9 min readWhen designer Julia Chasman’s dear friends asked her to give their family home a cosmetic refresh, the founder of her eponymous design firm was only meant to touch the soft furnishings and window treatments on the ground level. However, ask any designer, and they’ll agree that it’s not uncommon for a small project to snowball into a large-scale makeover quickly. Next thing Chasman knew, three years had gone by, and she had touched every living space in their Santa Monica, California, home.
The homeowners had moved into the single-story house in 1987, choosing to expand it a decade later to accommodate their growing family and taking it from 1,600 square feet to around 4,000 square feet by adding a whole other floor. Chasman came into the picture in 2022, when their three children were all grown and living on their own, and the empty nesters realized the function of their house needed to change.
The easy part? There was plenty of potential. “The couple had a strong collection of paintings and other kinds of art, including vintage posters, classic photography, and sculptures and pottery, with an emphasis on folk art and whimsical, hand-painted pieces,” Chasman tells House Beautiful. The wife, Jesse, is also a part-time artist who blows up vintage photographs and hand colors them, so many of her pieces are featured throughout the home as well. With all of that to work with, the designer couldn’t help but grow her vision of what their home could look like with fresh paint, new upholstery, and replacing some older items. It wasn’t easy getting her friends and clients on board with all these changes—it seemed like more than they wanted to do, Chasman adds—but a breakthrough occurred about midway through one of her presentations. “At a certain point, Jesse said to me, ‘We’re on the journey now—we trust you.’”
Thankfully, there was no need for demolition in any part of the house. “There was no one big change that was asked for by my clients; they just knew that their home could reflect them better and make them happier,” Chasman says. She kept the redesign mostly cosmetic, just at a much larger scale. Her clients had a plethora of high-quality furnishings, and there was no need to get rid of them. Instead, she updated most of them with beautiful fabrics and integrated classic vintage pieces, both traditional and midcentury, to create a complex, layered look. Upscale light fixtures, custom window treatments, and rich wallpaper contribute to the elevated look, taking a tired interior and transforming it into something that better fits the homeowners’ personalities.
Some of the more substantial changes can be found in the entry hall and kitchen. Walking into the home, the staircase is straight ahead on the far back wall, and doorways to the dining room and living room are on either side. Chasman made the staircase the focal point, adding a center table and a large pendant light in the space by the stairs to draw attention to it.
She infused the kitchen—which she initially wasn’t going to touch—with personal touches to make it feel lived-in but still elegant, and refinished the green marble countertops to make the 20-year-old features look brand new. “The biggest change we made was removing the counter seating on the large butcher block island, and trimming off more than a foot of the overhang where the stools sat,” she says. “This gave us extra room in the kitchen to add a family breakfast nook that didn’t exist before.” The kitchen now looks like an entirely different room.
The entire home reflects the lives of her clients and longtime friends, highlighting their travels, their interests, and their family. “To me, this is the house I’m always happy to revisit with a small new find, or to talk about the things we didn’t get around to,” Chasman says. “I hope I’ll be working on this house for the rest of my career.”
FAST FACTS
Designer: Julia Chasman of Julia Chasman Design
Stylist: Danielle Armstrong
Location: Santa Monica, California
The Space: A 4,000-square-foot traditional-style home with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a powder room.
ENTRYWAY
A vignette of artwork, books, and flowers serves as the welcome party.
This lively front entrance wasn’t always as colorful and exciting as it is now. When Chasman first started on the project, the space lacked purpose, and furniture was placed along the walls without intention. “It serves as the main connecting space for all the downstairs rooms, with large casement openings to the living room on one side and the dining room on the other,” the designer explains. It deserved more than simply being a place to pass through.
“The front door is at one end, and the back concludes with the impressive double-height staircase,” Chasman says of the feature, which wraps around and leads to the upstairs bedrooms.
Chasman wanted the staircase to be the focal point of the house, so she and her design assistant, Beck Samuels, chose to paint the feature in a dark green to demand attention. They coated the window in a lighter shade and installed a massive paper lantern at the center of the stairwell space.
LIVING ROOM
French doors look out to the English country garden.
A mix of vintage and existing reupholstered furniture fills the living room with character. The green leather slipper chair, trimmed out in brass, a pair of black rattan chairs, and other inky accents keep the otherwise bright room grounded.
Chasman had custom curtains made in a Michael Smith print from Jasper Showroom and chose to create a matching valence to overlook the French doors. “The owners' art and photo collections are hung on the walls, and we sourced a wonderful oversized French poster for them with whimsical mermaids circling champagne coupes,” she adds.
The family regularly sits down in this elegant space to hang out around the working fireplace, which was rebuilt with a better design and custom moldings before being painted in Wimborne White by Farrow & Ball. Above the new extended wood mantel are two brass sconces, which tie in the tones of the gorgeous chandelier; below, the clients’ collection of folk art and candlesticks finds purpose.
FAMILY ROOM
Warm, sandy tones ground a plethora of patterns.
Located off the kitchen, this cozy den is the family’s go-to spot for watching TV. Chasman didn’t want to replace the furniture her clients had since the bones were still so sturdy; instead, she had custom slipcovers made from the sectional, chair, and ottomans, using the extra bits for throw pillows.
