Houzz TV: First Comes Love, Then Comes a Wildly Colorful Mosaic Home
This couple spent two decades covering their home inside and out with brightly colored mosaic tile, vibrant paint, small toys and more
Mitchell Parker
January 26, 2016
Houzz Editorial Staff. Home design journalist writing about cool spaces, innovative trends, breaking news, industry analysis and humor.
Houzz Editorial Staff. Home design journalist writing about cool spaces, innovative... More
While making repairs to their run-down house in Venice, California, artists Cheri Pann and Gonzalo Duran experimented with adding mosaic tile to their bathroom. They became so fascinated with the medium that they’ve spent the last 21 years covering almost every square inch of their home — inside and out — with tens of thousands of shards of colorful clay tile.
Duran and Pann stand next to an entrance to their mosaic home, which Pann bought in 1994 with the intention of building a large attached art studio. She hired Duran, her boyfriend at the time, to help build the studio, and while waiting for plans to come together, they started “fiddling around with the ugly house,” Pann says.
Watch: See more of this eye-popping house on Houzz TV now
Watch: See more of this eye-popping house on Houzz TV now
She creates the tiles in her studio. Duran builds most of the pieces and incorporates other items into the design. There are small toys, stuffed animals, pot lids, coffee mugs, silverware and art tools, all stuck right into surfaces inside and outside the home. “I sometimes go to use a tool in the studio, and I realize he’s taken it and put it onto the house,” Pann says. “He goes off in all different directions. He’s a one-man wonder.”
Duran usually works on a 2-foot-square area at a time because the thinset dries so quickly. For three-dimensional shapes that extend upward and curve, he builds up the shape with rebar, tar paper and wire mesh to hold the initial cement, which he lets dry for 24 hours. He then applies a ¼-inch layer of thinset, to which he adds the tile pieces or other tchotchkes. After letting that dry for 24 hours, he adds colored grout.
Pann creates the tiles almost exclusively from clay, which she rolls flat and cuts with cookie cutters. She then embosses the cutouts with various stamps. As to the overall vision for the project — a project Pann says will never be finished — the couple leave it up to their inner artistic compass. “Where things go just comes from our extensive experience being visual artists,” Pann says. “The only planning that happens is when I say, ‘OK, we need to do something fantastic here.’ And then we do something fantastic.”
Watch: See how all these mosaics got started
Watch: See how all these mosaics got started
The vibrant colors continue inside, where Pann and Duran have covered most of their walls in bright custom-mixed paint using a faux-finish technique. They have turned many of the spaces in their 1,500-square-foot home into galleries showcasing their artwork.
Duran, seen here, and Pann use their 1,500-square-foot attached studio to make tile and other pieces for their home, which Pann refers to as a “living, breathing work of art” and which people from all over the world have paid to tour.
Watch now: See more of this one-of-a-kind house on HouzzTV
Watch now: See more of this one-of-a-kind house on HouzzTV
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So loving and creative.. Wonderful video
wow, just wow