Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts Home Tour & Ticket Giveaway

To be an interior Designer requires a great eye for color, design, traffic flows and scale. Forming an intimate relationship with your client to serve their wants and needs to your best ability is also a huge part of the trade. Sometime knowing what you don't like is easier than knowing what you do like. Showcase houses are a great way to explore your taste in design, in every type of room and with varied styles. With the larger houses normally featured during home tours you get to see multiple bedrooms, bathrooms and in this case kitchens to love or hate and be inspired by. Outdoor spaces are also addressed and can be a great resource for inspiration as well. 

This years Showcase for the Arts home is a 16,000 SQ' Mission Revival. It was completed in 1918 at a mere cost of $20,000 and sits on 2 acres of wooded land. I was allowed inside to see the homes progress a few days from completion. I'm sharing my favorite spaces as well as hosting a ticket giveaway provided by Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery in Pasadena. Enter below for your chance at a pair of tickets to the home tour.

A little info on how the showcase house tours work.

• A home must have some historical significance.
• Be located with in the area of Pasadena/ La Canada 
• The house must be on at least 2 acres (to accommodate shops and restaurant area)
• The owners must be willing to leave the home for 6 months (during construction/tour)
• There is a given color pallet from which all designers must adhere to.
• All interior doors to areas on tour are removed
• Designers are given approximately 2 months to transform their space for show opening.
• The furnishings are removed from the house after the tour (but owners have option to purchase)
• All finished installations, wallpaper, tile, flooring remain. Lighting fixtures are traded out with homeowners unless purchased. 
• Not all parts of the home will be on tour. There are staging areas and staff areas that are not included on tour.

I'm a huge fan of well thought out kitchens and baths. They are always one of my favorite projects to take on and can be the hardest as well. I had a chance to get a bit of in-depth info on the Guest House kitchen Designed by Phill Vonk of D Christjan in conjunction with Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery in Pasadena. Completed in just 5 weeks from start to finish (which for a kitchen remodel is pretty amazing), this space is one you will fall in love with. The designer tells me they ran into a few hiccups with the demo as well but completed the space on time without changes to their original design.

Grey is the neutral used and within this space it is warmed up brilliantly with the darker wood tone and balanced out with the white cabinetry, there is nothing sterile about this space. The natural light that floods this L shaped room is beyond amazing and is amplified even more with the cabinets and Calcutta premium counter tops. The kitchen feels larger than it's 380 Square feet which includes a comfy eat in breakfast nook area accented by the full garden views. The flooring by Walker Zanger adds yet another layer of texture while enhancing the flow and general feeling of space.

Another feature I appreciate is the use of custom cabinetry and the different finish for the island and credenza. It has a mid century inspiration creating great architectural detail without being over bearing. With that said though, let me just love on the stove area a bit!  The tile (Studio Moderne - Walker Zanger) layout being installed vertically only enhances the ceiling height and draws your eyes up to the sleek stainless hood without taking away from the star of the wall, the stove. I'm also crushing big time on the Sub- Zero refrigerator selected for this space as well as the Mirabelle Undermount Farmhouse Sink. The ROHL Modern Architectural Pull Out Faucet used is just stunning, can I just take that one and the view it comes with?

Moving into the Main House on the first floor there is a darling Morning Room & Lady's Office. I enjoyed this spaced designed by Tocco Finale. A room fit for a lady indeed, the updated fireplace surround with Calcutta and mosaics only added to the amazing architecural features in the room. The scale of the furnishings is on point and the fabric selections are very soft and soothing to the eye. The main theme of grey softened with soft pink, creams and golds worked very well in my opinion.  

Upstairs I fell in love with Cathy Arkley of Lemon Hill and her space. The Grandparents Bedroom showcases a floor to ceiling canopy as the focal point, utilizing a beautiful fabric by Schumacher, was all I could look at! The wonderfully tailored panels create a bedscape that is beyond welcoming and not overly done. The matching wallpaper was used only on the bed wall as to not overwhelm the overall space. Pink along with grey are used throughout creating balance between calm and visual comfort. The other pieces in the room are all well scaled and offered additional character. 

The Little Girl's Bedroom by Salutations Home is any little girls dream space. It's like cotton candy and a carousel came together to have a tea party. Including all the whimsy a little girl could want for her teddy and dolls, the room has a charming doll house, table and chairs and a lovely upholstered twin bed with the sweetest bedding. Flowing drapery panels framing an amazing view and providing amply natural lighting compliment the space perfectly. 

The Master Suite by Ederra Design Studio was a major renovation project that gave this wing of the house the proper space it deserved for a home of this size. Taking the original 2 master bedroom and creating a his and her's bathrooms as well as a master bedroom complete with a sitting area. It also has a larger than life dressing room you have to see to believe (including a fireplace). Just short of 1,500 square feet in total, it is larger than most apartments. The entire transformation took just under 7 weeks to complete. There is hand applied decorative painting on the ceilings and custom art work commissioned just for the space as well.

The spaces flow seamlessly with the shared color pallet and overall quality of finishes creating spaces that are warm and inviting without being overly done.

I did find the main house kitchen to have some very interesting features and finishes while the use of the retained butler's pantry sink was a refreshing sight to see. If you are planning on attending the tour please remember to wear flat shoes, plan to spend at least a couple hours touring the home and stay for lunch on site. You can also find some very unique things for purchase at the shops, maybe even that perfect Mother's Day gift?

A little about the Organization behind it all:  An all-volunteer organization, Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts (PSHA) is a non-profit California Corporation whose members donate their time and talents to produce the annual Pasadena Showcase House of Design.  Founded in 1948, and formerly known as The Pasadena Junior Philharmonic Committee, they adopted the Pasadena Showcase House of Design as their annual benefit in 1965.  It is one of the oldest, largest and most successful house and garden tours in the nation. 

The Tour opens to the public April 17th and runs through May 15th. For info on the tour, hours and ticket info click on the link below.

A huge thanks to Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery in Pasadena for the giveaway tickets and congrats on a beautiful space!

Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery

340 S Lake Ave. Pasadena, CA 91101  Phone:(626) 463-4180