Robin Kidd has been renovating and remodeling houses for 30 years, and when a single-owner home from the 1960s came on the market, it was a project she couldn’t pass up.
While most people run from a fixer-upper featuring a front lawn overgrown with nearly knee-deep poison ivy, Robin Kidd was not intimidated. In fact, she was rather excited to find a California cottage gem that simply needed a good shine. “I actually prefer homes, such as this, which is a one-owner house that had never been renovated,” Robin says. And although nothing had been done to the property since it was built in 1961, the house had great bones. “Tall ceilings, a beautiful view out the back, very open rooms that flowed easily, and everything is accessible by windows or doors to the outside,” Robin says. “I really like a house that brings the outside to the inside.”
After four years in the home, the Kidds have created a place for family and entertaining that reflects both their past and present. Growing up, Robin spent nine years living near Santa Barbara, California, which she admits definitely influenced her decorating style. The living room’s Hollywood Regency style is anchored around the curved sofa. “That [sofa] was the start,” Robin says. “I already had it, and I thought the shape of it would be great for this living room.” Combined with a collection of antique furnishings from family, an Art Deco mirrored chest, and an assortment of both modern and Old-World paintings, Robin’s eclectic tastes bring a hint of California cottage style to their Southern abode.
Between the living and dining room is a brick-floor breezeway of a room that the original owners had used as a sunroom. “I thought it was an awkward transition,” Robin says. “I really had to think about why is this room here between your kitchen, entrance hall, and living spaces,” she says. By converting the sunroom into what the Kidds call the “bar room,” it becomes a very practical and highly used space for both living and entertaining. With windows and French doors that open to the terrace, Robin decided to “make it sort of a ‘clubby’ room, which makes for a very natural transition to walk through to the other spaces where you’re going to sit.”
In the dining room, Robin says she was tired of the traditional look and was ready to try something new. “I told my husband, ‘This dining room is looking too much like everybody’s dining room with the English sideboard, table, and chandelier.’ So I told him I knew what I was going to do to make this room pop,” Robin says. That’s when she incorporated the pink patent leather dining chairs and table they had inherited from their Aunt Eleanor Kidd, who was well known in the community for her passion for pink.
“I told my husband we were bringing those pink chairs in. They’re too special,” Robin says. On a mission to bring a fresh new energy into such a classic space, she also added a metallic wallpaper and bold prints. “I just wanted it to look like a fun room, a room where you wouldn’t fall asleep at the dining room table,” Robin says. “We now eat there every night because we realized we really enjoy sitting at that table.”
With a home full of unique antiques and treasured family heirlooms, it can be easy to follow a traditional design scheme and use or style things the way they’ve always been done. But Robin is an advocate for keeping those special pieces and using them in a way that feels more modern and personal. “Sometimes I think you can be more creative when you can’t go out and buy a whole new room,” Robin says. “I think that you have a lot more than you think you do, and that’s where it evolves. Now I just get accessories that I feel will enhance what we already have, make it more current, and reflect who we are.”