In LA, 50s garage becomes ideal backyard home with precise built-ins

Wash. Hello. Hi. Oh good. So this was a garage? It was. The front part was just a one car garage. Just a little shack of a garage. 100 year old little shack. You can sort of barely walk into it. It was kind of near falling down. Yeah. Okay. So you decided you could make this into a home? Yes. So you see here this was the old garage door. Oh well the whole thing. The whole thing was the garage door. Because this was actually the garage. You didn't tear anything down. We didn't. We didn't tear the garage down. Yep. Okay. Oh cool. It's like hidden. So you think you're just got a garage. You actually have a home. Yep. A home. Was that the idea or? Yeah. A building that can serve many different functions and different stages of life. Even the door's fun. And just a way to bring light in from every side but also have privacy. So you had to be careful about keeping privacy for the main home. Yeah. And also just wanted it to be a little bit stealthy from the street. So it still feels like it could be a garage back here. Yeah. Yep. And then to the left is the bathroom and the skylight and then there's a clerestory window. So because back here it's quite dark with the garage door still being a garage door. Yeah. And also the garage was built so close to the side yard such that we couldn't put a ceiling. And then behind you we have a little little window to the little Japanese garden. Yeah. So now that we're in here. So this is a whole different thing. I mean this is not a garage anymore. No. Big ceiling. Not anymore. No. Because a garage would not have been the type. No. It was just a one-car garage so. And Walsh is one of those people that has about a thousand friends. Can I have a drink? Yeah. Can you do espresso martinis? I think. Yeah. No. That's. So he has great parties with tons of people. And one thing that you don't want in a party where there are a lot of people are dead ends. There are no dead ends. It's like the human habitual thing going on. That's part of the idea. I like the slope of the ceiling. Is there a reason it slopes? Ah yeah. So one thing is the condo that's next door. And one of the goals when building this was Walsh would have these wonderful garden parties. Yeah. And then eventually they built this condo and and I don't know we always felt like people could look into the garden now. So part of the idea we built this new building was that all the focus would be out to the garden and when you're in the garden now it has this height so it blocks view of the condo. So it sort of brought back the private garden. Yeah. It really is lush out there. And you also don't have any windows over there. At least here not to open it up. No. Yeah. We have a the line of the glass the clerestory windows but you they let in the light but you don't look out them. That's why they're tucked in here. That's why they're tucked in there. Yes. Do you want to see how this works? Oh yeah. So it's just you have it on a track. Yeah. It's just on a drawer slide. Oh yeah. You see it there. We worked with this great German woodworker named Stefan Roggenbach. That's the thing about an ADU. You can really just push something. Right. It's okay to experiment. Yeah. We wanted to build a plywood house. Wow. Look at this. So you see this lineup of window. Yep. And on the summer solstice the light shines from there through there and all the way through there. A direct shot. So it's their solstice window. It is. Yeah. And it totally works. So they're just done for one day of the year. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. It does feel like an eclipse or something. Right. With a coming across. Is it good with that close do you think? Sure. And over the years Walsh has so often brought up Stonehenge. And I think I don't know why. I think maybe because he grew up in England. This here is like a diner booth. Right. It is. Yes. And when we did the work on the main house there was sort of a hundred year old version of this. We said we have to build a new one. The storage as well. Oh there it is storage. Yep. Both of them. It has this diner feel to it. Diner slash like camper van. Yeah. We did talk a little bit about the Airstream interiors because they're all plywood and gingham. Yep. Yeah. Part of the thing was we wanted to build something that you wouldn't have to buy anything. So Christian hasn't had to buy any furniture. These chairs are very memorable. I actually I'm not super happy with them. I'm not happier with the sofa. And it's very comfortable I will say. Right but you don't know when you're designing a sofa. Yeah well we did some mock-ups. Christian mock-ups. Yep. And then that's a drop-down screen. So this is like a real screening room. So again part of the multi-functional thing. Would you guys be up for showing how the screen works? Christian can do it. I'm the cheerleader. All right. The other part of this house is it's so dynamic and playful that you actually can play with it as if like it's a little bit of a not a toy but there's so many elements about it that make it like more fun and dynamic. Close the moon door or the eclipse door. Honestly you should promote the Teletubbies. All right. You make movies or? I made a short film but this is kind of like the concept creator. So you were making this as you live here? Yeah yeah yeah I mean like