- Welcome back to Houzz TV Live.
I'm Rick Spence
and with me today is Jen Messina
with Jennifer Messina Interiors
out of beautiful Marin County, California,
doing work all over the bay.
And this house is just tremendous.
What a beautiful home.
And I understand- - Thank you.
- [Rick] It's a repeat customer as well.
- It is.
They have two children
who they knew they wanted to be able
to entertain lots of friends
and be the house
that all of the kids bring their friends to
and then adults could be in the same floor
without it being too much noise.
And the house was, it was a little cottage,
which is very classic in Marin,
and they were able to utilize some of the cottage
and lift it up.
And so anything on the main floor is new.
We were looking, when we were designing it,
was a transitional home.
So we didn't wanna go too modern.
We wanted this to be the home
that would carry them through for the durations.
So we wanna look at classic design.
And so we chose a dark wood floor,
which I think is really beautiful.
Natural stone, big windows.
And then there's a peaked ceiling
with the wood planks on the ceiling
to kind of, just to make it special.
And it's a really simple material to use.
It's a little bit more expensive than just doing sheet rock
but it has a beautiful effect.
- [Rick] Yeah, I love the high ceilings when you can do it.
What was your strategy with the lighting?
- [Jenn] Choosing great light fixtures
that play off each other.
We had a lot of fun with that.
To make, like, the dining area fancier,
we did more of a kind of crystal pendant,
and then in the kitchen area,
it's still glass but less glamorous in that way,
but still pretty.
- [Rick] That's really nice.
That island is pretty substantial.
What kind of stone did you go with?
- So that is a carrera
and Mother Nature is the best designer, as we know.
So it was beautiful to pick out the slabs
and, yeah, it just makes a very,
like, touching it is so nice.
I just love natural stone.
- [Rick] I'm totally with you.
What's your approach on hardware
and sort of some of the finishing elements
in a space like that?
- I think that choosing your finish is important
'cause you're gonna carry it through the whole house.
So you decide, am I going with a brass?
Am I going with chrome?
Am I going with like a satin nickel, with matte black?
And, you know, things come and go with finish trends.
So you gotta pick what you really like
and not think, oh, what's everyone else doing?
And just say, "Oh, I really like this."
Especially if it's a long-term home.
Anything that is gonna be touched,
you know, doorknobs, faucets, it makes a difference.
It really does.
So if you can budget for that and plan it
when you're looking at the scope of your project,
at the end of the day,
you're not gonna wish you'd done something differently.
- And you also squeezed in a little desk in there too.
Are they working from home?
You kind of using that as like a sort of home office
kind of in the kitchen with a beautiful view kind of thing?
- Well, we knew there was a lot of space
and so we thought, what is a good functional use
of the space?
And we did built-in desks
so that two people could kind of have that be the hub
of where they live and do their business.
And then, you know, if it's designed well,
you can tuck it away
so it doesn't look like, oh, messy desk.
And then you can be in the flow of your of your life
and not have to go off to a room.
- Closer to like the tea kettle or a snack, you know?
So it's like- - Exactly.
- You know, so it makes it real easy, right?
Maybe that's too easy, I don't know, but.
- Well, we put a little,
we put little fridge drawers at that end of the island
so that you could grab something quick
and then go out the doors to the outdoor kitchen
or, you know, so you don't have to make the long trek
to the fridge.
It's kind of nice to have.
- [Rick] Yeah, I know. It's great.
Tell me about the dining room
and kind of how you've, you know, brought
some additional life to it.
- We decided that it was time for another layer in the space
and so once we did the grasscloth,
they could add their gorgeous art into the space,
which made it extra just beautiful and inviting.
And then we added the wainscot on the walls.
And so it just gives the space a more finished feel
and a little bit dressier, which is nice.
- Now, these folks are repeat customers.
- Mm-hm.
- So you can speak to before Houzz
and after Houzz pretty much, right?
And how the tools have evolved.
And where are you seeing just like sort of those aha moments
when you're working with clients now
using the Houzz platform?
- There's a lot of programs
that you could spend a lot of time trying to learn
and you gotta focus instead on design
and your relationships.
It's like, "How can I, you know, source this?"
And so Houzz came up with this great 3D planner.
So you go in and you take all your measurements
and then you use the 3D planner
and you can show your client.
It was so fun how we took this space
and we're like, "Okay, we could do this.
Oh, what if we do this?"
And you're just moving furniture around
and you can make your sofa the dimensions you want.
They get just a sense of the space and scale,
which is really helpful.
And also, the room boards for the client to see
all the textures and materials.
You have these different tools where it's 2D, 3D,
and then just textural.
So it's brought me so much more ease with clients.
So I have so much appreciation for these tools.
- [Rick] That's awesome.
All right, so let's go into the office space.
You converted it from a kid space
to like an office hangout space.
- [Jenn] And it was really fun 'cause I wanted to push
that we make the space different than the rest of the house
because once in a while,
it's nice to not have everything kind of feel the same.
So you're like, "Oh, we can do a darker wall.
We can go richer and have it be a little bit more moody."
- So tell me about some of the key elements and experiences
in this office.
- When we were deciding
what we were gonna use for a desk, for example,
we wanted something that could be multi-functional.
We have a beautiful table.
You know, if they wanted to setup game night,
they have space to sit around.
And then our bookshelves are really, they're cool
because they have file drawers
so you can hide a lot of officey kind of things
and tuck it away
and it just doesn't feel like, oh, an office office.
So I think that was part of our goal
was for it to feel like an office, but not an office.
And then, you know, really comfortable, floppy sofa,
painted the walls to make it feel cozier,
and then added a big arc light
so we didn't have to put a fixture in.
It would be then designating that space
as always a table there.
So there's room for them to make changes
without having it be very challenging.
- I love all that
because, I mean, if you did like, for example, built-ins
and then you had a fixture like you said,
you have like these dedicated spaces
that are gonna be very difficult to change.
- Yes, we looked into doing built-ins
and they are really expensive
and they do, one of the concerns was,
okay, so what if we don't want it to be that way anymore?
'Cause we know that this room's gonna be flexible.
So we found furniture that worked
and that made it so that if they did wanna change it,
it wasn't devastating to the budget.
- You know, we kind of glossed through the entryway,
but the entryway is really fun
and what a significant, you know, chandelier
you have in there
and that's like a statement when you walk in.
And throughout the house, there's this beautiful art
and it just feels warm and welcoming.
- Well, the entryway, I really like it.
It's probably one of my favorite spaces
because it has a huge ceiling, so this big scale,
and we could have this staircase
that felt significant and beautiful
without feeling too dressy.
The homeowners have this beautiful art collection
and they were able to create this beautiful gallery
going up the stairs.
The chandelier is so cool.
It's really, really beautiful and elegant,
and let me tell you how heavy that is.
So that's something you have to think about
is how heavy, what kind of structure do you need
to support really heavy chandeliers?
And it's one of our favorite features
'cause it just feels, it's round
and the light when it's on at night is just beautiful.
And they've got windows that are really tall windows,
so you can see it from when you approach.
And so the tone of the entry
is very significantly played out through the house.
And so it does set a feeling.
So when you come in,
you get a sense of the homeowners and the home
and it's like a relaxed elegance,
but beautiful enough
that you can feel like really proud of your home
and feel like it's a place you want people to come
and experience time with you.
- Well, this has been fantastic.
I wanna see more of your work,
I wanna do another one of these,
and thank you so much for the time.
- Thank you.
I hope to see you again.
- [Rick] All right, we'll do it again.
See you. Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.