We’re knocking on doors and taking a look around peoples’ homes to see where your neighbours relax, hang out with their pets, and create! It’s an invitation to snoop, but we’re staying away from their medicine cabinets.Photos: @art3fact

Our Host: Josh Nickel

Who’s that? Insite worker, musician

Beverage Offered: vanilla rooibos tea and home-made muffins

We’ve never met before, so tell me about yourself.

I’m Josh, I work as a mental health worker at Insite, and I play in a couple of bands around town and I live in Strathcona.

And how would you describe your place?

I live in an old storefront, beside the only projects there are in Vancouver and it’s great, it’s gorgeous.

How long have you lived here for?

We’ve been here for 3 years. We rent and our landlords are fantastic.

When I walk in, the first thing I see is your feature wall, so tell me more about that.

Well we always wants to have wallpaper because it’s a bit more fun than just plain blank walls. At the last place we were at, we didn’t do anything. [This place] We just found this 10 buck a roll wallpaper, crazy design that looks like it’s from the 1960s. 1961 was the date that was on the instructions for it. We found them super cheap and they kinda matched that we’d already bought. There was so much! I kinda want to do the entire living room with it, but Jerry was not too into it.

Did you wallpaper together?

It was a lot of work, it was a relationship tester.

I like all your plants by the window.

I really like plants. I got really into them a few years ago when I had a house in Kamloops and I had a garden. I started growing them in my yard as a way of saying “Hey-I don’t need to drink all the time!”

What do you love the most here?

I lucked out on some stuff. I’ve got a tonne of amplifiers in here. Some are broken, some are hobby amps that I want to screw around with and get working again.

I’m looking at your record collection and I like your display.

Yes-I’ve been collecting records for a few years, I probably have about 2000. I just started buying punk records when I was a teenager and it just never really stopped, and I got into this thing where I needed to have every punk record and I’ve kind grown out of that a little bit. I had no idea that there were that many punk bands in the world. I have a bit of a problem with collecting. It’s not something that I want to do or encourage people to do.

You have lot of collections. Is there something about collecting and displaying your stuff that makes you feel more at home?

I think that for me to have space, where I can live and enjoy the culture that I’ve created for myself is really important. So for me to have this stuff close, increases my creative outlet.

Whose the lady in the birdcage?

It’s  a rain lamp from the 70s and 60s. It was a thing that was really big for a little while.  You fill it with mineral oil and it runs down the strands. We found it online and spent way too much money on it.

What do you guys do here?

I trying to have people over as much as possible because it’s a huge place and it’s built for hanging out in. We’re pretty relaxed people for the most part.