“The pattern mix is grounded by the warm sand-toned grasscloth we used to cover the walls, the nubby ochre and ivory patterned carpeting, and the woven wood window shades, all creating a soft neutral backdrop,” Chasman says. “The owners’ collection of vintage international movie posters fit right into the room’s main purpose—watching movies together.”
DINING ROOM
Fruit motifs mirror the fruit trees outside in the garden.
Not only is this the place where formal meals happen, but it’s also a pass-through area to the kitchen and family room. Simply put, it needed to be exciting. To achieve a bold outlook, Chasman covered the walls in a bold fruit pattern and changed out the old lighting choices with a white plaster chandelier and matching sconces. Vintage cocktail lamps on the credenza and a cordless one from Pooky on the mantel create layers of light.
Like the fireplace in the living room, this one also got fitted with a new, larger mantel. It’s framed by the natural light that streams in through the unadorned French doors on either side of the hearth. Just outside is an alfresco dining area.
This dining room boasts so much color and pattern, down to the smallest corners of the room. Though Chasman kept the clients’ original antique French dining table, vintage chairs, and hand-painted credenza, she brought in a freshness through the bright green paint on the wainscoting.
KITCHEN & BREAKFAST NOOK
New lighting changed the ambiance, making the room feel softer.
Touching the kitchen was not in Chasman’s or her clients’ original plans, but all good plans evolve. Though it still didn’t receive any major changes, it looks vastly different from when they first started on the project.
The cabinetry got a fresh coat of paint—a pale green to complement the green marble countertops, which they refinished—and Chasman took out most of the recessed lighting, replacing it with twin pendant lights above the island. The homeowners’ appliances gave out as Chasman was working on this room (one could say it was an almost convenient mishap), so they replaced the old range, fridge, and dishwasher with beautiful matte white and brushed brass ones from GE’s Café Appliances line. The hood got an upgrade, too—a new custom wood design is swathed in the same pale green as the cabinets.
“The rest of the magic came from decorative accessories, like the set of bold yellow Italian ceramic chargers we mounted on the walls all around the room, and the vintage fish print we hung on the oven hood,” Chasman explains. “Vintage French kitchen canisters and Moroccan baskets complete the layered look.”
This breakfast nook was created without expanding the kitchen at all—Chasman’s choice to trim down the existing center island gave them the square footage needed to carve out this cozy sit-down spot. “We custom-built a bench, painted it a yummy ochre shade, and completed the casual daytime eating area with a vintage farm table, vintage wicker chairs, and a Serena & Lily rattan pendant light,” she says. The yellow gingham check fabric on the pillows is the same one covering the armchair in the family room, creating a connection between the spaces.
The cherry on top is the oversized Italian culinary poster looking over the space and surrounded by vintage Deruta plates and Navajo baskets.
LIBRARY
The color scheme stems from the moody wallpaper.
The shelves in the library—which received the biggest transformation of any of the common gathering spaces—were already there, but Chasman painted them a dark forest green and enclosed the top shelf with an upper wall to make them appear completely built-in.
Chasman pulled out colors from the House of Hackney wallpaper, relying on it as inspiration for reupholstering the sofa in a green chenille velvet. However, the choice that made the room, in Chasman’s opinion, is the pair of vintage French velvet armchairs she sourced at Nickey Kehoe. They bring in a softer shade of green without feeling out of place.
The owners’ Chinese Art Deco rug brings in warmer tones, tying back again to the wallpaper. Though the beloved rug was initially in the living room, it was too small for the space, so Chasman designed this reading room with it in mind. However, when the time came for installation, the rug was too large. Instead of finding a new place for it, the designer went to her friend Sheba of Blue Parakeet Rugs, whose team of expert rug menders cut several inches off the rug and rebounded the original borders to the smaller body. You can’t even tell they touched it.
PRIMARY BEDROOM
Decorated in soft, creamy tones, this serene space is an oasis.
This large primary bedroom is crowned with a tall vaulted ceiling, making it easy to feel empty and cavernous. Chasman’s solution was to coat it in a warm creamy tone, one that doesn’t weigh it down but gives it a sense of comfort. The wall-to-wall carpeting is a thick wool ivory with pale blue threads in the weave, and the custom headboard is wrapped in a soft floral linen, which was also used for the window treatments.
The armchair and chaise lounge were both recovered in new fabrics, all in soothing neutral tones, making this an ideal spot to slowly wake up and enjoy a coffee by the fireplace.
GUEST BEDROOM
Striped wallpaper emphasizes the height of the vaulted ceiling.
This bedroom has seen two generations: what was once one of their children’s rooms is now designed for the owners’ grandchildren when they visit. The two darling bobbin-style beds give the room a bit of a European vibe, which is accentuated by the bedding from UK supplier Piglet in Bed.
When picking out the Roman shade pattern, John Derian’s Parrot & Palm, Chasman happened on a theme for the room: parrots! There’s a parrot lamp perched on the nightstand and two vintage parrot finials resting on the side chest right next to a parrot plate from Anthropologie. Jesse, one of the homeowners, painted the art piece that’s hung above the beds.
About the Designer
After a career as a film producer, Julia Chasman decided to pursue her private passion of restoring older homes and reviving them with a unique flair. She started with thoughtful flips, which were so coveted that she was able to open her own interior firm in 2018, Julia Chasman Design.
