Design Folder: Your Online Design and Decorating Resource

space matters: a european-inspired california home

When I first saw pictures of my cousin Isadora’s home in California, I immediately thought of sharing them here in Design Folder. What I love most about the decor is the amount of thought put in every detail and element in each room. She created a really lovely, inviting space which she beautifully describes below. I hope I’m lucky enough to get to visit her and her family soon. -Lilli

{Our home is situated centrally in Los Angeles, CA.  It’s technically a duplex, which means that it is legally two apartments, but we’ve transformed it into a single family home. When we purchased the house back in 2003 it would have been cost prohibitive to get as much square footage as we currently have in a home that was actually a single family home.  The layout works out nicely for us, downstairs we have our grown up space, which includes our formal living room and dining room and two bedrooms.}

{Upstairs we have our more kid-friendly space, with a large family room, our bedroom and my son’s bedroom, as well as our office.  You could also say that downstairs is the “tidy floor” and upstairs is the “messy floor”. Guests coming to the house have sometimes commented that they couldn’t tell a toddler lives in the house, that’s because they stayed on the ground floor.  I like giving my son the freedom to play, but I also don’t want our home to be overrun by toys, so the layout of the house has worked out really nicely for us giving us a bit of both.}

{When we first moved into the house I was very taken by the Hollywood Regency style made famous by Kelly Wearstler, a local design superstar. But after living in the house a few a few years, I outgrew the style, but most importantly I felt that the style was too dark and too heavy for our home.  So, I proceeded with a gradual remodel to lighten and brighten things up.  Currently, I would describe my style as Bourgeois Bohème, a style that is more intrinsically my own.  It is strongly influenced by my childhood in Paris, but is less formal and full of vintage and flea market finds.  My downstairs color palette is light; this is primarily influenced by the amount of light the downstairs receives.  Because the latter gets less light than the upstairs, I compensated by keeping the colors light in an effort to make it feel sunny all year round.  After all we do live in California!}

{Since moving to Los Angeles, I’ve acquired a great taste and appreciation for mid-century design.  In some ways mid-century design also relates back to my half-Danish heritage, so we have quite a few mid-century/Scandinavian pieces with clean lines, that live happily with my more ornate French pieces.  Our last home was very different architecturally and lent itself quite well to a more Asian-inspired influence, but I have to say that in this home, the influence is more resolutely European.}

{My favorite room is the guest room downstairs, it’s serene and restful and subtly feminine, it’s luxurious and casual at the same time. I also love our breakfast nook upstairs; it’s cozy and warm and a wonderful place to read the morning paper or sit down for an afternoon tea. It has Emeco navy chairs mixed with an antique French table. The table has a long history and has traveled with us throughout the world, it has played dressing table to my mother, study desk for me as a teenager, kitchen work surface, and is now getting a rest in its current incarnation as a breakfast table.  If I could only save a few pieces in my home, this table would definitely be one of them.  I would also save an antique French mirror that I’ve had since I was a child, and of course, our photographs.  If you were to ask my husband though, he’d probably save his bass guitar, as music has always been a very important part of who he is.}

Many thanks to Isadora for the words and the photographs. She is a modern family photographer and her works can be found at www.thompsonandspring.com.