Step Inside Los Angeles Designer Kim Lapin s Spanish Villa

My name is Kim Lapine. I'm an interior designer in Los Angeles. Welcome to my home. So we are in my entryway and when we first came to look at this house it was very cozy and homey but very outdated. This entryway was completely different. This was a very narrow passageway into the living room. The walls were dark dark green. We had like huge wrought iron light fixtures everywhere so it felt very 90s Spanish if you will and like that's not a great era in Spanish homes if you know anything about Spanish homes and I was like oh I love the feel of this house. I feel like I could raise my kids here and have my family here. This is an area that I grew up in and I've always wanted to be in this neighborhood so it represented a lot of like memories for me but I could not live in the house as it was so we decided to kind of like lighten the entire palette and just make it feel more airy and light and modern and we decided to change the staircase because it was this heavy wrought iron staircase and it just didn't complement the home. It felt way too heavy so we did a chunky kind of modular white oak staircase which I love and it took a few rounds to kind of figure out what it is that I really wanted to do but I feel like we came to a really good conclusion with this guy because it's just fun and it's a statement and everyone loves it when they walk in the house. I love my entryway and I also feel like a little fun tip the entry flooring is like a really fun space to go all out or go louder than you might normally go because why not it's a fun space make it come alive show people like your design aesthetic when they walk into your house. So we also have our little powder bath off the entryway and I feel like a powder bath similarly to an entryway is a really perfect space to go all out or do a little bit more than you would feel comfortable in other areas of the house and this is a marmorino which is kind of a lower sheen venetian plaster and we did a charcoal color so it's moody and it's dark but I feel like it kind of gives this cool vibe to the house and again it sets the tone for our guests who are coming in and out and this is the bathroom that they would use so I wanted it to be kind of like sexy and fun and just show people what my ideal aesthetic is if they were to use me as their designer and they can just kind of get a little bit more about my personality by seeing my house because I feel like your house is a huge representation of who you are. In the bathroom also we kept the bottle cap windows as well as in the foyer because that was a fun architectural element that I felt like was kind of traditional and classic Spanish and I love to marry traditional and modern because I feel like that's what makes a home feel the most livable and functional and so I wanted to kind of like still keep some of the bones but also make it my own. So this is our living room. I call it the fancy room and my kids do too because they know they're not allowed to be in it without mom and dad in here. This is like our no kids zone because I feel like I need some things that are nice and stay nice in my home. When you have little kids you have to just believe and give up that you don't have control over the way your aesthetics look all the time in your house but this room is mommy's room so I wanted this room to feel kind of elevated and cool and like a fun room that I would want to have cocktails with my girlfriends in so we wanted this fireplace to kind of be more of a statement and I just love it. It's like it's super calming but it's also fun because of the vertical height and it just it just is a wow factor in the room. I am obsessed with stone use. I love graphic stone. I love stone that has a personality because I have a personality and I like to use it and I want my stone to speak for me so this is an Esmeralda green onyx and I am obsessed with it. I think it is so cool. We carried the plaster around this room as well and then we kind of mixed vintage and new pieces in here. A little note from a designer from me to you. I always feel like people want to decorate their house in one fell swoop. I feel like a home is most attractive and cool when you slowly add things and put things together so like this is a new couch from Sarah Ellison. She's an Australian designer. I love her. I'm obsessed with her but these coffee tables these are really cool. I'll show you. These are vintage and I got them in Palm Springs. The tops are pink marble. The bases are yellow marble but the tops came from nightstands and the bases came from a lamp so like I just purchased them separately and put them together and I feel like like this these coffee tables make the room in every house that I've ever lived in because they're different and not everyone has them and you know it's just a unique piece so I think like layering your home in slowly as you find your favorite pieces is the best way to decorate if you have the time and that's kind of why I like this space so much because it's slowly collected. These are shop by Amber Interior so a little bit more big box. You could buy them online but they're shearling and they're cozy and they're everyone's favorite chair so I don't have any rules in design where to go everything has to be vintage or everything has to be this or everything has to be that. If I'm drawn to it and I love it whether it's expensive or it's inexpensive or like five dollars at a garage sale I like to collect and layer in my in my home with those items because I feel like that's the most like lived in and functional space and it also just has a story and a soul and I love that. I also wanted to mention this Gabriel Scott chandelier. When I saw this chandelier in a friend's home from like years ago I was like who made that light where did you get it what showroom has it? It was just one of those things that I was so drawn to and it's like jewelry and I I spec'd it for this house before I owned this house. I knew I had to have it when I had what I thought would be my forever house. It is such a statement because when you look at it from this direction it's like one pattern and when