Since my current and most immediate goal in life right now is to leave Lake Arrowhead, move off the mountain entirely and into a different house in the flatlands among the palm trees 😊, I thought I better get busy sharing the house I’m living in now before it’s too late!
When I moved into Le Dome last November ’23, I wasn’t quite sure how everything was going to fit. Because it’s literally a dome shaped house, there are really only two true usable flat solid walls (floor to ceiling) aside from the walls which also contain either sliding glass doors or French doors, like the entrance. Most of the walls are made up of angled triangles starting at about 4-5 feet up, which then create an arched wall and ceiling that ultimately make the rounded dome shape. It’s a really fun concept in theory, but makes placing furniture and even hanging art, a bit of a challenge.
However, when I moved everything in, I was surprised at how seamlessly it all fell into place… and I actually really love the look of it!
This particular house was built in 1979 but has original ’80s charm in the bathrooms and kitchen and honestly, I really love feeling like I’m living in a little time capsule that reminds me of my childhood… in the best way possible.
Sometimes I think if I could transport this house somewhere else, I would, because it has a really nice/grounded energy and fun usable space for my lifestyle, while also being a complete challenge to live in peacefully due to the location on the mountain. When my parents lived here, my mom said the same thing about it.
ABOVE: is the hallway between the loft and bathroom and my closet room, as well as the landing of the staircase that goes to the living room. This is where I placed my large mirror and take all my outfit selfies 😊 You can also see my vintage secretary desk (which my grandpa painted in the 1960’s) where I’ve stored my costume jewelry off and on for years now.
You can see it in my first office/closet dressing room here back in 2010! Although I used it to store fabric in my office in my first house in Lake Arrowhead and then in the powder room to hold toilet paper in the house I shared with Chad and his girls.
Also… who remembers when I had these custom dog portraits done by artist Luke Jervis when I still lived in LA? They remain some of my favorite art pieces ever. I’d like to get Trevor and Randy’s portraits done as well ❤️
The house has two bedrooms and a loft, one of the bedrooms is downstairs and the other, up. In true ’80s fashion (or maybe it was just ’80s movies), I decided to use the loft area as my bedroom and use the actual bedroom upstairs, right across from it, as MY CLOSET. You can see a bit of my bedroom here in this post.
My decision about this was based on a few things: first, since my bed is low, you can’t see it from downstairs, or anything else in that room (aside from the plants I set on the half wall) and if I would have used that loft space as a closet, I’d be able to see the racks from downstairs. Secondly, I didn’t really want my clothes out in the open elements without any protection from kitchen/food smells or bugs or just overall dust, etc. The bedroom upstairs with the closed door has one flat wall that I was able to place one clothing rack against, as well as taller shelves for shoes and bags, and I couldn’t have done this in the loft area without seeing it from the living room.
There is a pretty spacious closet in the room with mirrored doors, which is also full as well as another similar closet in my bedroom (the loft) that is holding loungewear, pajamas, sweats and drawers full of underwear and bras and socks, etc., you know 😊
Across from the mirrored closet doors is the arched triangle wall, which luckily enough was flat to the exact height of my old Ikea dressers (I’ve literally had these since the tiny condo in Studio City I lived in with my ex-husband 😂 – who says Ikea furniture doesn’t last? 😆 😆 😆) ANYWAY, in my last closet in the townhouse by the lake, I created an island with two of them in the center of the room but here I was able to use them slanted along the wall in an arching design, which works out pretty well. Unfortunately I can’t hang anything above them due to the slanted walls, but still, I was happy at the accuracy in which they fit the space.
Because I created a sort of “U” shape with my two clothing racks (I swear by these gold clothing racks, if you need them, they come in other colors as well and you can use them in a variety of ways)… by creating the U, I added a walkway into the room and added an additional area to hang clothes, reachable on both sides.
The wooden coat rack was built by my stepdad a few years ago for my office space but worked well here in this little slanted nook, which also hides a door and balcony.
The vintage Victorian sofa was my grandma’s, which was returned to me by my ex-husband just a few months before I moved into the townhouse in late 2022, and I just love it in my closet space.
My grandma and I shared a love of fashion… she had an amazing closet full of clothes and shoes that I’d run to look at every time we visited her house. I still wish we wore the same size shoe, but even though we don’t, I kept my favorite gold pair of shoes that belonged to her, which are actually in my office right now but I’m going to keep them in my closet from now on. Anyway, I love having her in my closet space, along with so many of her clothes that I kept, including my all-time favorite leopard print coat, which she made for herself in the ’60s and though it’s starting to really show its age, I still wear it every time fashion has a leopard moment. I wore it A LOT in the beginning days of my blog and sharing my outfits because it was so on trend at the time, but I’ll save it forever. The gold jewelry box was hers and a few of the little bowls and dishes I have set around, the lamp with the black shade was painted by my grandpa, as well as the green secretary’s desk in the hallway I already mentioned… and of course, the Jesus bust, which was a mainstay at my grandparent’s house, always remains in my closet, and usually with a chic hat or flower crown 😉
I love my vintage hat boxes, which are actually filled with hats, but also starting to fall apart, sadly, and I love mixing the vintage gold and floral vibe with bright pop art pieces like Lichtenstein and Warhol and the small print of me by James Haunt in the entryway as well.
The large Lichtenstein painting up high by the skylight is called Girl with Hair Ribbon, and I found it recently at the local thrift shop I love up here – the same thrift shop where I found my massive mirror on the landing! PS. It wasn’t gold when I bought it!
Anyway, I walked into the Boys and Girls thrift shop one day to drop off donations and there were a handful of large Lichtenstien paintings and I thought to myself… there’s no way these are real, but I asked about them anyway and the woman said someone had JUST dropped them off and she didn’t know how much to price them at but that they were REAL counterfeit paintings from Thailand from an artist named Roy Liechtenstein. I told her I was familiar with the artist and asked how much for this one, my favorite, for obvious reasons 😉 and then the owner walked in and said $15 and I said SOLD. I’ll take it. And so I did and now I’ve added to my little fake collection of pop art in my closet which makes me so happy.
Le Dome is complete with at least 8 skylights… 4 of which are directly above my head and though it’s fun to see the moon blinding me through them some nights, it’s also VERY BRIGHT with the glaring California sun shining down and I had to cover them in some way to protect my clothes.
My mom had a similar curtain strung up in between the two, so I swapped it out for an old pink taffeta fabric I used part of for this lined basket DIY years ago (the basket sitting below my coats, holding all my winter hats and scarves), and finished it off with a few fun tassels. I love that it casts a pink glow over the entire space… you’re not seeing pink, the room is actually very pink, which makes me happy 💖
I have only the shoes out that I wear more frequently and the heels and other shoes I don’t wear as frequently stored in original boxes above the racks and the rest in the closet behind the mirrors to prevent dust…
Anyway, there’s my LONG-WINDED story about my closet room 😆 I hope you enjoyed it.
Happy Almost Friday Lovecats!
* Find all my Home and Decor posts here
* Find all my past Closet posts here
