Name: Tim Lewis & Sara Castillo (and our 2cats: Octavius &Pinkie)
Location: South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Size: 2,100 square feet — 4 bedrooms
Years lived in: 5
We've previously talked about Tim Lewis' handcrafted abilities as a furniture designer and builder. From the looks of his house &mdash he can make a lot more than just a great piece of furniture. Tim and Sara's South Philly Setup is a renovation in progress &mdash and they're doing all of the work themselves.
We can't imagine what the South Philadelphia home of Tim and Sara looked like before they got their artistic hands on it, because the progress they have made thus far is pretty impressive. Tim is a furniture designer and builder and Sara is an entertainment blogger. Their differing styles have come together and the result is imaginative and artfully reworked.
The home is made up of three floors: the first floor where the living room, dining room, kitchen and pantry are located. The second floor is still under renovation and is where the first bathroom is, as well as bedrooms. The third floor features the second bathroom, a door to the deck, a work studio as well as their bedroom. Interestingly enough, the third floor was originally an in-law suite &mdash complete with a kitchen. Tim and Sara removed all but the sink and converted it into a studio and made the adjacent bedroom their own.
The South Philly home is eclectic, old world and unique. The variance of simply structured store bought couches, furniture hand made and designed by Tim Lewis and the vintage vibe from the kitchen is inspirational to say the least. We love when eclectic and time bending design turns out with great success. It's not the easiest look to pull off because it's so easy to cross a line on either side and end up lost. We're thinking that the pieces Tim designed and made are good anchors to help blend old and new. A few of his pieces are reinterpretations of previous designs &mdash old school aluminum lawn chair meets maple.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My/Our style: Sara likes gold, Tim likes wood and we meet in the middle.
Inspiration: We don't have one large point of inspiration for the house. At times it seems more like a challenge - how do we fit the things we love together? We are trying to bring the house back to what (we think) its former glory might have been. If you ask Sara, she'll say her inspiration is Pee Wee's Playhouse meets a South Philly Versailles.
Favorite Element: Tim&mdash The kitchen pantry area, but probably because it's the newest. Sara&mdash The gold plaster crown molding.
Biggest Challenge: We have a varied aesthetic, so it can be a challenge to fit the things we love together into a cohesive look.
What Friends Say: "Do you punch each other through the saloon doors?"
Biggest Embarrassment: The room of shame, aka, the cat room (on the second floor). We don't even have electricity in there yet.
Proudest DIY: Tim &mdash Most of our house is DIY, so it's hard to narrow it down. But, taking the time to build good cabinetry for the kitchen and pantry has been great, now everything has a place. Sara &mdash I love the lighting that Tim made in the pantry.
Biggest Indulgence: We don't spend a lot on our furnishings. In fact, we just bought our first retail couch. But our one indulgence was probably the chandelier in our living room. We found it on eBay from a salvage company.
Best advice: If you plan on doing all the renovations yourself, buy smaller!
Dream source: Sara &mdash Walnut wallpaper in LA. They have a great array of designers and the patterns are lovely. Tim &mdash Any phone book sized industrial supply catalog like MSC Ind. and Outwater. Also, New England Demolition and Salvage and grandbrass.com.
Resources of Note:
Furniture: Enameled dining table, mahogany dentist cabinet, upholstered furniture from Urban Outfitters, various inherited furniture, everything else made by Tim Lewis.
Appliances: Vintage GE refrigerator, vintage Caloric stove, Sears scratch and dent.
Hardware: Kitchen pull- kitchen pulls cast by Naomi Cleary, she's a local ceramist and good friend. Door knobs, towel racks from salvage yard.
Accessories: wallpaper via eBay.
Lighting: Some Tim, some eBay, some IKEA, and some original to house.
Tiles & Stone: Ann Sacks backsplash in kitchen.
Flooring: Original heart pine floors. In the Kitchen/pantry: Jatoba.
Window Treatments: Mostly Ikea and home made.
