Even by the standards of eccentric, earthquake shack-filled Bernal Heights, the house on top of the hill is an eye-catcher. What was once a typical, techie-minimalist flat-top home built in the 1980s has been transformed into a whimsical tulip fever dream, festooned with flower motifs both inside and out. And it’s already a social media star.
Dubbed the Floral House, the newly renovated three-story home is the brainchild of emerging San Francisco DIY designer and influencer Tay “BeepBoop” Nakamoto, who created the viral design project on behalf of two passionate clients.
As chronicled in real time to Nakamoto’s 1.9 million TikTok followers, the 2,300-square-foot, three-bed, three-bath home underwent a massive overhaul in just five months. It’s grabbed attention both in the neighborhood and online for its two-story custom tulip mural, a covered “catio” for the home’s two feline residents and a tricked-out movie screening room for its human ones.
“It kind of snowballed and grew and grew, and that’s why the project quadrupled in scope,” said Nakamoto of the home, which she decorated for a former elementary school teacher and her fiance, an impact investor, and their three pets. “I took it on because the client was so amazing and fun and fantastic, and she would just allow me to do anything.”
By “anything,” Nakamoto means a custom squiggly handrail that may or may not be up to code, a custard-colored rug that looks like a puddle waterfalling down the staircase, very swirly wallpaper and a bespoke bookcase with moveable shelves.
For any designer, the ambitious renovation would be a massive, multicolored feather in their cap, but for Nakamoto, it’s perhaps even bigger than that. The home symbolizes a big step in a yearslong journey of struggling with mental illness, transitioning from a career in tech to a new one in design and searching for something to feed her creative soul.
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“I’m honestly at a crux in my life where I’m trying to decide what I want to be doing,” said Nakamoto. Though she’s become a certified star on TikTok and Instagram, she said she dislikes influencing and doesn’t consider herself an interior designer because she doesn’t have a degree in the field. “I really just like to decorate and make happy places,” she said.
Developing ‘dopamine design’
While Nakamoto, 30, said she’s always had a creative streak, she never allowed it to fully blossom until she took a break from her tech job during the pandemic. That led to a spur-of-the-moment house purchase in the Mission in 2020, which suddenly gave her the space to exercise her creative capabilities.
During a manic episode in the midst of the pandemic—Nakamoto is very open about her bipolar disorder diagnosis, addressing it often on social media—the designer bought the $1.2 million Victorian condo on a whim. (“It was really insane. Like unmedicated insane,” she said.) She’d saved up the money from years of juggling full-time tech and freelance video jobs for clients like Apple, Google and Lyft.
Despite being a homeowner for the first time, Nakamoto still felt trapped. Not only was the pandemic raging, but a series of serious health issues also kept her homebound. So, she started transforming her home with do-it-yourself home improvement projects—a form of art therapy she calls “dopamine design.”
“I put color everywhere. Every room had color,” Nakamoto remembered. “I just needed the house to make me happy.”
Then came another spur-of-the-moment decision: She posted a 14-second video, overlaid with an ambient tune, of herself turning a section of her bedroom into a plant wall. Thus began her rapid ascent to social media stardom, with the mesmerizing video going viral immediately. The positive response encouraged Nakamoto to keep posting snippets of her home’s makeover—but also gave her a financial incentive and an avenue to get out of the home that had become a weight on her shoulders. The irony is not lost on her.
“It’s funny that I’m posting about ‘I’m decorating this house,’ [because] I’m decorating the house so that I can make money because I want to desperately get out of that house,” she said.
After selling the home a few years later, Nakamoto eventually went back to a 9-to-5 tech job and bought another house in San Francisco to unleash her creativity upon. Yet, in another twist of fate, she was laid off the same day she moved into the new two-bedroom abode. The job loss, part of a massive wave of tech layoffs in 2023, ultimately pushed Nakamoto into influencing full time—and led to projects like the Floral House.
Fittingly, Nakamoto got the gig after the lady of the house—a fan of Nakamoto’s—reached out via direct message to see if the TikTok star would consider decorating her home. Now Nakamoto makes her living through brand partnerships and monetizing her posts through the TikTok Creator Fund.
“I don’t get much out of being an influencer aside from it gives me opportunities, and I’m super grateful for that,” she said. “But the aspect of being a public figure, I hate.”
With the big, splashy purple Floral House reno in the rearview, Nakamoto is now focused on smaller projects like collaborating with a local jeweler on a ring design to benefit victims of Maui’s wildfires in her native Hawaii. She’s also helping shops like ceramics store Mud Witch in the Mission and local fashion boutique Isalis to update their storefronts with her signature touches of whimsy.
And she’s in the midst of redecorating—and documenting—the transformation of her new home, which she calls the Dream House.
“My new house has cured me,” she said. “The dream house is my happy, positive, new chapter of life.”