A Cozy California House Has an Absolutely WILD Living Room Bookcase

published Oct 5, 2020

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Living room with green-tiled fireplace, orange and green armchairs, blue sofa, plants, and colorful wall art. — Credit: Sarah Huchel
This room gets tremendous afternoon light. Sofa is from Scandinavian Designs, rug from IKEA, table from Cost Plus. Vintage radio in the corner was retrofitted with Bluetooth and bought at a street fair!

Name: Sarah Huchel, partner, his daughter, and three dogs
Location: East Sacramento — Sacramento, California
Type of home: House
Size: 1020 square feet
Years lived in: 10 years, owned

Credit: Sarah Huchel

This is our living room, which you see immediately upon entry. A local cabinetmaker built the bookshelves (based on a picture from Pinterest) and had doubts we'd be able to fill it. Otis (the dog) does all his reading here.

Tell us a little (or a lot) about your home and the people who live there: This is actually a follow-up post to my home tour you posted on Dec. 30, 2018: “A Small and Colorful East Sacramento Home Tour.”

Credit: Sarah Huchel

My boyfriend finally moved in this year and the house looks great! He loves color, and the only real issue was managing all the stuff in this tiny space. We actually had planned to have a housewarming party right before COVID-19 hit, but that had to be postponed.

Credit: Sarah Huchel

We are both public interest lawyers, so I think our home reflects an outlet from all the seriousness (we both studied art before realizing our talents—or lack thereof—were best spent elsewhere).

Credit: Sarah Huchel

These are portraits of my partner's relatives, who were some kind of early California robber barons. His branch of the family unfortunately squandered all the money before he was born, though.

Describe your home’s style in 5 words or less: Bold, maximalist, and fun.

Credit: Sarah Huchel

This is the home office, guest room, TV room, and yoga studio (when I roll up the rug).

What is your favorite room and why? The office/TV room/guest room/yoga studio (when I roll up the rug) is my favorite, which is good because I spend most of my time here. It gets beautiful light in the morning and the picture of my dog, Oz, supervising me all day makes me so happy.

Credit: Sarah Huchel

What’s the last thing you bought (or found!) for your home? This glass display case was critical to merging my partner’s things with mine—he’s a bit of a stuffmonster and I wanted to contain the smaller bits in a way that weren’t overwhelming.

Credit: Sarah Huchel

I found this old cigarette machine on Craigslist, after my partner mentioned how cool a similar one looked in a local dive bar. It weighs approximately 3000 pounds and we are never moving it again. The monitor lizard is plastic and his name is Malthus.

Any advice for creating a home you love? Breathe deeply and stop for a glass of wine when things seem overwhelming. Also, dog hair is a design element.

Credit: Sarah Huchel

Breakfast nook

This submission’s responses and photos were edited for length/size and clarity.

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