Jim Yochum doesn`t live by a design credo.
In fact, he had no grand scheme for decorating his loft.
”I just know what I like when I see it,” says Yochum, an interior design photographer who resides in the city`s West Town neighborhood. ”I like open space, big shapes and clean lines.”
Into his apartment, Yochum brought decor that defies classification.
”Don`t call it eclectic, because I hate that word,” Yochum implores.
He pauses again, surveying the antique jelly cabinet that hangs on a cinderblock wall, the track lights that dangle from the wood ceiling, the slab of slate-gray marble that sits on a white countertop.
”But that`s what it is, isn`t it?” he asks, chuckling.
Yes, as tired a word as ”eclectic” has become, it is precisely the way to describe Yochum`s taste and style-and the veritable treasures that he has plucked from flea markets and antiques shops in Illinois and Michigan.
Yochum, 33, mixes high-tech with down-home, shiny with scruffy to create points of interest throughout his multipurpose area.
Consider:
In the foyer, there`s a collection of wooden canes, each with a different kind of tip-silver, gold, ivory.
In the living space, a new black leather sofa sits next to black upholstered chairs, circa 1955, while a few feet away, Greek busts peer down from Ionic columns and three black metal fans-the kind you`d expect to find in Ralph Kramden`s apartment-perch atop a sleek black wall unit.
And in the sleeping area, which he has cordoned off with a gray curtain, beside the pine armoire, there`s a Depression-era metal bucket filled with pine cones.
Anywhere else, this assortment might confuse the eye, but here in Yochum`s loft, the juxtaposition is intriguing.
It took Yochum only a few months to assemble the pieces, many of which reflect hours of sleuthing at the Kane County Flea Market in St. Charles.
His strategy is to be impulsive.
”As I walked down the aisles, I`d think of an unfinished area, and then if I came across something, I`d think, `Gee, would that work there?”` says Yochum, a shy man more comfortable taking pictures than fielding questions about the loft he rents for $775 per month.
”There really wasn`t anything premeditated about it.”
Take his fan display, for instance.
When Yochum`s parents sold their cottage in Torch Lake, Mich., he took their old black fan because it reminded him of Jim Dine`s sculpture, ”The Plant Becomes the Fan,” that he`d seen at the Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago.
”I liked the `industrialness` of it,” he says. ”I didn`t know what I`d do with it. I never thought I`d put it on top of my wall unit. But then I saw the other ones at the flea market, and it seemed like a good idea to display them together-like sculpture.”
Yochum also views flea markets as a prime opportunity to observe his fellow bargain-hunters.
”If you can`t stand people, it`s not a place to go,” he says. ”You`ve got to shuffle here, shuffle there. It`s very crowded. But I love to watch people, and, of course, I could look at the stuff forever.”
He has stretched $7,000 to furnish his entire 1,400-square-foot apartment-an amount that might buy a formal dining room set on the North Shore. His ability to make each dollar pack as much punch as possible is more out of the instability of a free-lance career than any design philosphy. ”I`m unemployed every day.”
Yochum, who grew up in a ”typical suburban house with shag carpets,”
was influenced by the interior designers and architects whose projects he has photographed over the years.
Like the fashion house receptionist who dresses with flair from her exposure to models, Yochum has been a veritable sponge, soaking up knowledge from experts.
Sources of inspiration included Mike Bell, a Chicago designer, and the glossy pages of Metropolitan Home and HG magazines, which trained his eye to appreciate both the elegant and the unusual.
”It`s all very subtle, of course,” says Yochum, who left his native Michigan in 1984 to become a photographer`s assistant at Hedrich-Blessing, an architectural photography firm in Chicago. ”But I developed my own design sense by observing how they did things.”
At Stanley Tigerman`s country house in Lakeside, Mich., Yochum was impressed with the Chicago architect`s use of corrugated metal on the exterior.
Yochum (then an assistant to the photographer shooting Tigerman`s house for Metropolitan Home) resolved to ”borrow” this concept when he moved to a new apartment.
To divide his foyer from his living area, Yochum constructed a corrugated, saw-toothed wall from clear fiber glass. Then he repeated the material-this time in turquoise-by applying it to the bases of two tables, which he uses for both working and dining. The turquoise provides a welcome splash of color in a loft that is mostly black, white and gray.
”I liked the texture and the undulation of the corrugated material,”
he says. ”I liked the fact it wasn`t just a flat surface.”
Sally Mauer, a Northbrook-based freelance editor for interior design magazines, says that Yochum was a perceptive student.
”Jim has really learned to focus on the graphic layouts he`s seen,”
says Mauer, who has represented Yochum to national publications.
”Working with interior designers can be like going to school. They enjoy educating the photographer, editors and homeowners. Jim`s done his space on a tight budget, but it looks lucious. It looks like an artist lives there.”
That`s because Yochum regards metal fans and bowling pins as sculpture.
”They remind me of something you`d see in the Museum of Modern Art,” he says.
For Yochum, who began studying photography 10 years ago, taste has
”nothing whatsoever to do with money.”
”I photograph places that have stuff all around,” he says, ”and it seems you either have to have a maid constantly dusting, or you have to do it yourself. I don`t have the time to dust. Besides, I prefer the uncluttered look.”
And he prefers smooth, hardwood floors to the tile blocks and carpeting that Annie Properties, which converted the brick warehouse into 56 rental lofts, offered to install.
”It would look choppy, a piece of tile here, a piece of carpet there,”
says Yochum, noting that Frank Lloyd Wright inspired his appreciation of continuous space.
As for decor, Yochum often finds objects irresistible because of their imperfection.
”I loved the way the silver was coming off the mirror,” he says, pointing to an ornate mirror in the Federal style that hangs next to his wall unit.
”It makes it look soft. New mirrors are extremely accurate and harsh.”
Once you understand Yochum`s passion for shape, size and texture, things such as smooth, oval stones make perfect sense when placed on a battered wood table.
Although he admits he`s ”basically finished” decorating his loft, Yochum continues to contemplate design.
”I`ve got about 20 different houses in my head. I even have furniture designed. I guess you could say my whole life is about shapes and sizes.”
