photography: Minh + Wass
Interior windows throughout the house provide light and ventilation. But practicality aside, the framed view from one room into the next adds architectural charm. |
Adopting the lifestyle and architecture of the era before air-conditioning, Mary and Tomio are comfortable, even in this humid climate. They enjoy most meals and an occasional café au lait on their porch, where every breeze can be savored in full view of the garden. Inside, windows into the stairwell from adjacent rooms are essential to air circulation—every room in the house gets ventilation from outdoors. When asked about summers, Mary says, "We just don't move around too quickly."
She and Tomio went on countless treasure hunts in hot, dusty salvage yards to bring home a pair of French doors, rippled glass, a mahogany shelf for a mantel, a plumbing fixture, and cypress planks. A cypress door, enclosed in the porch wall, provided the pattern for replacement doors to come. They were lucky at times, such as when a friend saw a wonderful mantel thrown onto a vacant lot from a pickup truck and called them—like an emergency dispatcher. Creativity has also come to their rescue. Tomio salvaged hand-cut cypress laths (narrow strips of wood used under plaster or tile) discovered behind old plaster. Then Mary bought all the metal roofing nails she could find and made lath screens that partially enclose the porch and cover a chain-link fence surrounding the garden.
photography: Minh + Wass
Mary and Tomio found the kitchen sink (once abandoned at the side of the road) at The Green Project, a local nonprofit salvage company. |
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I'm sick to death of pastels 