you look at it from the entryway it's another pattern and it's just so fun to me. I think lighting is well I know lighting is like the way that I feel like I show my personality best in a space when I'm designing and it's really the jewelry of the home we've heard that before but it's true like you can make a house so cool with lighting alone and white walls so I always take the opportunity to kind of deck out every one of my spaces with amazing wall sconces like I have these lacquered brass from Arteriors. They're pretty affordable considering the competition that are like thousands of dollars these ones are a few hundred dollars and then adding like a statement chandelier I think that's just the best way to bring your house to life and to make it feel special and unique to yourself. So now we are moving to my dining room. I am obsessed with this dining room because it's pink and pink is my favorite color. I worked with the plaster installer to figure out the perfect shade of pink so this is a custom color. It's kind of like a rose super muted terracotta um with like salmon undertones. It's very soft and very um complementary to like all skin types so it's nice sitting in here for a dinner party because everyone's glowing and it's nice. I also again carried that fun lighting throughout this is a vintage Stilnovo chandelier. These are L7 gallery sconces and I wanted to talk to you guys about these pieces of art because I am slowly getting into art and figuring out like what my personal taste is because it is so subjective and everyone is attracted to different things. I love this artist from Australia. I believe she is Sylvie Kettle. She's amazing. I found her on Instagram because my girlfriend posted about her and I had to have her painting. It's just you could just see all the movement and the colors are so me like I love these muted tones and pinks and greens. It's just so fun and this is Allie Baletic and I got it through Tapan in West Hollywood. They have a art gallery there and I just like how all of her paintings are so fun and playful but the colors are just so good together and they don't go together but they do go together because I feel like if you love something, it works together. Somehow it just kind of figures itself out and I like how they don't really relate but they do because they're just cool abstract paintings that have beautiful tones to them. So if you love it, I think it works and then I also wanted to show you guys my Forbes and Lomax plates. I use these in every client project that I can because they are just stunning and they make such a statement in the house. Everyone asks what they are. They think they're vintage but you can buy them new and the rotaries are just so fun to dim and then the toggles, they're just so cute. They look like they're from you know like 1920s but they're new and they're super fun. Welcome to my kitchen. This is another favorite space of my house because we got to use this stone that I have been chomping at the bit to use for years. It's a Calacatta and I think it's called Calacatta Rosa but it's just the most beautiful pink and lavender with seafoam but the base of it is like a creamy white so it feels neutral. To me it feels neutral. I like, I like statements as you probably have seen in my house. So I just felt like it would be a really fun use in my kitchen because we have the dining room next door and it's pink so it really pulls those colors through and my husband is a very good sport because he's like yeah pink dining room, sure that's great. Pink stone, yes. I'm like thank you so much because I know some husbands would not be okay with that but my husband's very secure in his masculinity and he thinks pink is a cool color. So I love the stone in here because I think it's just so fun and it's just flattering. I feel like it's a very zen zone for me. We used white oak everywhere and we kind of just made it very seamless and then again with the lighting. Lighting is the jewelry of the home. We use these allied maker alabaster little light like little globes and they just illuminate the sink and it makes doing dishes at night just a little more special. You're still doing dishes but it looks cute so that's a good thing. So this is our family room which means our kids are allowed in this room. I mean the kids are allowed in every space but this is where they primarily play. This space has to house their toys because we have, I have twins and I have a four and a half year old and the twins are two. So we are constantly playing legos in here. So in order to keep my sanity, I have these little cute little baskets that contain all of their toys and to be real with you guys, this table came here today. It's one of my vintage tables in my inventory in the garage most of the time because as a parent you have to like move things out of the way so your kids don't split their head open on your furniture. I really like the way it looks though and I wish I could keep it but I can't for another year because they fall over everything. But this couch is really fun because it's like a terracotta soft rose color but it's from six penny and I feel like we could kind of wear it into the ground and then when we're done with it we could get a new couch because it's just it's not one of those investment pieces where I really had to like stress over it because again my kids are eating, drinking, babas, everything, diaper changes in here. So we just had to make it work for ourself and I feel like the sacrifice here was I don't typically like a sectional but we want it to feel like a functional family home. So I feel like we did a good job of finding that middle ground and I also love this built-in millwork situation over here because it just adds like a little bit of it's just a like a little level of aesthetic that I like because it the stone elevates a space the wood elevates a space it feels really warm and then the fireplace was here existing but I just wanted to wrap it in something that was a little more interesting and I love that this is a leash is imperfect but it has this like fun glow to it and this glossiness so it feels like a little bit fancy in my opinion and then we