This Wes Anderson-Inspired Ontario Home Is Dripping with Quirky, Retro Colors

Name: Cass Goulding, husband, and two Saint Berdoodles
Location: Ontario, Canada
Type of home: House
Size:1500 square feet
Years lived in:3 years, owned

Tell us a little (or a lot) about your home and the people who live there: My husband and I moved cities for architecture. We found a gray on gray painted 1960 architectural build that we fell in love with (for the entryway and commercial-sized windows in the living room). It has a ton of potential that will take years to renovate, but we love the house as-is, too.

The first year, we took seven days to paint the exterior with a brush and rollers. The flat roof helped with painting the upper parts (my husband did it because I don’t love heights). We painted the house “Undersea blue” and the door is “Splendor gold.”

我们已经重做了60岁的屋顶,取代了broken garage, replaced the windows and doors in the living room, replaced the 1980s air conditioner and the 25-year-old furnace, and upgraded a 100-amp electrical panel to a 200 amp. We’ve put our own spin on mid-century modern lighting and painted the vintage bathroom to accentuate the aqua tub and fun floor tiles.

One of the first things we tried adding were the pops of color blocks on the living room walls. I discovered my love of the color orange and we got a funky retro rug. Since I’m mid-century and my husband is modern, we have a lot of retro rather than vintage, but we do have a Danish teak dining table.

我们share our happy home with our two dogs. Chris and I both love design and I dream of being an interior decorator professionally someday.

Once upon a time I was supposed to be an illustrator and also painted colorful acrylic paintings. The painting hanging in our entryway is an original of mine and is an interpretation of a photograph Chris took in Dubai. This creative side really spiraled our decor when we moved here. If you can believe it, our last house was fifty shades of gray.

我们love the colorful nature of our decor, it really makes me happy. We also love eclectic art and have several retro-surrealist prints that embrace vintage people placed in sci-fi/space collages.

During the pandemic, I also became a plant mom and have since collected about 19 plants. My husband loves cacti and we have many minis as well as a previously loved four-foot beast. If you can believe it, the plants all have names too, including a monstera plant named Natalie Portman.

我们enjoy what we design, the key is we must have fun. We’re not design genre purists and buy things that bring us joy.

Describe your home’s style in 5 words or less:Mid-century modern, colorful, fun, happy

你最喜欢的房间是什么,为什么?The living room is our favorite space. It gets so much light that we installed automated blinds to cut down on the heat in the summer. Almost all of the plants live in there because of the sun.

I’m also an avid TV and movie watcher so I spend a ton of time in there. One of my favorite movies is “Moonrise Kingdom” by Wes Anderson, and I think the room kind of has a similar vibe.

What’s the last thing you bought (or found!) for your home?The last thing I purchased was a vintage decanter for our mini bar in the living room. I bought it to store my non-alcoholic bourbon because I struggle with the lid like a toddler (I made sure it was glass and didn’t have lead). It’s tall and pretty and reflects the light of the Christmas tree in the winter beautifully.

Any advice for creating a home you love?Have fun. I can’t emphasize that enough. Life is too short to decorate your home for anyone but yourself. You’re living in it and it needs to make you happy. If that’s white and neutral that’s great, but ours is colorful and out there (kind of a good description for me too).

This submission’s responses and photos were edited for length/size and clarity.
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