D.C. decor: She’s new to the House. An early test? Finding a home.

When Emily Randall got a new job based in Washington, D.C., one of her first tasks was finding an apartment. She wanted a place within walking distance of her office, and it had to allow pets. She found a one-and-a-half bedroom in a building 10 minutes from work. Then she needed to figure out how to furnish it in a way that reflected her style (bright colors and cheery patterns) without breaking the bank.

These challenges will be familiar to anyone who has relocated for work. What makes Randall’s situation a little unusual is the job she came to D.C. to do: representative for Washington’s 6th District in the House of Representatives.

As Randall, a 39-year-old Democrat, learns how to navigate the House and assemble her office during a freighted moment for the federal government, she also has the more quotidian task of setting up a new home.

When we think about lawmakers in D.C., we often focus on their very Washington responsibilities, including voting on legislation and attending committee hearings or fundraisers. Where they rest their heads afterward tends to be less of a concern to the public, though it’s certainly something the legislators need to figure out.

Some elements of the apartment hunt have been tricky, but now Randall is getting to her favorite part. “The act of nesting is pretty comforting to me and joyful,” she says. “I need a creative outlet, whether it’s cooking, whether it’s sewing, whether it’s decorating, like some way to be making my space or the world more beautiful.”

Her apartment is in Navy Yard, a neighborhood along the Anacostia River with a slew of freshly constructed geometric glass buildings. “I did have dreams of a beautiful rowhouse or, you know, something with character,” Randall says, but it was not to be. “This is the newest building I’ve ever lived in in my life.” Rents in her building range from a little under $2,000 for the smallest studios to more than $5,000 for the largest three-bedrooms. (Average D.C. rent is about $2,400, according to Zillow.)

The neighborhood is a popular landing pad for people who work on the Hill, given that the Capitol Building looms in the near distance. One apartment building down the street houses dozens of members of Congress, Randall says, but that’s not what she wanted.

“I like to have a little distance between myself and my coworkers,” she says. Still, she estimates about 10 fellow lawmakers live in her building. She’s even run into one of them in the elevator.

Housing for the House

There aren’t too many regulations regarding where members of Congress can live while in the capital, so long as they pay fair-market rent for it. Thanks to a rule change in late 2022, House members can receive reimbursements for their D.C. lodging from their Members’ Representational Allowance, the same fund they use to operate their offices.

While some Republicans criticized the shift, Randall found it helpful. She also has a mortgage on the Bremerton, Washington, home she shares with her wife, Alison. “I don’t know how I would cover rent in this expensive city and my mortgage otherwise,” she says. (She uses some of the money to help with rent in the city — it cannot be used for mortgage payments.)

She had to get a special letter from the House Administration Committee to secure her lease. As a state senator in Washington, she made about $60,000. The annual salary for a member of the House is nearly triple that amount, but the larger paycheck didn’t come until a month after the job began. The leasing company wouldn’t approve Randall’s application until she provided them with the letter confirming her forthcoming six-figure salary.

There are always a heavy handful of legislators, mostly Republicans and mostly men, who decide to sleep in their office. They often point to the practice as evidence of their budget-minded bona fides and industriousness.

That was not something Randall considered. “I feel like it’s problematic to live in your office because of the position it puts your staff in to come into the office when you’re maybe still in your pajamas,” she says. “That feels really uncomfortable, especially for young staff.”

Some longtime members of Congress have gone a more permanent route, purchasing homes or condos in or near the city. Some of them rent spare bedrooms to their colleagues.

Making it a home

Already, furniture and homey flourishes fill Randall’s apartment, thanks to a mix of stuffed suitcases from home, Facebook Marketplace and Ikea: Vivid rugs and window dressings. A teal couch with rust-colored accent pillows by a floor-to-ceiling window. Framed screen prints and photographs of her wedding on the walls. Other remnants of the summer garden wedding: a stack of merry cloth napkins Randall sewed herself, which she wrapped around plates she bought for the celebration to protect them during their journey across the country.

She describes her style as maximalist. “My home in Washington is even more crammed with, like, bright color, mix-and-match things,” Randall says. “But I haven’t been here for very long yet.”

As we walk through the apartment on a Thursday afternoon, her rescue dog, Bad Bunny, follows Randall, occasionally interjecting with a bark. (Randall’s two other dogs, Frida and Ricky Martína, are at home in Bremerton with Alison — there’s a photo of them hanging at Bad Bunny’s eye level, so that he can see his canine siblings.) She used dry-erase markers to scribble reminders on the frosted glass kitchen cabinets ranging from big picture missives (“TELL STORIES ALL THE TIME EVERYWHERE” and “Listening to my instincts”) to daily reminders (“Task Rabbit light fixtures”).

Creating a welcoming space is a top priority for Randall. She made sure she had a big table, with extra chairs stashed in a closet, because she dreamed of having colleagues and staff over for dinner. She’s currently plotting one for the entire 10-person House delegation from Washington state, she says. “I think some of the most bipartisan work I’ve done is when you get to know people as people.”

Plus, she likes to cook. “I try to cook every week because it is good for me. Like, brings me joy. There’s not a lot of space for self-care in this job,” she says. Indeed, when she hosted a dinner for her office staff, she went to the grocery store and started prepping the food. She took a break to go to the Capitol to vote before coming back and finishing the meal.

This multitasking is par for the course. After all, at the same time she was finding an apartment, she also had to hire people to staff her office. And now, when she can, she is also scouring Facebook Marketplace and other wallet-friendly options to make that space more appealing to visitors, even as she continues to keep her eye on items for her apartment.

Picking up items she acquires on the site has been one of the only ways Randall has been able to explore other neighborhoods in the city. “Everyone has been so nice,” she says. Indeed, a very D.C. experience for residents is receiving a Facebook Marketplace offer from a “D.C. famous” person — a Cabinet undersecretary or talking head only known to people who read Politico “Playbook.”

Members receive what she describes as “nice institutional furniture” for their offices in the Capitol, but Randall has a different vibe in mind. “Making our office a welcoming space that feels like me, that feels like home, that, you know, feels safe for people who are new to lobbying, it’s important to me.” To that end, there’s a basket of toys, as well as queer art, painted purple walls and plants everywhere.

One plan in the works: using peel-and-stick wallpaper to bring cheer to the office bathroom, a space that has become a polarized topic this congressional term. Her office has a sign out front saying anyone can use the bathroom, a response to Republicans targeting Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrate from Delaware, the first openly transgender lawmaker, with bathroom restrictions.

It’s a reminder that so much about our homes and spaces is a reflection of our politics, rather than a sanctuary from it.

“So many people say that they’re not political. But we all make choices about where we spend our money or what we hang in our homes, how we welcome people in or not,” Randall says. “I think our spaces are like an extension of ourselves and, you know, it’s intentional whether we think it is or not.”