I wrote the film here. Like this is like a great place to write and then I had meetings with my editors and stuff like that. The vibe of everything around here just kind of inspires you to create stuff. Every night I can I can watch a movie like it's a like a like being in a movie theater. And usually for somebody who loves film in the capital of filmmaking it's sort of a little bit of a dream come true right. Even talking to Wash because Wash is a celebrated director. He's made some great films. Did you ever use this for writing or I mean is that initially what it was? Well yeah the thought was it was sort of a creative space that could also be a guest house that could also be a friend to come and live. So that's in the end what happened. Your friends? Yeah. I mean now but we were before. We were before. So it kind of worked out like I was living in the front. Christine was living in the back. And we sort of had friends come by and it just was indoor outdoor living and just a lot of cool things. And so yeah. And the idea was to have it as a space for creating? Yes really yeah. And a screening room. A little home cinema. You still create here right? Yeah. Yeah because sometimes when I leave or whatever he comes over. Yeah do some writing. I have that little den and this is like a great place to write. Yeah I sit here like and I put like my computer out. Usually have it here like have some meetings and stuff. And you can even have meetings here. Yeah. People come by. I mean sometimes I get like a little bit like maybe over there or like in my bed and stuff like that. You don't have any of your own furniture in here? It's really all built in? Yeah pretty much. Now everything is built in yeah. And the other thing is that you don't have to really over decorate it because the art is the wood. Yeah so this is a nice like functional kitchen. Like you see I love the the exhaust. This seems like invisible. Yeah I'm afraid it disappears. See actually it does disappear. Like if you see it from here it kind of like feels like like it kind of goes into the sort of infinite. So it becomes a little invisible. I like this sort of like hidden little things like that. Which actually is also very functional right? Very functional yeah. Because you can get to everything. All the spices that. Yeah you can also do the same thing here with this thing right here. It's great. I mean I'm not much of a wine drinker but there's a wine rack right here. Built-in. Everything's built in. Yeah everything's kind of hidden in here. And the handles. Handles. Like this is kind of fun too. Like if you you want to get some coffee you can move this around. You saw that? Do you use it? Do you move it? Yeah yeah sometimes like when I stay in bed like you can actually just put your drink right here. Right right there. Yeah this door is kind of fun. And then usually you see critters over there. Yeah this is a little dog hide door or cat hide door. So it's for an animal or just to. No just like if there's a little dog outside you see the cat. You see like sometimes a skunk. It's just a little bathroom. I drew that. I drew this too. So you're an artist? A filmmaker? You're a bunch of. Yeah I was doing a lot of things. Privacy from the apartments. Nobody can see anything. No because it's tucked in right? I mean I just saw a skunk coming. No no it's just behind that bush there. That's really a skunk right? Where's the skunk? Oh there's a skunk right there. Are you scared of skunks? I'm scared. This house is so dynamic and playful because it has like these elements of this flow that that goes with the house right. So it has also the function of many things. It's a movie theater else it's a living room. Also it's a space of creativity and and also a dining room and it looks like a boat and it's just sort of like a lot of different elements. And there's sort of like these geometrical sides of that that actually are fun too. Like there's a lot of circular and angular geometrical things about it. I don't like to own too many things. I don't like to have like a lot of things I don't need you know. In a way this kind of reminds me about being attached to just sort of the elements around it right. Like nature and things like that and creativity and all the things that I feel are essential. And because you're like right there next to a busy street and it's just a busy freeway down the street or whatever but then you don't really feel and that's just a real luxury I think. And you can see these big windows that also like allow you to to have like a wider scope of things you know. You're just doing a lot of things just staring like at the nature or a creature or that inspires you to create as well right. Do you feel like it's changed how you live? I got into my 40s here. It made me get a little bit more patience I guess. Like a little bit less of an accelerated life because like before I lived here I was constantly moving over and doing this and this and this and this and this and over here kind of felt like I gave my myself some time to to process and things were happening with the time of this space. Yeah I think the peacefulness of your space is really important because sometimes it can be an obstacle to your own well-being to have clutter or to have mess and things like that right. So I like the way this place makes me feel present right. Yeah it's my cat right here.