Today we are visiting actor Malcolm Mcdowell's renovated 1920 farmhouse in Ojai, California. His wife, designer Kelley McDowell's decorated it in a Spanish Country style. Kelley says:"It's in the middle of an orange grove, under a canopy of ancient oak trees.It was almost a ruin. It was so dark, you couldn't see without the lights on in the daytime. The former owner was a tile setter, and he had tiled over doors. He tiled the front door shut! The kitchen was almost pitch-black. He had built cabinets over the windows."
Malcolm and Kelley McDowell
A lofty old oak towers above the classic Spanish-tile roof.
Antique Navajo rugs form a path on the front porch. She gathered the stones from her property to build the porch: "It looks like a 3,000-year-old road in Rome."
This isn't a very feminine house, but women love it," McDowell says. She painted all the walls and ceilings the starkest white she could find: a Benjamin Moore primer, Super Spec Flat. Both Malcolm and Kelley are collectors of American primitive pieces. She also collects old pottery and Mexican religious art and objects, and antique Navajo rugs.
The dining room's antique table is a mix of birch and pine. The floor is reclaimed wood. Every board was hand-sanded and then assembled in no particular order as they have random widths. They were then treated with Old Masters Gel Stain in Pickling White. Painted armoire from Nathan Turner.
Open shelves in the kitchen hold antique Mexican and French ceramics and mugs by ceramist Karen Donleavy.
Poured-concrete counters on reproduction 17th-century cabinets in the kitchen. Kelley says: "The concrete is practical as well as earthy. I can set hot pans on it." Early American hooked rugs.
Religious art, stars and stripes, and Navajo rugs in the master bedroom. The bed was made from an old picket fence.
The bathroom floor is made of Ojai river rock. Kelley designed the shower door in the style of a metal casement window.
A Suzani quilt and kilim pillows on the guest room's Spanish Colonial-style daybed. The lantern is an early California cowboy lamp.A kilim rug, rocking chair, and a Mexican wood chandelier complete the look.
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