House in Progress: Fourth Time's the Charm?

My poor husband must be so sick of my endless redecorating. As longtime readers may remember, the rich camel color of our living room had been seriously bugging me. (See the room's last incarnation here, and previous ones here and here.)

It was a nice shade, but it clashed with our newly bright and happy dining room, and it dictated too strictly the other colors I could put in the space.

I wanted something crisper and more serene, lighter and brighter, and above all more flexible -- that is, a hue that would work with my frequent changes of heart when it comes to decor and my ever-changing color infatuations.

I finally settled, over Nick's protests -- he likes everything to stay like it is, at least until he gets used to the new thing -- on Benjamin Moore's Gray Cloud, a very pale, silvery gray.

Right now, we have a lot of teal, turquoise, and lime-green accents in the room, and I think it works well with those. But the next time I'm itching for a change, I can simply swap out a few vases and textiles and the wallpaper backing on the bookshelves and hutch, and quickly substitute an entirely different color scheme -- lemon yellow, red, or whatever else strikes my fancy.

Since the upholstery on our couch and chairs was chosen to compliment the old paint color (and since I was equally sick of it), and since we still can't seem to find the perfect replacement couch at anything approaching a price we can afford right now, we settled on the interim solution of slipcovers.

These are from IKEA, and made to fit its Karlstad line, but they work well enough with our Crate & Barrel pieces -- just don't look too closely at the spots where they ride up awkwardly in the back.

Don't look too closely at the wallpaper on the bookshelves, either. Let's just say that I will never, ever be a professional wallpaper installer ... Oh, and I love my gorgeous new pillow (center) from InLeaf.

Except for those changes, and for some small accessories and new pillows and other textiles here and there, the room is pretty much the same as it was during its last iteration. I wouldn't mind trying a different furniture arrangement, but so far this is the only one we've found that works.

(Sometimes I daydream about hiring a designer to come over for one day and rearrange my house, just to have the nice surprise of seeing things in places I never would have thought to put them. Do you ever think about doing that? Do you suppose any design pros hire themselves out by the day to tweak people's homes? But I digress ... )

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the way the room looks now. It gets a lot of light even in winter, and can get pretty warm in the summer, and the soft gray is like mental air conditioning for me. I feel serenely calm and cool in the space.

Nick was worried the gray would be bland and dreary, but he seems OK with it now. Or perhaps he's just decided that it's pointless to protest now that it's done.

As for the kids, I think our daughter likes it. But when our son came home from school and saw the newly painted room for the first time, he took it all in for a moment before declaring, "It looks like an old person lives here." Thanks a lot, kid. (Umm, maybe that's just 14-year-old speak for "chic and sophisticated"?)

A couple of questions for you guys: Do you think we should change out the light fixtures? I adore the vintage lights -- but again, they were chosen to go with the old scheme, and I'm not sure they work so well with this one.

And I'm really tempted to paint out the red brick fireplace surround and hearth, but also kind of hate the idea of imposing my will on a 70-year-old, largely original house just to make it better match my decor-of-the-moment. Thoughts?

Mmmm ... peonies.

P.S. You can see more of mi casa here.

Best of: House Voyeur

It's Spring Break for us, so I'm taking off next week to hang out with my family and squeeze in little R&R. I'll be back on Monday, April 13. In the meantime, I'll leave you with my favorite readers' homes that have been featured here, in case you missed them the first time around. Enjoy! Above: Art and Elegance in San Francisco

Art Deco in Oakland

An Artful Mix in Alameda

Bright and Bold in Berkeley

Cozy and Classic in Cambridge

An Eclectic Arizona Abode

Ethnic and Eclectic in Daytona Beach

Family Friendly Modern in Illinois

Fanciful in Florida

A Fresh Start in Baltimore

Guthrie's Bright, Bold, Budget Nursery

Leah S.' Incredible Remodeled Kitchen

Midcentury Cool in Oakland

Photo-Centric in Palm Beach

Refined But Relaxed in Rhode Island

A Reimagined Ranch in the Oakland Hills

Rustic and Retro in Silverlake

Simple and Serene in Sweden

Small Space Living in Vancouver

Terrific in Texas

Viva Glam in Venice Beach

Click here to see all of the House Voyeur tours. (And -- pssst! -- you can check out a design*sponge "Sneak Peek" of my own casa right here.)

Shameless Request: Want to Show Off Your Home?

Photo by Johnny Blood

Calling all creative homeowners and renters: Show off your deft decorating, renovation, and garden design skills here!

Your house or apartment doesn't have to have grand architecture or be done to the nines to be considered. Small and modest is great. Budget decorating is great. The key components are creativity and freshness.

Hell, you don't even have to show off your whole place -- I'd love to see a single room, a completed renovation project, or even a small area that you've decorated and are particularly proud of.

If you're interested in offering up your abode for one of my "House Voyeur" tours, please let me know!

