OHI HOME STYLE

Winter Slump

Everyone’s yard looks a little bare and brown. The crisp winter air makes my skin feel overly dry. Our house, no longer decorated for the holidays feels drafty and empty. I’ve officially hit my annual winter slump and it’s difficult to escape the warm embrace of the down filled, comforter covering my bed, to begin the day. As far as I’m concerned, winter could end after the New Year. I’m ready for longer hours of daylight, warmer daytime temperatures and dining outside on our patio!

The best way to lift your spirit is a home improvement project!

For 2 years, we have debated converting our garage into a legal Junior ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit). With teen children still living at home, I fantasize about having a living room with no television. Images of reading a book in front of the fire, taking a nap on the sofa, or putting together a puzzle on the coffee table dance in my head. The living room could transform into a calming space without a television. Plus, an ADU would down the road come in handy. We have retirement dreams of traveling and the plan, ideally, would be to load our personal items into the ADU and rent the house out while we travel for a year abroad. An ADU is also a great option for extra income in retirement. We could have a renter. We could also use it for a caregiver if one of us would need one down the road.

Deciding to move ahead, we contact our architect friend, Amy Shock and ask her advice on how to bring our dream to fruition. She comes up with ideas and draws up some plans.

Permit applications began. It’s not easy in our small town to rush a project and it takes a few months to get the okay to begin. We rip out the garage shelving and give it to a design client who wants more storage in her garage. The cabinets are in great shape, but in an attempt to get rid of that “garage feel” we want to start fresh with an empty space.

We also order a new sliding door and recycle our old metal door. The parameters set by the city for a new door are rigid. Needing the highest rated fire protection and earthquake protection, translates into to a costly purchase. The new sixteen foot door was the biggest expense of our project.

We also forgot a new door meant new stucco installation – this plywood was soon covered in protective paper and chicken wire before it was stuccoed and painted to match the house.

Final Details…

With the outside complete, the inside begins. In June, I traveled to Chicago for a friend’s wedding. I stayed with the sister of the bride in her incredibly chic loft, in the city. I was amazed to see she had white painted concrete floors and I fell in love with them! Concrete paint is actually very tough – especially indoors where we are able to avoid outside elements. My family does not wear shoes inside and I found myself falling in love with the idea of an all white space – white walls, white ceiling, white floors. One of my concerns about this ADU unit was the height of the ceiling. In the main house space we have very tall ceilings – eighteen feet in out front hall, fourteen feet in our living room and nine feet in the kitchen and bedrooms. The former garage, now ADU, has only standard eight foot ceilings. Using wall to wall white will help alleviate this concern. White expands the walls and makes the walls almost fade into the ceiling. The furniture, low profile, will also help expand the feeling of vertical space.

What a transformation! After painting, we installed custom drapery to match what we have in the rest of the house, new rugs, a B&B Italia Sectional, Ottoman, Wabi-Sabi ceiling light, some of our favorite artwork (Jennifer MaHarry, Bob Larkin art pictured above) and the television, now no longer in the living room! The kids have already claimed the space for this weekend with a long list of films they will be screening.

We still have a few more projects – the mini kitchen/bar area is plumbed but not installed and we are only just beginning the design of the bathroom that will be separately permitted and added on to the back of the space. But suddenly, mid-winter time seems less depressing. I am no longer in a slump. We have this new space to escape to and enjoy as a family.

Summer CoLoR

When summer begins I always feel a drawn to more splashes of color around the home. The fragrance from citrus trees in the Ojai Valley over takes our senses and suddenly I find myself pulling out colorful outdoor pillows for our patio.

With the citrus trees ready to pick and the flowers in full bloom I am drawn to shades of orange, pink, yellow and greens. It’s as if we are bringing the gifts of the yard to our living spaces through color.

Bright summer shades just FEEL RIGHT in the summer. This kitchen, in a recent installation, became energetic with pops of celadon green in the rug and counter stools.

Color is a power which directly influences the soul.
~Kandinsky

Bowls of fruit are a great way to add color to countertops. Ripe artichokes are a beautiful addition to a fruit bowl in the summer and even into the first days of fall as the apple harvest begins. If you forget to pick your artichokes or have too many -leaving them on the vine longer creates incredible large purple flowers that look amazing in summer floral arrangements.

Have fun with the colors of the season! Bright hues bring happy energy to summer gatherings.

