We’ve been fans of the Jenni Kayne brand for as long as we can remember, so when we came across the home of their CEO, Julia Hunter, on Instagram, we instantly fell in love. The California home of your dreams, this beautifully renovated and perfectly styled home is warm, cosy, and filled with bright, natural light. Take a tour with us and find out what inspired the renovation, and her top styling tips…

Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us. We came across your beautiful home on Instagram and it took our breath away! Can you tell us about you and where you live?

I’m the CEO of Jenni Kayne and have been with the brand for over seven years now! I’m also a mom of two little ones, Cal (3) and Quinn (1). Our house now is on Mandeville Canyon in the Brentwood area and we love it so much. There’s so much nature with beautiful mature oak trees and sycamores everywhere and mountains on either side of the canyon so it really feels like you’re outside of LA when you get home, but we’re still close enough to everything we need like work, pre-school and good food. I think it’s a dream area to live with a family and hope we can stay nearby forever.

Was your home a renovation or a new build? Can you tell us a little about the process?

Our home was definitely a renovation project and one that I think is still really just beginning. The house was originally built in the 1930’s and has the charm of an English stone cottage, with old brick fireplaces, intricate beamed ceilings and such a warm and welcoming layout. When we bought it there was so much potential, but the biggest challenge was figuring out how we could maintain the beauty of the original design, whilst modernizing and lightening the whole home. There was deep brown paint everywhere including on the beams, and the ceilings were a very dark wood, so the house had a completely different vibe. We refinished the floors to their original stain which was much lighter. We added window treatments by WovnHome which is my current obsession, I love how much more elevated they make all the rooms look and they are such an easy update. We painted the walls in the house with Portola Paints which brightened up the feel. We changed out all the light fixtures to be Rose Uniacke and Allied Maker, and I think the lights are some of the best upgrades we made to the house, since they fit perfectly with the old world vibe but are new and so special.

Describe the overall style of your home…

The bones of the house are very much a fairytale cottage. I think the structural elements like the stone walls, the brick fireplaces in the living room and dining room, and the pitched ceilings with beautiful beam work are some of the highlights and set the tone for a very peaceful and magical vibe. With our updates I think the house has a bit more of a modern feel, but still so vintage and charming in aesthetic. We used mostly Jenni Kayne furniture and décor for the interiors and then mixed in a few of my favorite vintage pieces to add dimension to each of the spaces. Generally I would describe the style of the house as vintage inspired, romantic but comfortable.

Where did you find inspiration when designing and styling your home?

I truly go to Jenni Kayne herself for all style advice in life, and home is no exception. She helped lead the way by suggesting paint colors, setting the floor plan and choosing furniture. I’m constantly inspired by every space Jenni designs so I mostly look at her homes or past interiors projects when making my choices since I know I can always find the best version of everything I ever want by referencing her work. Pinterest of course makes it so easy to search for specific references, like for our entryway I found images there that helped set the tone for the design and color palette.

What’s your favorite thing about where you live?

I think the magical feeling of everything about where we live is the best part. Coming home to our neighbourhood where there are trees everywhere and it feels like you’re moving into a new place, and then coming home to our old stone cottage is a similar feeling where we’re going into a place with roots and history that is different than the other modern parts of LA. It’s the general vibe of the whole thing and how it all comes together that is my favorite part.

Can you tell us about your favorite space in your home?

There’s a lot I love about our home but I think my favorite part is our master bedroom and how it connects to our backyard. We spend a lot of time snuggling as a family in there since my toddler still climbs into bed with us in the middle of the night, and it’s such a cozy place for us to be together to watch a show or read a book, and it has an outdoor feel because the doors all open out to our beautiful backyard with oak trees and greenery everywhere. It feels peaceful and inspiring in our room and I’m so happy with how it turned out.

What’s your next project or purchase for your home?

There are so many things I’d love to do to make the space work better for our family long term. I would love to expand out the kitchen and knock down the garage so we can add square footage to create a couple of extra bedrooms and bathrooms since the kids rooms are still a bit of an eyesore (and not pictured on purpose!) Overall I think we will want to update some of the guts of the house like the electrical and the plumbing, and sadly it needs a new roof too, so there’s some not so fun stuff we need to do as well, but those projects always feel good when they’re finished since they make the home somewhere we can be for longer. Lots of fun things to daydream about for the backyard too.

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