House Voyeur: Rustic and Retro in Silverlake

Sheharazad Pezeshkpour and Ron Fleming's Silverlake home is, to me, the quintessential arty Los Angeles abode: set into a leafy hillside and filled with quirky vintage treasures.

I love how the couple has fused rustic, retro, and modern elements. This is no cookie-cutter midcentury modern showhouse, outfitted with the requisite iconic pieces but somehow lacking soul. Rather, it's a warm, inviting space that feels very personal and reflective of its owners' personalities. I'd love to come to a party here, sipping glass after glass of red wine out on the patio and having heady conversations late into the balmy L.A. night.

Here, Sheharazad gives us a virtual tour of the designing duo's (she works for a business-design firm called Studio Deluxe, while Ron co-owns YYES) 1,980-square-foot urban oasis:

"Built in 1952, our home is a California rancher with midcentury, clean-lined touches.

Our style is eclectic and considered. We like to mix pieces from different decades and have an appreciation for objects that showcase excellence in design and craftsmanship. We’ve designed the house as a whole to have a relaxed, atmospheric vibe. And within that, each room in our home is designed to have a purpose.

We’re inspired by so many designers: Tony Duquette, David Hicks, Kelly Wearstler, Jonathan Adler, Ralph Lauren, John Lautner, Edward Durrell Stone, LaGardo Tackett, Yves St. Laurent … all have such an incredible sense of style. We also find inspiration through reading old issues of Sunset magazine and Architectural Digest from the ’60s, ’70s, and even the ’80s. You really get to see a variety of design solutions that worked in the past — and, of course, some that should stay in the past. But the most inspiring ones are always the things that were so ahead of their time that they still look futuristic, even now when they’re considered vintage.

A couple of our favorite things about this house are the exposed beams and high ceilings in the main room, which adds a lot of depth to the space, making it feel larger than it is.

We tend to gravitate toward midcentury modern and 1960s design, so we often buy secondhand. Most of our décor is pieced together from trips to local flea markets, secondhand stores, and yard sales, and from perusing craigslist. We’re definitely bargain-hunters. We see our house as a work in progress. We’re constantly changing the décor, adding and taking away. It evolves with each new find.

When it came time to think about furniture, we opted to keep our vintage pieces and have them reupholstered. For our couch, we chose brown Italian theater velvet and for our chairs, we chose remnants from the Holly Hunt collection that our upholsterer had left over from a previous commission.

We also splurged on the shelving in our main room. Ron's a vinyl junkie and we both love books. We needed quality pieces that were modern and functional to house our favorite books and Ron's record collection. Our good friend Amy Devers is an amazing furniture designer and carpenter. She and Ron worked together to come up with a design that fit the room, and Amy built all the custom hardwood casework herself.

Over the years we've collected a group of paintings, serigraphs, lithographs, etchings, drawing, prints, pottery, and glass that suit our taste. Many of the midcentury pieces are from artists associated with the Chouinard School in California, but they're peppered with an original Chagall (thanks, St. Vincent de Paul!), an early Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, various works by talented friends, and the occasional anonymous trash-heap find.

Our house is surrounded by bamboo, which grows incessantly and Ron trims regularly. We have so much of it, in fact, that we’ve begun to display some of the taller trimmings as vertical elements throughout the house. As they dry and age, the bamboo changes from green to a neutral color. It’s a nice homage to the living bamboo you see through the windows.

We tend to display the things we collect — pottery, ceramics, cast iron kitchenware — in larger groups to add visual interest.

Our biggest challenge is keeping our love of 'things' from taking over the house. To control our ever-growing collections, we recently started an Etsy store called the White Mole, where we sell some of our finds so we don’t have to start charging them rent.

We used Ralph Lauren paints throughout our home — specifically the Vintage Masters Collection. Our bedroom is painted in the Olive Tree shade.

We got a great deal on a set of black leather Le Corbusier-style couches that we use in our movie room. The paint color is Ralph Lauren's New Castle Brown.

Ron built the table in our 'Japanese tea room' from an antique head- and footboard that our neighbors were getting rid of. He designed custom fasteners to bring the two pieces together and had glass fitted for the tabletop. I’m so proud of how he was able to creatively repurpose something old and give it a new life. It’s a great conversation piece.

We love our home’s original wood windows. We don’t use window treatments, except in our bedroom and in the movie room (where we need the option of keeping light out), so it really brings in a nice sense of the immediate outdoors.

In our backyard, which is built on a hillside so that it has tiers, we’ve tried to create separate spaces, each evoking an emotional response. For example, a space you’d want to meditate in versus a space you’d want to entertain in versus a space you’d want to read in.

Our advice: Don’t be afraid to mix things up. Add your own touch by playing with different textures and shapes that speak to you. Put something old next to something new, and both items will have an added sense of character."

Thanks so much for sharing your enchanting home and garden with us, Sheharazad and Ron! (Pssst — you can check out even more of it on their flickr set.)

P.S. Want to see more? Click here for a look inside other readers' homes.