Bring on the color! ~OHI HOME

What Holiday Decor Tells Us About Everyday Lighting

“Why does my house feel so great when it’s decorated for the holidays?” Asks our design client of over a decade.

“A lot of what you’re feeling is the powerful effect of room lighting,” I answer. The holidays are a time when we bring into play a design principle decorators have used for decades – layered lighting. In our Ojai home, decorative candles are lit, tree lights are hung, the dimmers are turned down low and the fireplace is aglow. The result is a really fantastic feeling space. Layers of light fill the vertical and the horizontal space of the room.

Our friend Michelle uses votives on her mantle to illuminate her vintage tree collection. If you don’t have a working fireplace, this is wonderful way to create a warm focal point even after the holidays.

Your holiday table is a great space to explore a variety of candle heights. We love using all sizes – small votives, tall tapers etc… We use a glass plate to display a variety of ivory pillar candles on our coffee table in the summer and a brushed gold tray in our holiday configuration. Combining glass and metal surfaces with candles is a great way to bounce a warm light effect throughout the room.

Setting light levels in a room can be just as important at a festive dinner party as the food. Low lighting makes an event feel more intimate. We added dimmers not only to our dining room but to our open concept kitchen as well. Lighting corner space with light cans (ideally behind a plant or chair), or using lamps made for seating level can also be a nice addition.

Designers normally work with three layers of lighting – ambient lighting (candles), task lighting(fixed lighting), and accent lighting (lamps, holiday lights). Remember these three lighting types when creating a well-presented room in your home, even beyond the holidays.

STUFF

I overheard a great conversation yesterday while installing one of our home stagings. One of the handymen working on the home said to his co-worker, “I wish my house looked like this. I don’t know how I ended up with so much stuff!” Stuff, stuff and MORE stuff accumulates over the years in all of our homes. That’s why we work frequently with a de-clutter expert/home organizer prior to staging occupied homes. The handyman’s reaction coincides with so many of our seller’s comments post home staging.

“Why didn’t we edit our life ten years ago?”

“Why has it taken us 12 years to have a garage sale?”

“Why have I saved all of this stuff for so many years?”

Many people don’t take time to think how they COULD be living. The days pass, the months pass and life continues. One of the rare gifts of our 2020/2021 pandemic has been the closer look we have been able to take at our immediate surroundings. At my house, we finally changed the front exterior house lights that we said we hated two years ago but ignored. My husband remarked, “Those look great! Why didn’t we do this sooner?”

Farmhouse style exterior lights can help upgrade both Cottage Style Homes and Tudors.

The hot days of summer can also be useful for projects inside the home. Enjoy cool air-conditioning as you de-clutter the kitchen junk drawer, re-organize the pantry and make a give away pile of ill matching mugs from your kitchen. Recently, I discovered how many drinking glasses had broken over the years and treated myself to new Crate and Barrel tumblers. They will be put to good used this summer, holding cool cocktails for warm evenings on the patio.

New glassware to be enjoyed on a beautiful patio styled by OHI HOME.

Organized kitchen drawers ads a world of calm to our home.

We often get asked, since we are in the business of simplifying and reviving spaces, if we “hold onto anything?” The answer is yes. We hold onto what we can use – items we KNOW we will use. I treasure a vintage wicker cooler we own that has a galvanized interior. I haul it out for summer parties, loading the inside with ice and cool drinks.

This vintage wicker/galvanized cooler is one of our favorite things.

Editing the items you have stored away can be incredibly rewarding. Often, getting rid of excessive accessories allows you to use your favorite pieces more often. We often forget about the stuff we own that resides in the attic, or that hard to access cupboard above the fridge. If we have less to store, we become more conscious of what we own and can be put to use.

Easing from Late Summer into Autumn

A Transitional Late Summer to Fall Palette – Cream & Brown -Cotton & Cashmere.

The days are still hot but the nights have gotten cooler. It’s that unpredictable time of the year when a warm throw blanket added to the sofa in the evening is a good idea, even though the air conditioning was on inside the house all day. In warmer areas, like Southern California the teasing of fall is often months on end. This creates a design dilemma… how do we visually create the feel of autumn in a fluctuating climate?

Think Color

Orange and white are perfect color choices for September.