Artwork: Tim and Sara, Tom Sanford, Beth Uzwiak, Zoe Strauss, John Freeborn, Eric Steinberg, as well as random found and left.
Thanks, Tim & Sara!
Images: Kristen Lubbe
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Great tour. So much personality!
Very cool house tour. I'm LOVING that green wallpaper. I'm actually loving all of it, the whole quirky/traditional/funky mix.
By the way, weren't some of these wall colors banned by AT (I mean, Marcia)?
Wow you guys did a great job. There's just a ton of personality and it looks so cozy and inviting. I love all the eclectic pairings. Nice!
I was wondering how wide the front room in your house is? My husband and I just purchased a row home in Maryland and there's no foyer, so you just walk right into the living room. We hate that! We're trying to decide whether it's worth building a foyer kind of like you have, but we're afraid it will make the room look too narrow. Your's looks great though, so maybe it might work.
What an adorable kitchen! Nice photos, Kristen.
I love that first photo. It's got just about every color in it, and it works anyway.
I'm loving the whale. I had a look on your website but I couldn't see anything like it for sell. You should sell them as it's beautiful.
Fantastic house!! The kitchen, in particular, is scrumptious. I can't tell whether you painted or stained the cabinets. They're such a marvelous, non-glossy blue with a bit of texture. I love the beadboard on the underside of the soffit, to make it less soffit-y.
And look, sky blue paint!
This is one of my favorite house tours in a long time!
What an original vision -- I love seeing how two design sensibilities come together in a home. Great kitchen.
this house tour makes me want to move back to the east coast. love it!
Gorgeous home!
and i thought the same thing...for it being a "banned color on AT" - there sure is a lot of sky blue in this house! :)
It's lovely.
I have to ask, how are the UO couch and chair holding up? I have had my eye on the chair but everything I read online is really negative about the quality. For the price I know I shouldn't expect much--just wanted to hear about it from someone who owns one.
House is beautiful--everything comes together really nicely.
Totally awesome!!! Very much my style. My favorite part is the workstation/drafting table and that lamp.
Tim, your work is beautiful. Which begs the question-- WHY IN HELL would a talented man such as yourself purchase the shittiest quality available in furniture??? Urban outfitters furniture is awful. The upholstery is cheap and saggy, the wood is rickety and I can guarantee your couch is going to look like crap in a year "/
Hooray for South Philly house tours! Your house is so lovely -- I'm jealous of your stained glass transoms. My (pink and black tiled) vestibule is missing its inner transom -- so I think we're going to have one made at some point. Mine is a two-story, but a very similar layout. I've been toying with the idea of sky blue cabinets in the kitchen, and I love yours. This house is an inspiration. Congratulations on all the work you've put into it!
I love the kitchen! The blue and red work so well together.
Love this house and your aesthetic; it's so distinctively Philly to me. Tim, your furniture design and architectural sculptures are great; I do believe I'll be emailing for price info!
I need that whale.
Sky blue is banned from AT?
DELICIOUS. You may be my decorating soulmates. My love for your aesthetic is bordering on creepy.
That WALLPAPER.
We have the same tea towels, wallclock and bathroom floor tile, but you have such panache! I love your coffee table, your record shelves! And those stained glass transoms are an inspiration.
there is nothing i don't love.
Love it!! Every room is awesome. So much color - I really love red and blue together.
it's stunning!
where oh where is your shower curtain from? Have been looking for a new one for a while but not seen any I actually like, only ones that are OK - but yours is awesome
I heart your kitchen! It's so bright and... sweet! It made me smile. :)
Sky blue for the win!
I'll try to answer some of the questions in the comments, so here we go.
Our house is 15' wide so the foyer takes up about 40" in width and is about 48" deep, it doesn't make the room too small but our living room is very large and that helps a lot.
The color on the cabinets is a custom mix of milk paint with lacquer on it. Milk paint can be a tedious finish but any skilled woodworker should have no problem.
