Paint Puts the Outside In : Home Lightens Up With Eclectic Blend of Old and New

The ‘60s have a lot to answer for in the fields of architecture and especially interior design. Sunny Southern California was inundated with heavy dark wooden beams, walnut cabinets, ponderous Spanish black wrought-iron and enough olive green and tomato orange for gallons of marinara sauce.

So it was when Lynda Kerry of Lynda Kerry Interior Design in Corona del Mar first saw the Linda Isle house she was to remodel for client Curt Olson.

“The house was a ‘60s Mediterranean-style with dark brown beams, a dark brown gate and Mexican-style pavers,” she said. “For the exterior, we painted out the beams and used a taupe-on-white color scheme.”

But the exterior was just the beginning.

When she saw the dark beams in the living room, Kerry immediately had them painted white and then added taupe on the ceiling and walls. This simple touch brightened and visually enlarged the whole room.

“Our first thought was to take down the wall between the living room and the dining room,” Kerry said, “but when that proved to be too expensive, we just decided to paint to expand the rooms.”

The living room sets the home’s motif: contemporary with Old World touches.

“I had done Curt’s last house, and it was more contemporary than this one, and less sophisticated. He’s now interested in antiques, so he wanted them mixed with the contemporary elements,” Kerry said.

The eclectic living room juxtaposes an abstract painting, modern oatmeal-colored carpeting and three eight-foot-long raw silk sofas against damask swags, custom-designed damask pillows and tapestry fabrics, and Louis XVI bergere chairs. The coffee table is chocolate and black granite with faux-finished wrought-iron as a base.

“Since Curt is a thirtysomething bachelor, he didn’t want the house to be too stuffy,” Kerry said.

Kerry and Olson decided on the basic color scheme of watermelon red, rich greens, blues, gold, white and taupe to run throughout the house. The colors are understated, so most of the attention focuses on the textures and details of the individual pieces.

The tapestries are rich and medieval in feeling, and the fabrics of the draperies are almost ethereal. Nubby, decidedly masculine plaid fabrics and leather accents play off against coffee-colored silks with gold threads running through them.

“In the living room, I wanted a chair with a real zebra skin on it, but Curt was against that, so we took a Country-French chair with shell carving and made it up to date with a needlepoint zebra pattern,” Kerry said.

Walnut cabinetry in the living room was gutted and replaced by a contemporary bar in a goatskin finish. Added to the room was an antique damask-upholstered French armoire to hold a surround-sound stereo system and television.

“In the dining room, Curt wanted his guests to be able to look out at the real view of the bay and another make-believe view of the ocean,” Kerry said.

To achieve this, Kerry hired Los Angeles artist Christina Rosenthal to paint a scene of the ocean in Renaissance-era Italy, complete with a ship, castle and stone balustrades. The scene, which took Rosenthal and two helpers a month to paint, is the focal point of the room.

“Originally, there was yellow, hot pink, green and orange wallpaper on the walls. We tore that off, painted the mural and then painted the moldings to frame it,” she said. “Rosenthal also cut out a gold stencil and used it as fretwork around the room and the chandelier.”

The dining room also contains a 11-foot-long custom-made table with a highly glossed top and an inlay of cherry around it. The base has a crackled finish with carved legs. Black leather Louis XVI armchairs make the room very comfortable.

Olson’s master bedroom features a four-poster bed of crackled wood and black iron with a Thai silk bedspread and silk-tabbed drapery connected to the iron.

“Curt wanted the bedding drapery to be able to close to keep out the light,” Kerry said.

An antique Louis Vuitton trunk sits at the foot of the bed, although Olson first had doubts about it being too trendy. Adjoining the master bedroom is Olson’s office, which has a large coffee-colored leather sofa and love seat and two overstuffed Louis XVI chairs done in a tapestry of greens, golds and black.

“Again, this whole room had been paneled in dark brown walnut,” Kerry said. “What we did is paint it white first, then put a peachy sand color over that and then flicked water-spotted stain over the whole area. That gave it a translucent, old feeling and lightened the whole area.”

The dressing area was also dark and was painted with the same water-stained finish, giving it a coffee color.

In the kitchen, similar types of lighting techniques were used. The cabinets were changed to a pickled white oak, a crinkled-looking peach wallpaper was added, and Madagascar-straw bar stools give a casual air to the room.

A more feminine touch is found in the guest bedroom. The bed, a Ralph Lauren style, looks old and as if the paint is chipping off. To make the bed special, Kerry used a feather mattress with a down comforter, added a white duvet and a peach damask throw and then put a lace tablecloth over that. Kerry designed the pillows using different fabrics and tapestries. She used linen for the swags and dusters rather than silk.

Artist Rosenthal’s trompe l’oeil is also found here.

“We sponged the walls and then added the watered-down paint to it, thus making the room old-looking,” Kerry said. “Rosenthal painted the aqua-green leafy pattern over that.”

In front of the window is an antique French fruitwood writing desk with a Waldorf side chair. Antique botanical prints along one wall continue the outside-inside feel to the room.

The room that Olson enjoys the most is probably his basement game room.

“It was a ton of fun to design this,” Kerry said. “We gutted the room of its dark cabinets, thick brick and gold pavers and created a New York-style room. Curt loves to play poker and pool with his friends, so there’s room for that, as well as for two televisions and a granite wet bar.”

The pool table is not your ordinary one: It is black lacquer over ash with chrome legs. The room also has a shiny disco ball, strobes and black lights.

“When those are going, the room really comes alive,” Kerry said. “The fabric on the couch has gold flecks in it, and the pillow fabric, called ‘precious metals,’ has golds, bronzes and silvers. It’s pretty spectacular.”

The walls now have a faux stone finish complemented by faux black marbleized columns. The floors are white oak.

“This house has a very masculine feel to it, and it really shows how people’s tastes evolve through the years,” Kerry said. “The more you’re exposed to art and antiques, the more you can appreciate an eclectic, transitional environment.”