House call: John and Frank Navin of Aluminum Group

Many renters live in as-is limbo, but for John and Frank Navin, the brothers who make up pop band the Aluminum Group, muting their colorful personalities in their adjacent apartments was never an option. “Our landlords are like brothers to us,” says John, whose apartment underwent the most dramatic aesthetic shift. “We knew we were going to be here awhile.” Since moving in seven years ago, John, who is a sixth-grade teacher by day, transformed his 950-square-foot “grandma apartment” into a stylish but budget-built modernist pad, filling the space with salvaged designer furniture and gallery-worthy art created by friends, and adding simple but dramatic color treatments on doors, walls and floors. Word of the brothers’ knack for design has since spread; last spring, they were hired to redesign Schwa restaurant’s interior.