Turning Your House Into A Home: YouTuber Alexandra Gater

Who is Alexandra Gater?

Alexandra Gater is a Canadian interior designer YouTuber who transforms *mostly* rental spaces in Toronto in a variety of styles, or as she describes it “making houses feel like homey homes“. Originally created for a millennial audience with a focus on small rental spaces, such as studio apartments, she has diversified her approach in the recent past to also include house and commercial space projects. Her team, known as Team AG, includes handyman Graham, videographer Carla, creative producer Alana, Chief Operating Officer Amanda, junior editor Alessandra, and video editor James. All team members make regular appearances in her videos, and most have been the recipient of one of Alexandra’s apartment transformations on the channel. Prior to her YouTube career, Alexandra worked at her dream job as a home editor with Canadian women’s magazine Chatelaine. It was there that she began her online career, creating and starring in the successful but short-lived YouTube series The Home Primp.

Alexandra Gater with her adorable cat Lottie / Credit: Carmen Cheung for Chatelaine

A Career Pivot

Just as her online career was taking off with Chatelaine, she and her videographer (Carla Antonio, who still works with her) lost their jobs through downsizing. Alexandra explains how she took the loss of her job and turned it into an entrepreneurial success story in this TedX talk. Besides her YouTube videos, Alexandra has had her design work featured in Apartment Therapy and Architectural Digest, and makes regular television appearances on Cityline and the Global Morning Show.

Team AG headquarters/ Credit: Lauren Kolyn Studio – Instagram

What’s so great about Alexandra?

I most appreciate Alexandra and her team’s sense of humour! This YouTube short (below) is one of many examples of their regular high jinks on camera and Alexandra’s engaging and casual style. She is not afraid to get dirty, show the trial and error that can be DIY, and to talk about her growth as a designer when she looks back at earlier projects.

Credit: Alexandra Gater on YouTube

I also find her design projects to be accessible and affordable – occasionally she may use a more expensive item in a project but the overall budget is reasonable if you were to try to recreate the look, and most of the items are available in Canada. All of the home transformations are gifted to the recipient as Alexandra has partnerships with many companies, such as Article and Mitzi Lighting. At the end of each episode is a “reveal”, where she surprises the homeowner/renter with the finished product and we get to see their reaction.

Alexandra Gater’s former living room/ Credit: alexandragater.com

Finally, I love that Alexandra has a really eclectic design aesthetic: she can design anything from light and airy to dark and moody spaces, and from mid century modern to cottage core, and likes to use other designers as inspiration to create similar, but more affordable, looks. The projects that I most enjoy though are when she designs her own home as I really like her use of colour and texture, and her insertions of pompoms, plants, and Moroccan baskets and textiles. She has inspired me to break out of my greige rut of recent years and add more colour and even *gasp* wallpaper to my own home.

My front hall transformation, including DIY bench and wainscoting, inspired in part by Alexandra Gater/ Credit: Rachel Lang

Do you have a favourite interior designer? Where do you get your interior design inspiration from? How would you describe your design style? I’d love to hear about your design inspiration – comment below!

Social Media posts:

Twitter: In today’s blog post I dish about #styleinspo from Canada’s interior design sweetheart @AlexandraGater. https://bit.ly/3n5KzL4 #TeamAG

Facebook: Do you have a favourite interior designer? Today I share my current fave for eclectic design inspo! Hint: she’s Canadian and she loves pompoms and cats! https://bit.ly/3n5KzL4 #IloveLottie