The home of Matt and Jen Monroe and their daughters, Cecily and Eleanor, breathes a fresh, California spirit throughout its mid-century modern walls — a combination that feels both effortless and meticulously planned all at once. Though, truth be told, it’s taken quite some time, work and patience to get it to this point from the moment they laid eyes on the house and saw its potential five years ago.
The 1951 home in Los Angeles, CA’s Eagle Rock area lured the family in with its big windows and private backyard, but the biggest draw for them was the neighborhood itself and great public school nearby for the girls. Matt is a woodworker/furniture designer/toy designer and owner of Monroe Workshop, and Jen is a film producer (her credits include Jackie starring Natalie Portman, The Zookeeper’s Wife starring Jessica Chastain, and Megan Leavey starring Kate Mara). With the two excelling in vastly different creative fields, they’re bound to approach things from different perspectives, and designing this house over the years was a perfect example of that.
“Matt takes a long time to make careful decisions and I make really fast (sometimes bad) decisions just to cross things off my list,” Jen admits. “Luckily we are usually on the same page with design and have really similar taste. Matt will sometimes come up with an idea that I don’t understand — for me I like to see it first in a photo or online or else I’m nervous to commit. For example, I couldn’t really visualize what he had in mind when he wanted to cover our living room walls in big panels of walnut. But we both like natural materials and he was convinced that it would warm up the house in an interesting way and he was right. I need to trust him when he gets excited about design…”
Despite Jen’s tendency to speed through to-dos, she heeded the advice of others to live in the home first before doing the majority of the renovation work. “Before we moved in, we redid the floors and put in the big sliding doors,” she shares. “Everything else happened in spurts over time. We redid the kitchen, enclosed an outdoor laundry area which extended the kitchen, we added on to the master bedroom and raised the ceiling (which makes all the difference), we added a master bathroom, we added an office, we built decks and fences in the backyard… It was a huge job and no room was left untouched. It wasn’t easy living through it all but the end result was worth it.”
Now the 2,000-square-foot home (one level, with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms in the main house and a guest house with a bedroom and bathroom) functions as a comfortable and functional house for the family of four — along with their two chickens, Moana and Precious. It’s the perfect spot to come together after work and school and share stories about the day. —Kelli
Photography by Nicki Sebastian / @nickisebastian
Image above: Jen tells us, “We watch TV in the living room and like having the two big couches in there even though they probably take up too much space. Design wise, we would be better off with one couch across from two lounge chairs — but we like being able to spread out and relax… So we chose comfort over design. But the best part of having two similar sized couches is that we can create one of our favorite family events — movie night in ‘the pod.’ We push the couches together and it’s like a huge cozy crib and we all get in for a movie night.”
from Design*Sponge https://www.designsponge.com/2018/09/in-california-a-mid-century-modern-home-with-a-carefree-spirit.html
from Home Improvment http://notelocreesnitu.tumblr.com/post/178541689989
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