The end of tomato season in my garden is normally September. The orange and red fruit is the perfect compliment to end of summer/beginning of fall meals. Our white summer table runner has been replaced with a darker one, and I’ve added orange candle holders, that compliment my tomatoes, into the mix. It feels too early to purchase real pumpkins and gourds so I fill a few modest bowls with faux reproductions. Orange feels too bold a choice, so I chose white – an easier color transition from summer.

We are still using our outdoor spaces. It’s one of the best perks of Southern California living! Black and white outdoor pillows are a great addition for fall.

Orange Heath pottery is one of our favorite fall decor items.

Think Texture

In the summer I love to cut fresh flowers and plants from the garden – white roses, rosemary, citrus blossoms and flowering herbs. But in the fall, I fill our vases with branches, dried flowers and grasses instead. They add beautiful texture to the fall palette slowly emerging in our home. I decorate for the first month of fall with apprehension, slowly cultivating the first layer of design as one that can be built on as the months progress and the holidays get closer. In October, I will add fresh Cinderella pumpkins to our front porch and branches sparkling with orange lights. In November, dried cornhusks will be added to the collection of table gourds alongside burlap accents and dried leaves. I love easing into the fall. Let it begin…

The Bedroom Escape

OHI HOME Designed Bedroom on Ojai’s East End

If we’ve learned anything during our home stay this past year, it’s been that personal retreat space is important WITHIN the confines of home. We have added chairs, desks and sofa’s to client’s bedrooms this year, creating additional areas for personal workspace or retreat. It is possible to identify additional areas of productivity and calm in a hectic home, especially in the bedroom.

A previously ignored bedroom space becomes a favorite retreat space in our client’s pandemic home.

Good Intentions…

We often walk into a bedroom that has great intentions. An exercise bike or a chaise lounge sits unused (in the before picture above). The bike has become a clothes hanger and the chaise is used more often by the family dog than the human occupants. Exercise equipment is rarely used if placed in a bedroom. Avoid placing it in a room you want to think of as a retreat. When adding a seating area to your bedroom think of how you will best use the space. Adding a lamp to our client’s chaise creates a functional reading area. If you have space for more than a chair add multiple seating surfaces. More soft spots- textiles, pillows, throw blankets and rugs help to add a cozier feeling. Our client utilizes the sofa for late afternoon naps, realizing its addition to the bedroom provides the ideal spot to enjoy the mountain views.

A chair can provide a much needed resting spot in a hectic home.

Small changes go a long way…

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that adding a single chair or chaise can create a bedroom retreat. You’ll never know until you try it! In this Master Bedroom there were two entry doors, one never used by the homeowners. By closing it off, we created ample space for a favorite reading chair.

“I wrote Love Story on my bedroom floor in about 20 minutes.”
Taylor Swift

We used to discourage clients to have bedroom offices…but this year changed our idea of bedrooms.

Rethinking your home office

For years we heard that nothing should be placed in a bedroom that didn’t encourage sleep. This past year has shifted that thought. Kids are homeschooling and dual working parents need to identify their independent space for productivity. In this room, our client utilized an inspiring mountain view for work space. Recently, it’s gotten easier to have desk space in bedrooms. We have way less desk clutter! All you may need in our paper free world is a laptop computer. At night, store away the laptop. Put your tote or briefcase in the closet. Keep the desk area attractive and you’ll still be able to relax in your bedroom space. We love the addition of plants to bedroom spaces. They are a wonderful living addition.

“My bedroom is my sanctuary. It’s like a refuge, and it’s where I do a fair amount of designing – at least conceptually, if not literally”
Vera Wang

Winter Blues

As we move into January, I hit an emotional low. Our yard is bleak – the iceberg roses have been trimmed down so they will flourish in the spring. Some plants have been removed that didn’t make it thru the last blast of heat we had in late October. We are hoping for rain, come February, so new plants can be added to the yard before the addition of new mulch for spring.

I like to focus inside this time of the year. My indoor plants seem to thrive from the subtle afternoon light that hits our windows. This is a good time of year to add more. The added plants will acclimate to the conditions inside the home and will have settled in by the time the heat and stronger sun begins to seep thru the windows. In Ojai, we have a great plant service called Ojai Plant Works. They visit our home and many of our client’s homes and businesses every 1-2 weeks. If you don’t have a green thumb this may actually save you money. Prior to Steve (the owner) and his team, my orchids lasted, at maximum, three weeks. I now have orchid planters in my home that have continued to thrive four months!

