sneak peek: paper pony

i can think of no better way to end this week than with a sneak peek into the beautiful (beautiful) home of photographer raya carlisle. i've been a fan of raya's photography for a while now (her flickr page and blog are fantastic) and i was sure her home would be just as amazing. raya lives in ventura, california and her home oozes cool, california style. it was a treat just to click through all of these so i hope you'll enjoy them as much as i did. as always you can click here for larger versions of these photos and check out descriptions in raya's word's below. thanks to raya for sharing her lovely home with us! [see you all on monday!]

["The waterfall in our pool makes the backyard so peaceful. My favorite thing is to float on a raft with a magazine on a sunny day and listen to the water. This photo above is probably my favorite area in the house- a sitting area in our dining room that is great for morning tea and reading. These chairs were a craigslist buy and at first I thought I'd recover them, but this yellow is now working its way throughout the whole house. I'm finding as I decorate that I'm drawn to bright colors subconsciously - especially yellow and any shade of aqua/blue. The poster on the wall is for a Modest Mouse concert by The Decoder Ring Design Concern. They have a great selection of posters on their website."]

["A corner of our living room. This Ikea book shelf is one I see all over blogland, but it is such a great piece if you don't have much room because it holds so much. Our coffee table top is also from Ikea, but I found some old hairpin legs on craigslist that we used to give it a more mid-century mod look. We really haven't spent much money on furniture with the exception of our dining table - this chair was purchased second hand and our couch is one Forest was given to him during bachelorhood, but my mom recovered both in matching fabric. She's a professional seamstress and has made us so many pillows, cushion covers, etc..we can't thank her enough."]

["The dog painting is my first real art purchase from painter Andrea Heimer in Seattle. Her bright colors and imagery appeal to me - she has a great body of work on her website. This Bertoia diamond chair is the first piece I purchased when we got serious about decorating our house and I had recently discovered my attraction to mid-century modern. Our house is a 1951 beach town cottage so I want to keep the interior in line with the architecture, just mixing in modern pieces here and there. I bought these lockers from my neighbor for $15 - a steal in my mind, but he works for a local school district and just had them sitting in his garage. Forest repainted them and they now store all my craft/art supplies as well as other things. Our garage was converted into a room so we use it as our office/studio/garage. We covered an entire wall with cork and would like to eventually rip up the carpet and do a painted cement floor in a slate blue."]

["I love paint-by-numbers. They are so wonderfully tacky. Our kitchen is really spacious and it's nice to have so much counter space but then I don't know what to do with it! I know, it's a problem most people don't have. Here I've displayed a few of my sugar & creamer sets and baking ingredients in vintage jars."]

["I try to keep the house away from too much girliness, but with the guest bathroom I went a little more that way since we don't use it all the time. I found these portraits of 1960's actresses in cheesy gold frames at an antique store and they were my inspiration. Lots of pink, peach and green. The mirror is very old, found at a thrift store. Our bathrooms are very tiny, so the big mirror brings in more light."]