The Heights

Hi there.

We’re sharing with you, admittedly with nerves, with the hope, you might find our home (and renovation project) interesting.

By way of quick introduction, we are Nathan and Katie. The happy owners of what we refer to as “The Heights”. Our 1966, 2,836 SF, 2-bedroom 3-bath home is located in Los Angeles.

This is our first home as a couple and while we are in the branding / creative/graphic design space, we are not interior designers, architects, or developers. We do have a passion for all things tasty and poured our love for design into our home. We purchased The Heights back in July of 2017 and after a 5-month renovation, moved in Jan 2018. Hard to believe we’ve been here for over a year now. The house was in pretty bad shape when we bought it, and we fell in love with the potential. We did all the design, sourcing, and oversight of the project ourselves.

Outside of one room, we preserved the original footprint; opening doorways, removing headers, and exposing the vaulted ceiling in the studio to bring a more modern feel. We gutted the kitchen and baths and swapped the mismatched hardwood floors and marble for cork. We were lucky enough to keep the original stone fireplace, parquet floors in the living and dining rooms, and the lava rock on the exterior (which we love). Otherwise, almost everything is new. New roof, new plumbing, new AC, new flooring, new walls, a new garden, and updated electrical (including smart lighting, locks, thermostat, smoke).

Where we went modern with the flow and function, we went old school with the design. As you’ll hopefully see in the pictures, design elements we carried throughout the house include cork + tile floors, a neutral palette with a pop of yellow, wood slats, a visual “L” (created by covering the floor + a hero wall; or the ceiling + a hero wall with the same material be it tile, wallpaper, wood slats or paint), and the use of walnut throughout.

We have yet to finish the front of the house as we’re contemplating converting our garage into a studio to run our business out of. What we’ll do with the driveway and entry will depend on where we net out with the garage direction.

The pictures are from our iPhone. No filters. No editing. No tricks. We’re pretty casual people, neat by nature, so this is pretty much what our home looks like daily. You can’t see the dust bunnies from our shag rugs in the pictures, but they are there. :) We also included two pics of us to put a face to the words. Hi.

We have a list of sources for all materials we used and contact information for all the people that made this house a home. We also have before pictures to show the comparison and transformation.

We’d love to share more if you are interested and eager to hear your thoughts.

Thanks so much.
Katie + Nate