Ojai Plant Works has a wide selection of plants, orchids, and succulents for your home or business. Services like these are popping up all over the country to help those of us without a green thumb.

In the winter, we find ourselves hanging out in a different part of our yard than we do in the summer. The snow on the mountains surrounding our valley adds that touch of visual beauty to focus on that we are lacking in our garden. This year, the pandemic served as the encouragement to finally solidify a fire pit seating area to enjoy (socially distanced of course) with family and friends. There are a lot of options when it comes to creating this type of area. We wanted durable seating, but modern in style. Polyform’s Modern Adirondack Chairs deemed perfect for our space. These all weather chairs come in a variety of colors and have a twenty year warranty. We chose black, matching our exterior light fixtures and fountain. Black is striking in contrast to the newly white painted exterior of our home.

Our pandemic hangout area is centered around a propane fire pit that keeps us cozy on cool winter nights.

Spring is already showing tiny signs of reemergence…the lemons are beginning to appear and the tangerine tree has some fruit we are able to pick in the next few weeks. The Pixie tangerines are flowering. Hopefully, some winter rains will add even more sweetness as they develop for Pixie season. We can’t wait for the smell of orange blossom in the air, the fruity cocktails to sip at sunset and the return of beauty to our backyard. Hang in there! Warmer days are just around the corner…

Check out the new Ojai glassware at Porch Gallery Ojai’s gift shop! Available in white or brown font, these are perfect to stock up on in anticipation of spring!

Holiday Favorites… California Style

For many, this is the most wonderful time of the year. I am one of these people. I love Christmas. My head is filled with nostalgic memories from my childhood in Minnesota, where the abundance of snow always assured us a White Christmas, and our well insulated home held all the flavors of my mother’s and grandmother’s holiday baking. My children have a very different experience of Christmas, growing up in California. Eighty degree December days are nothing like the fifteen degree days in the Midwest. Flip flops sit in the front hall, instead of boots. We squeeze tangerine and orange juice in our kitchen, instead of brewing hot chocolate.

Wearing Flip Flops while shopping for a Christmas Tree.

But, our California Christmas still beckons family traditions. Every year we play board games like Blokus, Code Names, Dominoes and Chess -inspired this year by the show The Queen’s Gambit. We watch our favorite holiday movies – The Holiday, Love Actually, White Christmas, Elf. Gramma Beth and my daughter Fliss cook Eggs Benedict for everyone on Christmas Morning – both vegetarian and traditional versions. We pull out my grandmother’s china and set our table with fresh branches from our yard. These vintage plates have held Christmas meals for our family since 1922. Most years we bake a plethora of sugar cookies to decorate. Sometimes, a gingerbread house is added to the mix. My Scandinavian heritage always makes a welcome appearance too – lingonberries are served with Christmas Eve dinner, a Danish Coffee cake arrives in Uncle Sage’s hands with the knowledge we will all devour it before Christmas Morning. We ship in Norwegian goodies from our favorite Scandinavian shop in Minneapolis (Ingebretsen’s). The house smells like California Christmas – orange blossoms, mixed in with the aroma of homemade meals and my favorite Christmas candle, sent yearly from a friend far away – Winter White(Illume).

Christmas feels different this year. There were not Christmas parties to attend. We did not put out all of our decorations. Live Christmas concerts are a thing of the past. But, despite the constraints of 2020, we are still together with our immediate family, cooking meals, baking treats, watching movies, and playing games like we do year after year. The familiarity feels comforting. Happy Holidays from our Ojai home to yours!

Your Pandemic Holiday Table

November, 2020

2020 has challenged us to live a new way and the holidays will not be an exception. Government officials are asking us to limit traveling and exposure to large gatherings of family and friends. Our twelve foot dining table won’t be filled this year with the smiling, hungry faces of close friends and family who normally occupy our table side seating. But, we are determined to make this year memorable too – albeit exclusively for our small tribe. There is decorating fun to be had regardless…

It Began Here

I grew up with a grandmother who loved collecting dishes, sterling silver, chrystal, colored glassware and throwing an old fashion dinner party. She loved setting an elaborate table with her collected treasures and spent hours showing me how I could learn to do the same. I keep the picture shown above under the favorites category on my iPhone. It’s a reminder of treasured time spent with my grandmother. In recent years, as coursed dinners have gained in popularity, it has been a valuable source of reference. My kids love a fully set holiday table. My daughter is especially thrilled she knows the meaning for specific sizes of forks and where they are placed. This year we will set the table together like I did, at her age, with my grandmother.

Inspiration

Last year, pre-pandemic, I flew to a friends sea side fiftieth birthday. It was a nine course meal and I was asked to come a few days early to decorate the private dining room. It was a fall event, and the cooler evening beckoned for a a cozy but elegant table palette. The room had metallic shaded lighting and I lined silver ball garlands down the center of the table to create more reflective surfaces. The light from the candles bounced off the glittery surfaces and the collection of three stemmed glasses at each setting. Because we were near the beach, white shells and starfish were subtly placed along the table design. Faux leaves were sprayed with glitter and laid underneath the white hydrangea and white rose arrangements. For me, keeping flower types segregated rather than arranged is more elegant and modern on the table. I love adding a few stems of green Amaranthus flower stems to low profile vases and casually draping their tendrils around the decorative items. When decorating for a festive occasion, don’t forget about what surrounds your table. For my friend’s party, I utilized the ledges on the stone wall for small votive lights which warmed the feeling of the room and played off the reflective colors on the table.

What you’re looking for may be in your own backyard…

Every year I forage around my backyard for table decor. This is one of the perks of living in Southern California. Luckily, a warm extended summer allowed the roses to bloom when the pomegranates ripened. I love the combination of fruit and flowers. Peppercorns are great decoration as well. I make platters combining what I find in the yard. I use them to decorate our kitchen island when we lay out a buffet for more casual meals.

Floating one open rose at time in a clear glass container is a simple and elegant decoration.

The branches from my lemon tree and my orange trees also make terrific decor. In the Spring, at Easter time we leave the fruit on the branches and a citrus aroma fills our home. Mixing up dishware is also fun to do. We love to use a different pattern of Italian pottery at each setting. This is also delightful to do with china patterns, combining two or three sets together for one festive meal.

Personalize

Whether it is a monogrammed napkin or a printed glass, personalizing your table is a special treat for your guests. We have a great time designing OHI HOME items for client dinners and business gifts. At home, we bring out the gold rimmed vintage glasses monogrammed for my husband’s great grandmother’s wedding in 1915. These are some of our favorite holiday treasures. Go all out this year designing your table scape, even though it’s just for your immediate family. It’s a surprising way to lift everyone’s spirits!

Fall Feels…

Cooler weather changes the way we want to feel in our home. A morning chill elicits the unpacking of our favorite faux fur blankets made with love by our friend and blanket designer Brian Severson. Snuggling into the sofa has become the new morning routine, coffee in hand and wrapped in one of Brian’s incredible creations. www.blanketsbybrian.com

As fall weather begins, custom made faux fur blankets adorn our living room sofa. Brian even made a special monogram for OHI HOME.

Other Fall Home Additions We Love

We love hand dipped candles from Hudson Grace. In October, we use the black colored candles on surfaces throughout our home. In November, we switch to the natural color for the remainder of the holiday season. The gold HG Monogram adds an air of elegance.
Switch out ceramic serving platters for wood boards, baskets and even butcher paper. There’s something so fall about these surfaces.
Think out of the box when you buy pumpkins – there a a plethora of choices -cinderella pumpkins, white pumpkins, squash varieties and gourds.

http://www.hudsongracesf.com

Fall Cooking

Summer is a time in our Ojai home for casual meals and snacks. Readily available sandwich supplies stock the fridge, containers of cut up watermelon, berries and carrots. Bowls full of tomatoes from the garden that we might throw into a salad with some homegrown basil and fresh mozzarella. A fresh catch from the nearby beach ready to throw onto the grill with some corn… BUT Fall is a whole different story. The smell of pumpkin spice bread almost decorates the home on its own. Bowls of roasted nuts set out for in between meal snacks, and piles of spaghetti squash and other cool-season vegetables help to cozy up the kitchen.

Fall inspires baking, cooking and candlelit intimate dinners with family.

http://www.cooks.com/recipe/wl6pg5f6/bohemian-spice-cake.html

A change of season marks a change of scene for our main gathering room. Falls colors like orange and red and yellow replace summer whites and hot weather hues. Autumn is the perfect time to be whimsical with design choices. Have fun with what you are displaying in your home. There’s never been a better time to curate your space.