LA Bungalow Prioritizes Collected Feel Over Decoration

This Los Angeles bungalow, originally built for Vital Studios, sits in the Larchmont Village neighborhood where designer Raychel Wade says the area has held onto its character in a way that feels increasingly rare. While many neighborhoods in the city have been flipped and flattened into the same beige versions of themselves, this pocket of LA has maintained its charm and architecture with tree-lined streets and original details intact.

The homeowner is a screenwriter with a distinct vision for her first home. She describes her taste as a “someone from the folk music community in the 1960s time traveled to live between the Hamptons and a Nancy Meyers film set.” The goal was to make the space feel lived in and layered, avoiding the feeling of being “too precious” while incorporating a beachy sensibility rooted in Los Angeles and her East Coast roots.

“As soon as I heard her point of view, it all came together quickly,” Raychel Wade says. Her scope included furnishing every room in the home, along with some outdoor spaces, while incorporating the homeowner’s existing art collection and personal belongings. The objective was to help the first home the client had purchased feel distinctly her own.

Curated Comfort

One of Raychel’s signatures proved especially well suited to the bungalow: what her team affectionately calls the “Conversation Corner.” It is a room with no TV placed just for the adults to relax and have a glass of wine. Because this is a bungalow, the room itself is fairly small, so they sourced two chairs from Nickey Kehoe upholstered in a Michael Smith fabric, which gave the space some breathing room.

They added wallpaper, hung soft sheer linen drapery, and brought in a navy sofa with contrasting piping to lend the room a youthful energy. The team layered in pattern with vintage side tables for a bit of funk.

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In the dining room, they repurposed the homeowner’s existing table and refreshed the space with a vintage rattan pendant, a pair of flower-shaped orbital surface mounts from Urban Electric, and new dining chairs. The guest bedroom leans playful with a rattan parrot floor lamp, plenty of pattern, warm striped drapery layered over soft sheer linen, and a graphic checkered rug from Salam Hello. The walls remain neutral, offering a quieter, moodier place to retreat to compared to the busier rest of the house.

The primary bedroom is the pièce de résistance. This space was an addition to the house, built by architect Rudin Donner Design, Inc., before they came on board to bring the space to life. They had custom nightstands from James Showroom made with playful little hoofed feet and love how the room’s ikat striped wallpaper and matching Roman shade play against the rich floral fabric on the bed.

However, the real magic of this room is how it opens up. Giant sliding doors lead directly out to a landscaped backyard shaded by towering pepper trees. It creates that effortless indoor-outdoor living that feels so aspirational and so quintessentially LA.

Wade wanted the house to feel collected and lived in, never overly decorated. Her client’s personal belongings sit right alongside the pattern, texture, and vintage pieces they brought in. Every room has its own distinct palette and personality, but the house still feels completely cohesive. It is difficult to tell what is old and what is new, what was already hers and what they found for her, which is exactly what they wanted.