WHAT IS A WELL LIVED HOME?

 

What makes a home “well lived?” I’ve been in my share of homes. I’ve lived in my share of homes. By the age of 16, I had already called 7 different places home. Growing up, I spent time on my Dad’s job sites (he worked in custom homes as a painter, a wallpaper hanger, a faux finishing specialist, and eventually a contractor) playing pretend in the vacation homes of the wealthy Florida retirees while my Dad worked, watching interior designers pick fabrics and wall coverings and furniture and art and plants. In my early 20’s, I wound up working as a secretary and then a design assistant for one of the interior designers I grew up watching. Eventually I made my way to art school with the intention of pursuing a degree in interior design, but realized quickly that working in the industry before college meant the classes felt redundant to the real life experience I’d already had, so I switched my major to graphic design and then to photography. Fast forward to 2009 when I finally made the move with my now husband and our dog to Los Angeles thinking I would be a famous photographer right away, until I realized that everyone in LA was super talented and I would have to find another way to make ends meet.

My first proper job in LA was as a weed delivery driver (ok, I also had a brief career as a sales girl at Lush in Beverly Hills), which meant that every day from 1-7pm, I would get paged (yes, paged - to a pager) and would drive to the homes of Angelenos in my Honda Civic with a blue duffle bag full of pre-packed 1/8th bags of Alaskan Thunderfuck or Blue Dream (or whatever else was on the menu that week). I would walk in, sit down, have a little small talk, and make the deal. I often got to peak around a bit while having the standard surface conversations, occasionally I used the bathroom which gave me even more of a view into the lives of these people.

I went to the home of a senior citizen third grade teacher living in a worn down midcentury deep in the valley filled with kitsch, a music producer with a perfectly curated modern wood paneled home in the Silverlake hills with exceptional taste in art, the home of a drummer from a well known 70’s funk band living in a pink signature LA Dingbat style apartment with mirrored walls and red shag rugs in Whitley Heights (his wife made the best chili and lemonade when I had time to stop and eat), to a cast member of a popular TV show who lived in a charming house in the Hollywood Dell to a creative director in Beachwood Canyon and an aspiring screenwriter off Hollywood Way and film crews and trust fund babies on the Bird Streets in Beverly Hills and some fancy guy in a house with two stone lions at the front off Mullholland Drive and a very cute dog that never stopped barking, to a tattoo artists living in an old converted church in what is now considered Virgil Village, to some young guy living in The Oakwood - a strange turnkey furnished dorm-style stock apartment complex filled with new to LA young creatives off Barham Blvd in the Valley (which I believe are now called The Ava apartments or something equally generic). Within my first year here, before I ever started photographing them, I had been to at least a hundred homes in the city.

I eventually went to work for a few different photographers, making my way into production where I learned about renting houses for location shoots, and became familiar with various amazing LA homes listed with Image Locations (which was how we booked homes in the pre-peerspace days). From there I wound up working in-house at a fast fashion company as a retoucher for almost a year, before I settled in as the creative producer and then the photo director for Clique Media Group (home of WhoWhatWear, and former home of Byrdie and MyDomaine). In my time there, I was producing fashion shoots for WhoWhatWear, beauty shoots for Byrdie, and home shoots for MyDomaine (and co-branded digital marketing ads for various companies across all 3 brands), and then one day someone realized I could actually shoot and the next thing I knew, I was shooting for all 3 brands, and eventually wound up shooting mostly home tours for MyDomaine. After a few years and various management changes, I got laid off in one of the rounds of lay-offs (which was devastating at the time but wound up being one of the best things that happened to me). Upon leaving, I realized I had built a solid portfolio of photo work. I sent emails out to my network to let people know I had “gone off on my own” (way too embarrassed at the time to tell anyone I was laid off), and the next thing I knew I was getting booked to shoot home tours for various publications and advertising shoots for brands, my career as a lifestyle and interior photographer took off.

Since that time, I’ve shot well over 200 homes (likely more - I’ve never actually counted, but I’ve done between 60 - 120 shoots a year for the last 8 years…so you do the math - it’s never been my specialty) and in that time, I’ve seen it all - but the ones that always stand out are the ones filled with memories and texture and a little bit of mess and madness, the ones that feel well lived and well loved. The well lived homes are my favorite homes.

A well lived home is present in the feeling of coming home, it’s filled with blankets knitted by loved ones to cozy up in, shoes by the front door or next to the sofa, a stack of mail lingering in a tattered basket, a dog leash hanging on a crooked hook picked up at an antique market, well worn rugs that have seen their share of footsteps, there are photos framed of favorite memories, art made by friends or collected while traveling or inherited from a favorite aunt long since passed, a piano with sheet music torn and frayed and keys that are worn in from years of being played or books that have been read and read again until their pages are the perfect shade of muslin cream, pillows that have been bear-hugged for comfort on the hardest days and napped on by loved ones after a holiday feast, the countertop with stains from years of spills, perfectly patinaed copper fixtures and pots from meals cooked and shared, favorite clippings taped in a cabinet or placed on the fridge, dried flowers from favorite bouquets or wildflowers fresh picked from a garden in an old vase with petals falling on the table next to shrines of mementos, mismatched dishes and heirlooms mixed with local finds and treasured gifts - a well lived home is perfectly imperfect, just like a well lived life.

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WELL TRAVELED in PARIS: FINDING THE PERFECT AIRBNB TO CALL HOME