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The Small DIYs The Transformed My LA Bungalow’s Kitchen

Photography by Sara Tramp I’ve had sort of a complicated relationship to my cute little LA Bungalow. On the one hand, I love this house and am so glad I found it. On the other, it’s been a BIG task trying to keep up with the expenses and logistics of two houses. I feel a little bit like I’m in a Catch 22 with my living situation – it feels like whatever I do to solve my problems (mainly financial anxiety) will result in something terrible. When I look at myself from an outside perspective, which I often have to…

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Holiday Styling at Bungalowlando

Photography By Sara Tramp If you’ve been following me all year on social media, you know it’s been a BUSY year. The past few months have been a little overwhelming but overall it’s been a productive year. I’ve reclaimed my physical health (so far I’ve lost about 40 of the 50 pounds I gained in 2020) after going through a similar health slump many people went through in the pandemic. And I finally got both Londo Lodge and my LA Bungalow to a place where they feel livable (ie NOT a construction zone where it’s impossible to relax). It wasn’t…

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Bungalowlando’s Living Room is Ready for Fall!

Ah, where to begin with the Great Bungle of Bungalowlando. If you’ll remember, I decided to rent this small home in June 2021 when it *seemed* like the financial tumult of the past year was over. Momentum was gathering, more and more work was pouring in, and in the month of May, I’d booked $250,000 worth of guaranteed partnerships (contracts signed) to be completed before autumn 2021. I have no idea why I had the optimism I did, I think like all of us I just keep expecting “all of this” (whatever that means) to be over soon. And while…

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Londo Lodge: Phase One Done in The Kitchen and Dining Room!

Professional Photography by Sara Tramp | Additional Photography by Orlando Soria HOUSE POOR I hit a major wall this summer. I got really sick of Londo Lodge. Being there felt inherently stressful, overwhelming, and generally just incredibly heavy. The never-ending application process for my permit to rent it out on Airbnb dragged on for months and continued to get more expensive. I think I’ve spent about $8K just on application, inspection, and certification fees on top of everything I’ve had to spend to get this place up to current code. At a certain point, pretty early on in the time…

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What’s New at Londo Lodge

Photography by Sara Tramp Sometimes when you step back from something and get a better view, you can see progress more fully than you can when you’re up close and personal, in the trenches of a major project. That’s how it’s been with Londo Lodge. I’ve been so busy doing projects there to get it “photo ready” that it’s been hard to see the huge amount of progress I’ve made. I bought the house in September 2020, moved in in October 2020, and lived there pretty much full time until June 2022, at which point I made an effort to…

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Satie’s Sunbrella Sanctuary: Rehabbing the Neglected Yard at My LA Bungalow

Photography by Sara Tramp At long last my LA backyard is ready for summer hangs! Just in time for me to leave town forever! Mere seconds after we shot this space I had to leave for Londo Lodge to finish things up for renting it out and complete Phase I (before I tear it all up again to get started on Phase II and the kitchen). I’ve been gone for over a month, hoping to get back to LA at some point so I can finish setting up my place there and get a much-needed break from the constant DIY…

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My Picks from AllModern’s Spring Lookbook

2022 is getting off to a designed-centered start at both Londo Lodge and my LA Bungalow. Gonna be honest, I get the most satisfaction from sharing FINISHED projects so the past few months have been a challenge. Londo Lodge is currently a mess with wood flooring piled all over the place, the baseboards ripped out, and furniture crammed into every corner as the beautiful wide-plank wood goes in room by room. Meanwhile, Bungalowlando (my LA place) is in a similar state of flux. Because of how busy the end of last year was and how much time I spent at…

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A Covid Comedy of Errors

The Backstory People who have been following me for a while will recognize a pattern to which my life has conformed. Something throws me off my game, I go through a period of travail, and then at some point the work pays off and I am rebooted. This has happened over and over, so much so that I started to feel self-conscious about it, wondering if I’m starting to sound like a broken record. Is there something wrong with me that my life has had this many ups and downs? My first fall was when I went through my first…

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Welcome to Christmas at Londo Lodge!

