‘Open-plan’ is a relative understatement for this 4 bed room residence in Los Angeles’ Mar Vista neighbourhood.
When inside designer Ginny Macdonald took on the venture, the purchasers requested her to deliver the lounge, eating room and kitchen collectively right into a single important house. Macdonald not solely did that, however added an additional eating nook and mini mudroom, and labored with an open strategy to the house’s backyard, accessible by way of massive, glass sliding and bi-fold doorways.
‘With the open connection between the indoor and outside areas, we actually centered the idea on a Japanese, Scandinavian trendy design with European influences,’ stated Macdonald. ‘We additionally needed to remain true to the mid-century structure of the home.’
‘We used a impartial, earthy palette all through the home with white oak being the characteristic for all of the bespoke cabinetry.’
The result’s an impressively gentle house that embraces the simplicity of recent European design, and takes inspiration from among the world’s finest properties, together with that of the chef behind one of the crucial well-known eating places on the planet.
Kitchen
‘We have been impressed by René Redzepi’s kitchen that was designed by Garde Hvalsøe, so we had our carpenter fabricate the drawers to have fingerless pulls,’ stated British-born Macdonald, who was very happy to embrace kitchen concepts from Europe.
This handle-less European fashion of cabinetry – as seen within the Noma chef’s residence kitchen in Denmark – is a trademark of the visible simplicity that leads the room. Distractions from the woodwork’s golden tones and pure sample are minimal, with a monochromatic scheme throughout the remainder of the house.
‘To interrupt up among the wooden cabinetry, the uppers have been painted in Benjamin Moore’s White Dove, however we saved the hood highlighted in white oak. The kitchen backsplash tiles are from Heath Ceramics and have been put in in a stacked formation.’
The centerpiece of the house is, in fact, the pristine 10-foot island that contains a white countertop created from speckled quartz, with slatted oak panels on both finish – an actual inspirational piece for anybody in search of kitchen island concepts.
‘With the island being so lengthy, we have been in a position to set up three pendants above,’ says Macdonald. ‘These are an off-white ceramic fixture from Rejuvenation. I really like that they are not absolutely stark white, and so they add a pleasant distinction to the higher cupboards.’
Eating nook
‘The eating nook might be one in all my favourite spots in the home,’ stated Macdonald. It happened, nevertheless, considerably by chance.
‘We knew we needed so as to add a built-in, and with the kitchen being an extended, galley fashion, it suited being on the top. After we demoed, we had some unexpected structural challenges that meant we needed to hold the small built-out wall behind the bench. Fairly than dwell on it, we made this right into a divide between the kitchen and ‘formal’ eating room house.’
The L-shaped banquette seating surrounds a desk made with the identical quartz that tops the close by island. ‘The toe-kick was purposefully designed to have a deep recess and provides the looks that the entire bench is floating…. So as to add some earthy tones, we combined in three totally different colour Eames-style, fiberglass chairs from Modernica in mustard, inexperienced and blue.’
Eating Room
The lightest and brightest space of the house is devoted to eating, nevertheless it has multiple use. ‘The ‘formal’ eating room – which is definitely pretty cosy and informal – was already vaulted and had the hearth built-out,’ stated Macdonald, who added to this tall house by putting in a lot bigger home windows, and actually experimented with various eating room concepts by turning the house under them into studying benches with storage under for the purchasers’ youngsters.
Lighting was additionally rigorously thought of, with Macdonald choosing a recent chandelier design by Brendan Ravenhill. ‘We did not need something too heavy in right here, as we needed to maintain the sightlines clear and have it feeling ethereal.’
Under the sightline, issues get just a little hotter. A classic teak credenza affords a ‘heat distinction to the opposite wooden tones,’ stated Macdonald, who performs it towards the built-in oak shelving unit that backs the eating bench. In the meantime, the eating desk swaps the kitchen’s clear quartz for pure wooden with uneven edges, and provides colour to the entire room with a vibrant woven rug.
Boot bench
A small however essential space of the house is the boot bench, which shuns conventional hallway concepts and acts like a mini mudroom on arrival into the home. The bench is constructed towards a wall clad with extra white oak, in a slatted panelling association that echoes that on ends of the island. The bench is upholstered with blue material and options extra handle-less cabinetry.
‘This wall was added to permit for a small divide between kitchen and entry, and supply an space for shoe storage and a bench to take a seat on,’ stated Macdonald. ‘It was solely pure that this grew to become a spotlight once you stroll into the home.’
Important toilet
Within the major toilet, we have been in a position to create a full wall of cabinetry with linen closets, double sinks and pull-out laundry hampers’, defined Macdonald of her toilet concepts. ‘Since we had the linen closets flanking the self-importance, it fashioned the right cubby so as to add a full top characteristic tile for the backsplash. We used a darkish inexperienced rectangle in a staggered formation from Heath Ceramics.
‘The bathe space and flooring have been saved impartial with a damaged joint calacatta marble for the ground, and a sq. white zellige for the partitions. Altogether it provides it a really zen vibe.’
Visitor bathe room
It’s within the visitor bathe room, nevertheless, the place modern tiling types actually come into their very own. ‘A blue/inexperienced vertical stacked triangle from Fireclay was paired with a easy white horizontal tile and calacatta gold hex ground tiles,’ stated Macdonald.
‘Since this toilet is on the extra conservative aspect, we designed the self-importance as a wall mounted, floating piece in order that it provides the phantasm of getting more room and air beneath.’
Children’ toilet
Within the children toilet, Macdonald defined how she needed to make use of tiles to create a ‘playful ground sample’. This was achieved by way of a seemingly random sample of orange, white, aqua blue and gray, that was truly fairly rigorously orchestrated by Macdonald.
‘I actually laid most of this out in an adjoining room in order that the installer might copy like-for-like – I am certain they hated me!’
Inside design / Ginny Macdonald
Structure / Stephen Cho
Contractor / Watson Bros Building
Images / Sara Tramp
