A Los Angeles Home That Epitomizes California Cool

Leila Sayegh (above) was waffling about purchasing a Craftsman fixer-upper for sale in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. She loved the 1915 bungalow’s period details and wasn’t fazed by the neglected interiors  —  she had the know-how she needed from reno’ing a home with her former husband years before.

The potential deal killer? The property was more than 300 miles away from an old friend she had started dating. “But I knew I couldn’t plan my life around a man,” she says. “If I wanted this home, I had to buy it myself.” To tackle major issues, like replacing the foundation and roof, and pull off interiors with an easygoing Cali vibe, she worked with interior designer Karen Vidal. In eight months the 1,556-square-foot space was transformed, its laid-back interiors in sync with Leila’s single-gal lifestyle.

And that’s when she got engaged to her long-distance beau, Erik Abel. “I decorated the place just for me and  —  boom!  —  he’s moving in,” says Leila. But the bungalow has proven to be surprisingly couple-friendly, “maybe because I told Erik the only thing he could bring with him was his clothes!”  

The light and airy dining room includes a reclaimed Douglas fir table from Cisco Home and clean-lined Room & Board leather chairs. A weathered metal medical cabinet serves as a help-yourself bar. 

A bold chevron jute rug from West Elm defines the TV-watching area of the living room. Leila snagged both the tufted sectional and the vintage glass-top coffee table at Living Room, one of her favorite local stores. The kilim-rug-covered lounge chair from Anthropologie was a smitten-at-first-sight purchase. “I bought it the instant I saw it,” she says. “I didn’t have any plans for it. I just had to have it.” The butterfly curtains are sewn from Les Indiennes fabric block-printed in India. 

Leila liked the celestial cutouts on the Craftsman door but not the transparent glass or the red stain applied by a previous homeowner. The solution: spray-on frost for the crescent moon and star and upbeat limoncello yellow paint (Mulholland Yellow by Benjamin Moore). The sky blue vinyl chair is from Potted in Los Feliz, CA.