Houzz Tours
Houzz Tour: East Coast Meets Midcentury in California
An interior designer brings her skills home to create comfortable, family-friendly rooms on a budget
How do decorators decorate their own homes? It’s easy to imagine large and opulent spaces filled with expensive and dramatic accessories. But when designer Leyla Jaworski and her husband, Scott, purchased a modestly sized 1980s-era tract home in Sacramento six years ago, they had a tight budget and a need for simplicity. “I like my space to be livable and not overdone,” she says. “We have a dog; we have a kid. I don’t want a stuffy space.”
The designer removed the old brick from the fireplace and the hearth, and installed hexagonal tile. She then ran the concrete floor right up to the fireplace, avoiding the need for a space-eating hearth. The doors on both sides of the fireplace swing out, “so they don’t swing into my tiny little house,” Leyla says.
A big window (now 5 feet wide instead of the original 3 feet) and a vaulted ceiling make the kitchen feel roomy and airy. Leyla raised the dropped ceiling over the kitchen to match the vaulted ceiling of the adjoining living room. She describes the kitchen as “modern farmhouse with midcentury furniture.”
Open shelves enlarge the space even more. Leyla’s countertop fabricator installed white quartz on top of Ikea cabinets, and made the island top and shelves out of pine.
Appliances: Professional series, Frigidaire; light fixtures: Rejuvenation
Open shelves enlarge the space even more. Leyla’s countertop fabricator installed white quartz on top of Ikea cabinets, and made the island top and shelves out of pine.
Appliances: Professional series, Frigidaire; light fixtures: Rejuvenation
The couple’s son, Jake, wanted a Batman theme for his room. The bed alcove was originally the closet for the room on the other side of the wall. She reconfigured the space and installed tongue-and-groove paneling on the alcove walls; her husband built the loft bed with materials that cost about $60. An Ikea children’s bed underneath the loft is great for sleepovers. Though the walls are painted black, the room “doesn’t feel dark at all,” Leyla says, thanks to the light-colored floor, ceiling and trim, and the semisheer curtains.
Wall paint: Carbon Black, Kelly-Moore
Wall paint: Carbon Black, Kelly-Moore
A washi-tape mural of Gotham City covers the sliding glass doors to the closet. (If you want to know exactly how Scott created the Gotham mural, see this video.) The couple built the wall unit out of plumbing pipe and inexpensive shelving from Lowe’s. “We wanted a spot where our son could have a friend over to sit down and play and draw,” she says.
The playroom was formerly a third bedroom with large double doors that swung into the room. Leyla replaced the two doors with one 48-inch pocket door on the left to free up space. The couple also changed the French doors to the right from 48 to 60 inches and made sure they swung out to open. The storage unit is a combination of Ikea media cabinet installed above three Ikea toy boxes.
Rug: Jaipur
Rug: Jaipur
Leyla added architectural detail throughout the house, including cased windows, molding, tongue-and-groove ceilings and wainscoting in the master bedroom. “Our house on the East Coast was 150 years old, so I craved all that detail,” she says.
The nightstand is vintage. Leyla asked her painter to paint it and change the hardware.
The nightstand is vintage. Leyla asked her painter to paint it and change the hardware.
Before Leyla remodeled the house, a washer and dryer filled the space where the tub now sits, an area that was previously part of a hallway.
“The only way to capture the space was to move the washer into the garage and put the tub in the shower,” she says.
The free-standing tub allows for deck-mounted fixtures, which are “significantly cheaper” than floor-mounted fixtures, she adds.
“The only way to capture the space was to move the washer into the garage and put the tub in the shower,” she says.
The free-standing tub allows for deck-mounted fixtures, which are “significantly cheaper” than floor-mounted fixtures, she adds.
The bathroom vanity is the bottom half of a midcentury hutch that Leyla found after an exhaustive search.
“It could only be 48 inches wide,” she says. “It was like finding a needle in a haystack.”
Mirror: HomeGoods
30 Furniture-to-Vanity Conversions You’ve Got to See
“It could only be 48 inches wide,” she says. “It was like finding a needle in a haystack.”
Mirror: HomeGoods
30 Furniture-to-Vanity Conversions You’ve Got to See
A 12-by-10-foot guest house originally served as Leyla’s office. It’s a prefab structure from Modern Spaces and Sheds, which delivered the building in pieces. Leyla’s landscaper and crew assembled it.
Inside, the guest room features graphic wallpaper and a kantha quilt.
Wallpaper: Spoonflower
15 Reasons to Get Addicted to Kantha Quilts
Wallpaper: Spoonflower
15 Reasons to Get Addicted to Kantha Quilts
The outdoor patio sits under a 42-foot-long steel cover that runs the length of the house. The Ikea sectional is “not a typical outdoor sofa, but it’s covered in heavy canvas that wears well with people getting out of the pool wet,” Leyla says.
She bought the coffee table on clearance and used leftover quartz from her kitchen countertops for the top. The dining table is two prefab picnic tables that her husband rebuilt. “He took the benches off and spaced them 5 feet apart, then put 15-foot planks down for across the top and for the bench seats,” she says. The couple can seat 15 to 20 for dinner here and hosted this past Thanksgiving, with the help of outdoor heaters spaced around the table.
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She bought the coffee table on clearance and used leftover quartz from her kitchen countertops for the top. The dining table is two prefab picnic tables that her husband rebuilt. “He took the benches off and spaced them 5 feet apart, then put 15-foot planks down for across the top and for the bench seats,” she says. The couple can seat 15 to 20 for dinner here and hosted this past Thanksgiving, with the help of outdoor heaters spaced around the table.
Browse more homes by style: Apartments | Barn Homes | Colorful Homes | Contemporary Homes | Eclectic Homes | Farmhouses | Floating Homes | Guesthouses | Homes Around the World | Lofts | Midcentury Homes | Modern Homes | Ranch Homes | Small Homes | Townhouses | Traditional Homes | Transitional Homes | Vacation Homes
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Leyla Jaworski of Design Shop Interiors, husband Scott and their 5-year-old son, Jake
Location: Sacramento, California
Size: 1,195 square feet (111 square meters); two bedrooms, two bathrooms
The Jaworskis renovated in stages, first making the house more livable with cosmetic changes like fresh paint and new carpeting. Three years later, they ripped up the backyard and installed a pool. Finally, they tackled the big stuff: a whole-house renovation, including a major overhaul of the kitchen and bathrooms. “I tell people who are renovating, ‘We don’t always get to do it all at once. So take your time,’” Leyla says. “I renovated and spent all the money; then a couple years later, I could buy new furniture.”
She opened up the living room by replacing a wall with an 8-by-5-foot window and by installing glass doors on both sides of the fireplace. “The house is so small, we wanted to make it bright,” she says. That included employing a soft palette of neutral colors — “nothing overwhelming,” she says.
The furniture is an eclectic mix of new and scavenged pieces. She purchased the coffee table for $60 on Craigslist and had her countertop fabricator cut a leftover piece of white quartz to put on top. “My style leans very midcentury, but I don’t want it to be a kitschy time capsule, so I try to bring in other elements,” she says.
Paint: Decorator’s White, Benjamin Moore; leather armchair and credenza: West Elm; sectional: Four Hands