had this custom brass screen made so the kids don't fall into the fire which is great. So this is our little under staircase area I feel like people don't utilize them enough so I wanted to have a little light even though no one sits here and reads I like to pretend that people do and it just makes a cute little moment and then as we go upstairs this is where all of the bedrooms are and I love that we have this light here because I feel like it really grounds the space and makes it feel really special when you first walk in this is from I think it's called Moi M-O-I-I and it's just a really fun architectural light that has a lot of interest to it and gives a really pretty soft glow at night. So this is our second floor and this is where all the bedrooms are located and we wanted to kind of make this hallway feel special because it's it's not a small house but it's also not a huge house and this hallway is not very large so we wanted to make it feel special and intentional I've always loved a wood paneled wall wood paneled everything millwork is just such a big way I design and like utilizing it because I feel like the warmth of the wood just makes everything glow so I wanted this area to feel a little bit more concealed so we have like our vents and we don't have a laundry room so we have our washer and dryer behind here we have it's just it's really well it's a well-used space because it's functional but it also looks good and then we have my daughter's room my twins room and then our guest bedroom at the end of the hall and then our primary suite behind you everyone is close to each other which I love and it's funny because when we bought this house I only had one kid I wasn't pregnant at the time then we moved in and a week later I found out I was pregnant with the twins so it's like oh that's so different than what I thought and I would have done things differently had I known I was pregnant with twins but we make plans and God laughs so we're gonna check out those bedrooms and I'll kind of give you the story behind them because I had to make do with what I had so this was going to be my office until I found out I was pregnant with twins and my daughter Frankie was in the other room so we had to kind of move things around when the twins were born so this became Frankie's room it's tiny and it's as big as it needs to be for a three-year-old which I kind of love because I feel like people often kind of get stuck on like what bedrooms should feel like and home should feel like when they're really dialed I feel like small spaces are actually easier to design because you only have to do a couple things to make a big impact we did these vintage sconces that are Murano glass and then we did just a millwork built-in closet so that it kind of felt it incorporated the rest of the house while being able to store all of her stuff and her play things and her fairy dresses and her tutus and all the things that kids collect and I feel like it's just like a sweet little room there's not a ton going on which is why I love it honestly so you guys know I love pink by now because I've put it in my dining room I have pink stone in my kitchen and I have pink pepper like peppered through everything I've always wanted to use a full pink zaliz shower I would honestly use this in my primary bathroom but I feel like it would be a touch too much pink for my husband and he's already been a good sport so I decided to put it in my kids bathroom before I knew I was having twins and it's boy-girl twins I probably would have rethought that because my son doesn't probably want this kind of a shower when he's like 10 but that's okay we'll probably be somewhere else by that point we move a lot so I just love the way it feels I feel like it incorporates the rest of the house and the design but it's it's again that glowy vibe and then we use this terrazzo fun floor from Anne Sachs which I feel like is really complimentary because it's neutral but it also has personality to it so if I use neutral materials and color palettes I like to make sure that they have a big personality so like with these guys it's like big chips of marble within the terrazzo so they are simple but they're fun and intricate at the same time I also use this Calicutta Corchia stone and I did a three inch thick marble countertop because I feel like that's just a fun little detail that's easy to do and it makes it feel a little bit more modern and a little bit more unique than other little countertops that you'd see in kids bathrooms normally and then we also have again these alabaster glowing sconces to incorporate the alabaster downstairs so it's kind of bringing a lot of those cohesive materials and elements and repeating them through their home in different ways which is what I feel like brings the design and pulls it all together so this is my twin's bedroom this was originally Frankie's bedroom and I designed it for Frankie so we used this really fun paint called aristocratic peach I believe and we did half of the potency so the color is a little bit more muted and I like how soft the like pink is it's not overwhelming it's not baby girl pink there's a little bit of peach to it which I think is so fun I also did these fun roman shades by studio for Nina Freudenberger and she is just she has the best taste I wanted to also point out that we have all these little sticky velcro things because we have a blackout tarp over these windows most of the time for you guys I ripped it off and there's like paint patches missing but when you are a parent sleep is the goal and the key to having a good life so it doesn't always look this good and I feel like everyone should know that there is an actual realistic way that designers also live it's not like my house always looks perfect I had to work really hard to get things put together today guys just so you know we also got this fun arteries little pendant I just thought it was fun it was inexpensive and it just kind of makes the room feel soft and cute and we shoved these two cribs in here because we found out we were having two kids and we're just making lemonade out of lemon so this is our guest bedroom and to keep it fully transparent