Repurposing antique rugs and objets d’art to bring to life unused rooms and to showcase a life of travel for one couple with plenty of stories to share. Two empty nesters in their mid-60s had accumulated an impressive and meaningful collection of art from their extensive travels, but over the years the front part of their home—a carpenter style built in 1914—had become storage units for their kids’ things, and then disused once the children moved out. It was time to revivify these spaces and make them suitable for dinner parties and other social gatherings.

Our goal was to supplement their collection with newer pieces from Northern California. These include custom-made mantel piece and doorway portal, somewhat resembling Inuit wood carvings, by Inverness resident Ido Yoshitomo; two RNZ chairs by San Francisco’s Jay Nelson that were made for an exhibition at Blunk Space Gallery in Point Reyes; Gordon Onslow Ford’s painting Voyager Inner Earth; and a wooden sculpture by Garry Knox Bennett, the countercultural icon and furniture maker much beloved by locals.

Elsewhere, we repurposed some of their existing pieces. We designed a runner using their antique rugs that starts in the foyer and continues upstairs. In the dining room, we used two sculptures by Jeffie Brewer as a table base. The ceiling is inlaid rope done in patterns to suggest woven folk art.