Tour Mandy Cheng’s Nature-Inspired Los Angeles Home

In the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, organic defines the modus operandi of everyday life—not only in the abundant juice shops and health food stores but in the hilly landscape where houses are tucked among lush palms and cypress trees. So when AD100 designer Mandy Cheng and her husband, architect Rory Reynolds, set out to overhaul one such home as their own, the vistas from the backyard provided a natural point of departure.

“We wanted it to feel like a tree house, or like being under the canopy,” Cheng recalls of the renovation, which began a little more than two years ago and unfolded as a fully hands-on process. Early on, the DIY-savvy couple knocked out the wall separating the enclosed kitchen from the living room, then peeled back the ceiling to reveal the gabled roof. Exposed redwood joists are now complemented by white-oak engineered-hardwood floorboards, a wall of ash cabinets, and the pendant of handwoven date branches that anchors the open-plan space. Reflecting on her unconventional mix of different woods, Cheng says, “In nature, all the different trees look very beautiful together.”

Reynolds installed insulation between the joists to improve the home’s energy efficiency and tiled the kitchen backsplash in zellige, while Cheng painstakingly coated walls with limewash, applying construction techniques she learned as a Hollywood production designer—a former life spent “hauling two-by-fours and sheets of plywood.” Though the couple don’t formally collaborate, both treated the house as a case study for ideas clients might not typically choose, among them forgoing a dining table in favor of a generously sized kitchen island. “I would never propose omitting your dining room,” says Cheng, “but we can work here, and whenever guests come everybody always hangs out in the kitchen.” The guest room offers additional workspace when the custom Murphy bed is tucked into the wall.