texture." To keep the design from going overboard, Stein says she grounded the "more colorful selections with organic materials, such as marble [and] oak, and a foundation of crisp white walls, which brought a sense of balance to the composition."
"That's why I'm not a designer," laughs Morelli. "I would have had a pink couch and orange chairs. I love the house so much!"
