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The bold stone continues in the powder bathroom.

There was no question in Natalie Myers’ mind that the saltillo tile floors in her client’s Spanish-style Bel Air home were staying. “I’ve been flipping through a lot of books with photos of celebrities in the 1970s partying in Malibu and the Canyons—almost all the houses had these cool floors with white stucco walls and exposed beam ceilings,” says the designer. “I’m like, this is a party I would want to be at.” The Veneer Designs founder isn’t the only interior pro who felt the same way about the space’s groovy floors. The home had previously been touched by two other interior designers in the past, the latest one being Ginny Macdonald from Emily Henderson Design Studio. 

“When I did a walkthrough with the new owners I could just tell,” recalls Myers. Luckily, everyone had been on the same page about maintaining the original floors. The funky, hexagonal clay pieces set the tone for Myers’ design of the space, and unlike her predecessors she had bigger plans for the rest of the rooms. “No one had ever really been given permission to go all in, but my clients were like, yes, make it flow; make it all cohesive,” she explains. Ahead, she reveals how she put her own stamp on it. 

Given her clients were temporarily staying in a family member’s basement with their two daughters and dog, Myers was on a tight deadline to remodel the kitchen so they could at least move into the house. The cabinet boxes were solid, but the stylized fronts felt behind the times so she swapped them out for flat slab doors and painted everything Berkshire Beige by Benjamin Moore, a pale green-gray that skews olive depending on the time of day.

Then, came the Calacatta Macchia Vecchia marble, “which was just a baller move,” says Myers The only thing she altered layout wise was closing up the overhang seating on the island. “No one was ever going to sit in the middle of the kitchen,” she notes.

“I always like to have a really memorable moment in the powder room,” says the designer. While it’s common to see a statement wall covering, she went in a different direction. On one of their many trips to the stone yard, they picked up a gorgeous piece of Calacatta Viola for the sink. “It’s really the only thing happening in there besides the white toilet,” she notes. And it’s just enough. 

The living room came with an extra bonus: a bar. The set-up was previously functional but it didn’t feel to scale with the rest of the wide-open space so Myers set out to beef it up a touch by wrapping the entire thing in a chunky variety of dolomite aptly named Dolce Vita. Adding the brass shelves that extend up from the countertop also helped make the spot look more substantial. 

Thinking back to the stucco and plaster walls of glamorous L.A. homes circa-1970, Myers sought to introduce plaster finishes to the home with the Julie Neill-designed chandelier in the entryway, the pony wall in the main bathroom, and a textural abstract painting by Art de Avalo that now hangs over the living room sectional. Myers also re-plastered the fireplace in the dining room that was cracking but swathed the base in terrazzo tiles from Concrete Collaborative. That way, in the event the client’s kids step on the ledge, it won’t chip. 

All of the previously dark wood floor boards were lightened to feel more modern. The orange-red doors also got a face-lift but instead of going with the same Scandi-inspired look, Myers had them stained black “so that they looked more appropriate for a Spanish house,” she shares. 

The long and narrow main bathroom, once covered in glass mosaic tile is now a vision of oak wood millwork and zellige. Myers mimicked the gridded look of the vanity detailing on the opposite wall by breaking up the four-by-four tile with thicker two-by-eight pieces.

The only thing she wishes she had accounted for off the bat was the glass shower panels. “When they put them in, they had to cut around each little bump out,” she notes. Myers saved parts of the old kitchen’s marble backsplash and put the stone to use in the primary and kids’ bathroom shower niches. It was an affordable way to elevate the shelving nook while also paying homage to the designers who touched this home before her.

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