Photography by Sara Tramp I started decorating my house for Christmas before Halloween. And I’m still not totally done! I’ve been all over the place, in LA, then at my parents’ for Thanksgiving, then back to LA for the past three weeks. I decided to not even bother decorating my LA place for the holidays because I went so overboard at Londo Lodge (also, I’m spending most of December up at the lodge so decorating LA didn’t make much sense). The only thing left to do at Londo Lodge is the outdoor lights, which I didn’t have time to install…

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Quick & Easy Updates for Londo Lodge’s Downstairs Bathroom

Photography by Sara Tramp and Orlando Soria When I moved into Londo Lodge last year, I pretty much took one look at the bathrooms and wrote them off as a lost cause. There are many positive things about the bathrooms, first and foremost that there are four of them. Well, 3.5 (one of them is just a toilet and a sink). Another positive about the bathrooms is the beautiful wood tone on the cabinets. The people who designed and built this house had very good taste in wood tones, they used really nice light toned wood throughout the house, most…

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The LAX Shooting, Eight Years Later

[This post is centered on the recent LAX shooting incident. If you don’t know that story check out the LA Times Coverage] Dear Reader, I had a weird experience a two weeks ago. I showed up at LAX, for my flight to New York. I was a bit late. It turns out I’m getting increasingly bad at showing up sufficiently early to the airport. Like I show up just in time to run through security and run directly onto the plane after my boarding group has been called and I’m sweating and annoyed because I’m dressed simultaneously for New York and…

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Help Save My Town’s Post Office!

IMPORTANT UPDATE! Thanks to a wonderful local computer wizard named Jen, you can now link directly to the form, fill it out online, and send it to: Fish Camp Post Office | 7733 Fish Camp Lane | Fish Camp, CA 93623 FIND THE FORM HERE The PDF automatically calculates your total and allows you to request specific stamps in the notes area (if you don’t specify which stamps you want you may get a call from our Postmaster, Dina). There are many charming things about the small town I’ve called home for the past year. And the Post Office is…

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Londo Lodge Primary Bedroom: Oops I Redid It Again!

From a very young age, I’ve always experimented with the design of my living space. I started decorating my room with the help of my mom around age seven. My first bedroom design featured lavender walls (HI I’M GAY!), Mickey Mouse curtains sewn by orMOMdo, and Mickey Mouse comforters in bold red and yellow. It was definitely NOT understated. I even painted my bathroom myself when I was pretty young (I think seven or eight) so primping my surroundings is something that is innate to my personality. Thus, it’s been a dream of mine for quite a while to buy…

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Londo Lodge’s Bright & Colorful Gym Reveal

Note: This post discusses weight gain and loss, body image, and other diet/fitness related issues so if you’re someone who is negatively affected by reading this type of content just look at the photos or skip altogether. I woke up on January first to a tremendous feeling of relief. I realize that the year changing over to 2021 isn’t going to immediately solve our problems (as is evidenced by the fact that it’s only been a few weeks and we’ve already had a group of domestic terrorists try to overturn our legitimate election, literally threatening democracy in the process) but…

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Mixing High & Low in a Londo Lodge Guest Bedroom

Hark! At short last! The guest bedroom I designed for my parents at Londo Lodge is done! You can read more about the ins and outs of what I did and why over on Emily’s blog, but here I’m gonna concentrate on how I mixed high and low to quickly transform this space. My goal for this first round of rapid makeovers is A) Not to spend too much money – I’m still financially recuperating for having to put a ton of money down to get the house in the first place, B) To renovate in a way that makes…

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Londo Lodge: Planning orMOMdo + orlanDAD’s Guest Bedroom

Things at Londo Lodge have been simultaneously serene and chaotic. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I feel really at peace here while also feeling completely overwhelmed by my daily life. Living here has definitely come with a learning curve and taken some getting used to. I like all the chores involved: tending the fire, cleaning out the ashes, splitting and stacking wood, dealing with the trash and getting rid of construction rubbish, cleaning up the house after every single project I do, figuring out shopping and laundry and bills meanwhile trying to juggle a number of…

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Londo Lodge: Planning The Gym

I’ve been at Londo Lodge officially for a month now and, slowly, I’m getting settled in. Move-in has been a little more involved than I anticipated. This is my first house so I had no idea what to expect. I think part of me just imagined moving in and magically beginning renovations immediately. I had no idea I’d have to repair the septic system before I could use the water, repair the heating system before I could get the heat to turn on (it’s been getting down into the twenties at night here), replace the washer and dryer before I…

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I Bought a House!