with you guys this is kind of the room that got left behind because when I found out I was pregnant with twins I was sick for months then I had twins and had to actually raise the children and like be present as a mom and also work so this room just kind of got left behind and I don't even care it's how it is it's how real life is you can't make everything perfect and I am perfectly comfortable with that so we left it white we did white curtains we did a cute little vintage chair in the corner simple easy art posters anything on the walls that you're drawn to I feel like it's all you really need for a simple space honestly again with the sconces like so much character that these lights and these posters and this art brought to the room you don't need much else everything is super neutral and I love this room I think it's really cute and fun but there just wasn't so much design thought put into it because I couldn't I didn't have the capacity and that is as good as it's going to get so this is the en suite bathroom in the guest bedroom and I needed to make this bathroom really affordable because again it was like a secondary space that was not a priority so a fun way to do that for really affordable is just using penny towel wrapping the entire room in it and I feel like this is a really fun way to bring character to a space but also not break the bank and just you know it adds texture and it's kind of like glossy and it's fun I just love it I use it all the time and I think it's a really fun tip I also use this concrete sink which is mounted because I wanted to use like different shades of white and cream because of the flooring this is a custom concrete floor and I did all of the um the colorways are custom I should say it's granada tile and they have this pattern and you could kind of throw any colors in there and so I just love the way it looks I think it's super fun and I've used the remnant for barbecues and other things like it's just a really fun statement tile and I think it's like perfect for a guest bathroom so this is our primary suite and I love my bedroom it is my sanctuary it is my retreat from the world being interior designer is so fun but it is a very busy job and it's hard to own your own business I work from my bed till like two o'clock in the morning most nights so I needed my space to be like my battery to recharge me it feels to me like a spa we did this really cool plaster effect on the walls and ceilings it feels like concrete which you think would be cold but it's actually very soothing and warm we did this beautiful arnie calacatta arnie slab across the fireplace and again it pulls in the architecture from downstairs but it's just it's the sea foams and it's the soft pastels that I feel like are just like good for my soul it's it's not overwhelming it's not overstimulating again with the alabaster there's like a lot of earthy elements that I wanted to bring in very specifically so that my space just felt calming it goes automatically just directly into our primary bathroom so it's like this easy flow and again we brought in the forbes and lomax unlacquered brass plates and the plaster throughout the primary so this is the primary bathroom and this space was really fun for me to do because I felt like I was able to go all out with my ideal aesthetic so I love balancing masculine and feminine I don't like anything to be too literal in any direction so I used a pink merano glass chandelier because I just love merano glass it's beautiful it's hand-blown it's handmade and you can just tell the quality of the product by looking at anything merano I love it but I also wanted my husband to have a space that felt like him too and felt a little masculine in some ways and travertine is such a good in-between because it can be feminine it can be masculine depending on how you use it and it just feels like tough but it's also so fun because of the movement and the character and the veining I am obsessed with travertine and it's held up so well in our bathroom I get people asking me all the time like how do you use that with like toothpaste and all these different things it holds up really well so I would highly recommend silver travertine as a stone you use for bathrooms and then we also wrapped the entire shower in silver travertine slab so it was just like a nice consistent palette throughout there's not so much going on by changing elements and materials we kept it consistent but there's still a ton of character with the lighting choices and the mirrors and the metal and the unlacquered brass there's layers to it but it feels very calming and that was the whole goal that this kind of felt like a spa and again like it's our retreat at the end of the day this is where we come to recharge our battery so it's very intentional and I just love how it turned out so this is my backyard and when we moved here the limestone pavers were already here which I loved it's a really fun vibe because it's just neutral but I love travertine as you know and limestone is in that family but we just wanted to kind of bring our sense of style to the space so the only thing that we really did was chip out all of the kind of old glass 90s mosaic tile that was along this jacuzzi and we put in a checker pattern just to make it more fun because why not and our own furnishings and this is a space that we utilize with our kids a lot because as you can see there's not a ton of yard space in this neighborhood because we're so close in proximity to the ocean that these are like smaller lots and you have very limited like play space for your kids so we utilize the jacuzzi all the time now that our oldest swims and our little ones are always in their little cute jumper suits it's so fun and we put the fire on shay will watch sports my husband's name is shay and it's just like a nice shaded relaxing space with like this really pretty filtered light that I just love being in and it's just calming to me so it's what we got and we work with it and it's perfect for us thanks for watching this tour of my home don't forget to subscribe to the luxury home show for more episodes and follow me on instagram at kim lupin interiors thanks guys bye