When you think of a beach house, one image immediately comes to mind. A blue and white color scheme, a ship wrap wall, stripes, and beach memorabilia – seashells, a ship in a bottle, and a sign that says “Life is better at the beach.” It’s certainly a nostalgic look, and while it’s a joke, beach house decor has gotten a little tasteier in recent years, so the cliché isn’t as kitschy as it once was.
However, from the outside, this house fits the cliché well. This is a classic clapboard beach house in Los Angeles, and while the bones were nice, it needed a little vision since the builder just flipped it easily (and relatively cheaply). It required adding character. Not only that, but the homeowner wanted this beach house to not look like a beach house, even though they purchased the home less than half a mile from the ocean.
Designer Christine Costa Zippert, founder of CC Zippert Design, took on this challenge and talks here about the entire process and the very unexpected inspiration behind the renovation.
(Image credit: Lauren Taylor)
“Right after my family bought this property, we were in a very competitive and hot area south of downtown Los Angeles. They were really happy to get a property that had multiple offers. ,” Christine explains. . “The market in this area is so attractive that when buying a home, the property and location are more important than the home itself. So when families move, they make this their home. I knew I had a job ahead of me to do.” ”
“The exterior of the house has great curb appeal and is a white clapboard ranch house with a California Craftsman feel.” It had great bones, but a developer came along and painted everything yellow. , gray, and white for easy reversal. Once we saw the house, we knew we had to bring it to life, and we took on the challenge of utilizing the existing structure while adding more classic woodwork, cabinetry, finishes, and cabinetry charm. I liked it. ”
(Image credit: Lauren Taylor)
“The owners of the house are a hard-working family with two elementary school girls. They wanted to feel warm, cozy and comfortable in their own home after a busy day. They were shelters and places that reflected the beauty of the valleys and cliffs that surrounded them. They also incorporated more time, character, quirks and materials into the interior, and the history of the house. We wanted it to feel like what it looks like.”
“So the inspiration came from an unexpected place. At an antique market in a small town in Sussex, England, we found an oil painting that had the moody mid-century tones and old-world feel we were looking for. , and built a scheme from there.”
(Image credit: Lauren Taylor)
“Today, that painting hangs above the piano and sends ripples through the house. Next came the Claremont Tree of Life window treatment fabric and custom eggplant-colored chaise lounge that adorned the living room. moved on to the remaining rooms, painting the office and all interior doors Farrow & Ball’s Dark Studio Green, integrating rich colors and darkly stained built-ins throughout, re-creating the builder-white kitchen without watering it down. Finished. Infuses color and texture into the space.”
“Of course, there’s a lot more to this project, but I know that when people think about changing their home, structure and color can feel overwhelming. A project that didn’t involve moving walls. We used one painting to inspire a color palette that changed everything. This gives homeowners more control over the design of their home. I think it’s a great way to make it easy and fun. Build your entire room plan around one small object that you love.”
(Image credit: Lauren Taylor)
“We liked the visual direction the family gave us. The house is 400 meters from the sea, but it’s also horse country.” They told us they valued the horse country feel. and wanted the beach element removed. This client brief was a breath of fresh air as our studio was located in a coastal town in Southern California. ”
“As they say, it makes you feel like a well-traveled, mid-century modern, loving professor lives here.” Drawing inspiration from English country houses with rich materials collected over time, while maintaining California-inspired elements such as cabinetry, mid-century furniture, and rich colors. I did. It’s British, but in a more neutral way. ”
(Image credit: Lauren Taylor)
“We loved the concept of fusing the collected spirit of an English country mansion with a California racetrack. And we wanted it to feel natural to the California landscape. .”
“I happened to visit the Bloomsbury Group’s Charleston House, and during the design development, I traveled to Sussex to antique a small medieval town called Lewes, and found a small oil painting from the 1800s. It was a rich jewel-like color with brown undertones.
“The earthiness of this palette felt familiar to the rocky, misty coastline on which our project resides, but the image itself was very British countryside. , this served as a jumping-off point as we began to collectively define the material palette ” and the overall combination of furniture and shapes within the house.
(Image credit: Lauren Taylor)
“The house felt fragmented into different spaces with no sense of unity between one room and the next. There was a barn door system that divided the rooms. The huge bathtub was wedged awkwardly next to the shower, making it impossible to get in and out.
“The house is U-shaped, so it was easy to stop and stay at the front of the house, and there was nothing that drew you into the other living spaces in the back. The kitchen has a prefabricated gray There were cabinets and basic Carrera subway tile.The walls were all yellow and royal blue, and there were non-dimmable 5000K light bulbs throughout the house, giving it a hospital-like feel. There were no doors and no storage.”
(Image credit: Lauren Taylor)
“All the cabinetry, flooring, and lighting were low-budget, builder-grade, prefabricated, but all brand new. From a sustainability perspective, in a case like this, even if it doesn’t perfectly fit the desired aesthetic, It’s hard to waste a fully functional item that could otherwise have many more years of life, so one of our first challenges was to refinish it. What can you maintain and what should you remove to create a more cohesive space that will feel well-constructed for years to come as you move from one area to another? It was a matter of deciding whether or not to do so.”
“We decided to keep it in the kitchen because the cabinets and appliances were new and generally worked well, but we refinished everything to give it a more custom feel and replaced the plumbing, hardware, lighting, and tile. We decided to keep the engineered wood floors as well, which was a difficult decision as they were not something we would have chosen, but they were new and in great condition. Even if it wasn’t, I still had 10 years left.”
“However, we have completely overhauled our electrical plans and all our lighting, switching dimmers to a 2700K temperature throughout and reducing the amount of recessed lighting by at least 50% to create a warmer environment. Replaced with chandeliers, sconces, and lamps that produce light.”
“We decided to completely demolish the master bathroom because even though it was new, the space plan was very poor and there wasn’t enough floor space for two people to move around in it. ”The fireplace and surrounding wall were also rebuilt, as they were the real heart of the house. ”
(Image credit: Lauren Taylor)
“This family has two young children, and they play a lot, but they don’t really care about the furniture around them. We needed to balance this with elements that were not so precious that families would be saddened by them.”
“With this in mind, we invested in high-quality lighting, beautiful fabrics for window treatments, sculptural accent pieces, and art that we know children won’t directly touch or influence. We then combined these elements with more durable and hard-wearing upholstery, solid wood tables and wool rugs that can withstand impact.
(Image credit: Lauren Taylor)
“The living room was uncomfortably long, so I built a game table area in the corner so the kids could eat breakfast while watching cartoons, the parents could work, and the family could play games. I We drew inspiration from Brutalist furniture design to create a custom corner settee made for us by a local workshop, incorporating brown aubergine bouclé fabric and rich earth tones from the painting. I kept pushing the pallets out.”
“We love designing living rooms because of all the opportunities to mix and match patterns. We drew from a palette of paintings we found in antiques and immediately went with the Claremont Tree of Life pattern we used for the curtain panels in our living room. It has the same jewel-like brown tones as the painting, and its large scale instantly transforms what felt like a fairly boxy space into something a little more fanciful. It has changed.”
“We combined these richer, earthier tones with fresh white gallery walls. It’s a very Californian way, and the kind of combination you’d expect if the English countryside meets California. I then injected a bit more of a California professor vibe into the space by incorporating olive green to reflect the eucalyptus trees outside and dark brown wood and leather with a mid-century touch. If there is such a thing!”
