I am excited to show you one of my favorite rooms in our home...our lounge.
We bought our new home in the summer of 2020 -- during the most uncertain times of the pandemic.
The home itself is 3160 square feet and built in 1978. It had 3 bedrooms and 3 baths when we purchased it. It is on the golf course in the historic Indian Canyons neighborhood of Palm Springs, which started development in the 1960s and boasts the first 18-hole golf course in Palm Springs.
The house was For Sale by Owner, with a faded hand-written sign and a phone with a San Diego area code. To say that it was a "fixer upper" would be a vast understatement! The owner, who was based in San Diego, had practically abandoned the property. I could tell, from photos he showed me, that he enjoyed good times in the house several years before, but he had not used the property in quite some time.
Above: the entry colonnade as I saw it, when I first saw the property.
I walked in and said, "I'll take it!"
Before: The Dining Room
When we bought the home, this room was technically considered the dining room, per the floor plan. A 1970s chandelier hung in the middle of the room. A small sunken wet bar was adjacent to the space, and there was a strange, locking closet with mirrored doors that opened into the space.
Above: The dining room before, which became our lounge. You can see the sunken wet bar and locking closet. You can also see the doorway into the kitchen, which we closed off. I discuss the plan changes to our kitchen in a separate blog.
Early on in our planning phase, David suggested that we place our dining table on the other side of the fireplace, in the large living room area. You can see those "After" photos here.
To convert the dining room into our lounge, we decided to make the following changes:
Raise the sunken bar to ground level and make it longer
Close the doorway leading into the kitchen
Turn the doors of the locking closet into a solid wall. We turned the closet into a pass-through butler's pantry that now connects the kitchen to the wet bar
Above is the space during the construction process, showing the lengthened and raised bar, as well as the framing of the new butler's pantry.
The Floor Plan: Before & After
Below is the original house plan. You can see the kitchen at left and the dining room adjacent to it. The existing doorway made the kitchen visible from the living room, which is not our preference.
Sealing off this doorway made the dining room-turned lounge feel larger and added more usable linear feet in the kitchen.
Below is the plan "after" - showing the larger wet bar, the butler's pantry connecting the bar to the kitchen, and the relocated entrance to the kitchen and wine room.
After: Our New Lounge
I am so pleased to with our new lounge. My goal was for it to be a bit moodier and darker than the living room, with rich colors and textures that would look great during evening entertaining.
The room is anchored by a cut cowhide rug from Art Hide. The furniture plan for the intimate space includes a sofa along the wall, a coffee table, and two loose chairs that are easy to move around.
Although the room is adjacent to our media room, David decided that I should have "my own" TV, which hangs on the back of the fireplace and across from the sofa. I selected The Frame TV by Samsung, which has artwork displayed on it. It hangs on cork wallcovering by Elitis. I was skeptical, but I admit that sometimes it is nice to have my own television. Especially when David decides to watch a scary movie.
All About the Details
My favorite part of the room is the incredible wall mural by Porter Teleo. The brown and green colorway was custom painted for our home.
Above: You can see the relocated entrance into our wine room and kitchen; the side table shown above is pretty much in the location of the old doorway.
The Porter Teleo wall mural, which is made up of five wallpaper panels, brings together the vibe and color story of our home. The mural is visible from our entry and formal living room, shown below.
Porter Teleo also created the hand-painted green wallpaper in our entry, which matches the mural in the lounge, to visually connect the two spaces.
Our wet bar is clad in richly-veined "Belvedere" granite, inset with brass reveals. The sculptural solid walnut bar stools are from our Studio + Shop. The Joshua Tree photograph is from my collection for Wendover Art Group. The vintage acrylic chairs are from Dragonette Ltd.
What's the best testament to the successful design of our lounge? Harley likes it!
And that's enough for me.
I hope you enjoyed this tour of our lounge.
cheers,
CK
Sources:
Wallcover: Porter Teleo
Area Rug: Art Hide
Green Pillows: Marcus William
Bar Stone: Formation Stone
Photography: Public 311 Design
Styling: Keith Fortner
Continue the Tour: