Her nest in the city

Last spring, Katie Kring-Schreifels noticed two mourning doves fluttering in the maple tree outside her bedroom window. With the help of binoculars, over the course of several weeks she watched as the birds made a nest in the crook of two branches, then two eggs appeared in the nest, then fledglings hatched, and finally the baby birds grew up and flew away.

Kring-Schreifels wasn’t surveying birds from a house in a bucolic suburb. She was watching from her second-floor apartment in a brick rowhouse in Bella Vista.

Wanting to share the urban wildlife’s saga, Kring-Schreifels alerted her upstairs and downstairs neighbors to the nesting doves so they could watch, too.

The Temple graduate loves city living, shopping at the Italian Market two blocks away, and taking courses at Fleisher Art Memorial down the street.

Having grown up in Elkins Park, she values nature and has found ways to bring it into her one-bedroom rental. Her walls are painted pale sunshine yellow, for instance, and a flock of paper bluebirds is suspended from string, creating the illusion that they’re flying across a living room window.

Kring-Schreifels’ mother, Julie, found the birds at a craft show. Julie, an artist, also created the framed collage with red poppies. And her prints of a fanciful salmon and a raven were purchased on a family trip to Vancouver.

A map of London combining drawings of birds and foxes with street names was acquired by Kring-Schreifels when she spent a college semester abroad.

The beige pullout couch and coffee table in the living room came from Wayfair. The green chair, globe lamp, and the beige, cream, and black rug were purchased from Ikea, one of her favorite shopping destinations. “I love Scandinavian design,” she said, “It’s simple and warm.”

In warm weather, marigolds and other annuals fill pots on the balcony, which is furnished with a blue storage cabinet from Target, blue chairs from Ikea, and a black metal table from her aunt, Mindy Kring. A brass sunburst headboard has been repurposed as a resting place for a green and bronze dragonfly found at the flea market on Head House Square.

Inside, on an accent wall painted taupe, hangs a multihued Geologic Shaded-Relief Map of Pennsylvania. Kring-Schreifels finds ancient rock croppings fascinating. “I wish I had been a geology major,” she said.

Instead she was a public relations and art history major and now works as an executive assistant for a promotional products producer.

Plants and books fill shelves over a dining nook furnished with a white table and red chairs from Ikea.

The kitchen, with pale pine cabinetry and stainless steel appliances, including an apartment-size dishwasher, and the apartment’s oak flooring were installed after Kring-Schreifels’ landlord, Nate Carabello, bought the house in 2005.

It had been boarded up for 30 years, he said, and a tree was growing in the middle of the then-roofless house. The brick rowhouse probably had been built in the early 1900s and enlarged in the 1920s, said Carabello, who lives nearby.

The reglazed white fixtures and black-and-white tile in the bathroom were the only items from the 1920s he was able to salvage.

In the bedroom, Kring-Schreifels’ favorite find is the coral, green, and cream-colored fan above her bed, which she purchased on Facebook Marketplace for $30. The fan’s colors are picked up in the small armchair from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore and in the William Morris-inspired floral patterned rug from eBay.

The iron bed came from Amazon. The gold drapes, green-and-white bedding, and tan blanket came from a nearby Target. The leather trunk with brass fittings belonged to Kring-Schreifels’ great-grandmother.

Shades covering storage spaces above two closets were hung by Kring-Schreifels’ father, Jeff, who also provides transportation when his daughter, who has no car, wants her purchases hauled home.

Under the bedroom window hangs a photo of a seascape with roiling blue waves. On the windowsill next to an ethereal print called Evening in Paris are binoculars awaiting the return of mourning birds next spring.

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