I had gotten to the point where I thought it was never going to happen. For us Californians, especially those of us living in large cities, buying a house can seem like an absolute impossibility. In cities like Los Angeles, your typical charming bungalow runs at least a million dollars. And even the humble towns around where I grew up, where homes were probably in the 200K range when I left in 2000, a decent house in need of repair is around $600,000. Add to that the fact that I am a freelancer, single, and have lived through the two…

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Starting Over (Again)

Something I’ve discovered about myself over the years is that if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s reinventing myself. Not really in the sense that my personality changes – I’ve kind of been the same person since I was 14 – but creatively and professionally. So it’s not surprising to me that over the last few months as the entire world has had to press the reset button, I’ve been able adapt to the changes around me. Just a little over three years ago, my life fell apart. My long-term boyfriend dumped me a few weeks before I lost…

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A Midsummer Styling Update with Amazon Home

Photography by Zeke Ruelas People think that once I’ve finished designing a home my work there is done. But something many clients don’t anticipate is that over time their home’s styling can fall off. Accessories get moved, things break, people give stuff away. Unless you live in a museum where no one touches anything, it’s likely that you home needs some styling help from time to time. I tend to do this seasonally, as there are items and accessories I like seeing at some times during the year (such as earthy, seasonal leaves in autumn) that I don’t want to…

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What It Feels Like to Get Your Own TV Show

Something insanely exciting is happening this week. I’m getting my own TV show! Unspouse My House airs this Thursday, June 6th on HGTV! This is something I’ve worked toward my whole life, without really knowing I was doing so. I’ve had a wild, winding career that was at most times scrappy and trying, at rare times glamorous and rewarding. And now I’m on the precipice of this huge benchmark. The number one question I’m getting from friends right now is “Are you excited!?!” And the answer is absolutely YES. But the pre-show emotional journey has been a lot more complicated…

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Decluttering Responsibly In Honor of Earth Month

When I turned 18 and was getting ready to head to college, I did something extreme. I went through my childhood bedroom, put almost everything I owned in garbage bags, and hauled it down the street to a dumpster. I did this for a few reasons. First, because high school was terrible and I was ready to say goodbye. Second, because I have had a life long fear of clutter and disorderliness. The only thing I regret getting rid of that day is my childhood Teddy bear, Tofy (named after Tofu). I do, however, massively regret how I got rid…

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Ormomdo’s Kitchen is Ready for Her Reveal!

Photography by Zeke Ruelas Dear Diary, Remember that one time like ten million years ago when I told you I was renovating my parents’ kitchen? RAISE YOUR HAND IF IT’S BEEN SO LONG THAT YOU FORGET ABOUT IT. ALSO RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU’RE LIKE “DUH I REMEMBER BUT WHY IS HE HIDING THIS KITCHEN FROM US???” Well, a few reasons. The project began almost two years ago during the holidays when I started showing my parents renderings I’d made of what their kitchen could look like if we expanded it onto a deck previously occupied by an awkward deck….

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Grove x Method Laundry Room Makeover Reveal!

Dear Diary, At long last! My super exciting laundry room makeover with Grove Collaborative and Method Home is ready to share! The family that won our glamorous makeover is Ta’Shiba and Dave Brannon, along with their five EXTREMELY CUTE CHILD MODEL children. They live in San Antonio, Texas, where I’d never been before and which was much more hip and cool than I expected. I’m going to fully break down the makeover, but first, check out the cute video we made of it below: The laundry room in question is a small, windowless space next to their kitchen. It doubles…

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