palm springs: a house visit

 

dear house, 
i love you, but sometimes i see other houses.  
if it helps, they do look quite a lot like you.
xo
karolina

Oh, I am so mean.

Sometimes there are some really nice houses that I just have to visit.  Like this Racquet Club Estates house in Palm Springs where we stayed for a mini-vacation a few weekends back.  And friends, it was very nice indeed.

The house is an Alexander, decorated in what the rental listing calls “organic earthy modern”.  I really liked this concept, very fitting for a modern house in the desert.  The owners had a mix of both vintage midcentury (Cherner chairs!) and new modern furniture, with kilim rugs and a scattering of cute accessories.  A lot of desert neutrals.

I was pretty sick most of the time (somewhat unknowingly too, as in:  that really was a very high fever, not just imagined windburn, or a condition I referred to in my weakened state as “fire face”).  Upside:  the inside of this house was thoroughly photographed!

Clockwise: bathroom cabinet, ocotillo cactus, Trina Turk pillow, pretzel-y Cherner goodness

 

Since our Eichler has serious issues with its original slider cabinets in the kitchen, we’ve been on the lookout for functional sliders.  The ones in the bathrooms of this house looked custom, made of higher end plywood, and they actually slid properly.  Not really what we need for our kitchen, but a definite possibility if we were to replace some of the IKEA cabinets in our master bath.

One thing that I really liked was the polished concrete floor.  So simple and such a great backdrop for the furnishings, crazy art, and rugs.   Filing this idea away for our place.  Our tiles are kind of a snooze compared to the raw awesomeness of the concrete.  It looks modern but also very practical as far as cleaning might go.  (I think our current tiles are secretly designed to store dirt.  Ugh.)

 

Did I do my pedicure to match the rug?  Or was it pure coincidence?  You decide.

And boy, they had some gorgeous kilims throughout the place.  BEHOLD:

 

That teak chest is pretty adorable too.  I wish I had spent more quality time petting it and admiring its wood grain whilst bathed in the lovely soft light that comes with having all your walls painted white.

The spareness of all the rooms was so restful.  Makes me want to throw away all of my THINGS.

 

I’ll end on this silly picture of me trying to capture the essence of this little bedroom.

And I hope my house forgives me for this visit.  I have a work trip this month involving a stay in a bland hotel, which should make up for this.  I am totally sold on renting apartments and houses for vacation now, so it’s going to be tough.

Have you ever rented a house for vacation?  What was it like?

photos: Karolina Buchner
layouts: Pugly Pixel