The UO couch and chair we got a really good deal on. I figured it couldn't be any worse than an Ikea couch; I was wrong. The chair however is pretty good. I did have to cut a couple inches off the legs of both of them, I'm six feet tall and they were too high for me.
I forget where the shower curtain is from but maybe Sara can chime in on that later.
Thanks for all the positive feedback.
Me too...I want that whale!
Way cool!
Tim and Sara - I love love love your home! What a sense of color you have and I love that wood dresser thingy with the slim drawers... what is it and where did you find it?
Thanks for sharing your house with the AT community!
www.mydesigndreams.com
love seeing a real home on AT. soo jealous of the sink in your studio, too. :)
Great use of color.
Thanks for answering my width question! I appreciate it.
I LOVE your kitchen. Also the finial at the end of the stair banister - was that original to the house? So many great architectural details, like the stained glass transoms.
That wallpaper is perfect! Nice mix of styles.
Plus your studio makes me envious!
I forgot to ask, what is the inset grid for in the top of the coffee table? Couldn't tell from the photos.
The light in the newel post is not original, I rebuilt the the railing along that staircase because it was the only one in the house that was not original. I built it to match the rest and decided to build a post with a light at that time.
Also the stained glass is not original, my aunt can be a bit of a collector, she had the glass around for a few years and asked if we wanted it.
The grid in the coffee table is a magazine rack.
The cabinet in the living room with all the shallow drawers is an old dental cabinet that I got for 100 bucks from another woodworker who never got around to refinishing it. It needed a little work, but not too much. I have a different one in my shop. I don't know how I've come across two of those in my life, but they are great.
Beautiful home! I love seeing places like this that aren't too much of any one style, but seem to come together naturally and look great anyway. It is much more "real" and beautiful to me than places that are all one specific style and era, which can look overdone. I also love the mixing of colors, the oriental rugs, the plants, the wallpaper, and all the blue. It is so cool that you have so much furniture that you handmade - how unique. The bench by the stairs is my personal favorite. Also those record shelves are great - it is so hard to find good storage for records. Hope you are enjoying your lovely home!
Wow! Great to see such a lovely home in my neighborhood! So much to love here!
serious transom envy!
where to start when everything is so...original...and downright awesome...love the molding, love the ceilings, love that very funky molding on the stairway, jealous of that dental cabinet find...and i would never have thought those colors and so much blue would work out but it's funky/quirky/i want to live there. well done. wishing you a replacement couch that's more cozy but fits your style and the room. oh, and i'll repeat the compliments on the green wallpaper and stained glass...it all screams we're awesome, we're cozy here. classy, funky, perfect.
i'm in love with your kitchen!
What's the blue color on the walls? (where did you get the paint and what color name is it?) Thanks!
What a happy, charming house! All your work has paid off!
I think this further justifies that Philadelphia needs a tab at the top of the page between New York and LA! Great place!
Go Go Philly! My neighborhood too.
That kitchen is AWESOME.
The red, white and blue theme is very subtle but very effective. It ties the eclectic mish-mash together but doesn't hit you over the head with it. Very cool... I like the way everything is thoughtfully placed, not just stuck anywhere. Good job!! :)
I don't like the blue theme for Philly, altho it might be great in Southern Cal. Lots of rainy days in Philly, and I would want something lots sunnier, especially i n a row house, where windows are in short supply. I would also want some strong horizontal lines, which I think are the key to row house erstoration and decoration. In South Philly, which has such roots in the Italian (and my) community, I would establish a Neapolitan theme, with some Italian modern mixed with some Louis VI Neapolitan version - the fluted leg. I would go light on the furniture woods and neutral on the upholstery. I would use tile which suggests Italy, likewise the dishes. I would use a rug with an oval medallion, since the house has too much rectangular geometry. I would lighten up the floors to a pearwood shade.
anyone have the color/source of the blue cabinets in the kitchen???? i LOVE it