Offbeat Home Tours | Offbeat Home

This is Offbeat Home's archive of Offbeat Home Tours posts.

Take a close-up look at real Offbeat Homes of all shapes, sizes and flavors.

Most Recent Posts About Offbeat Home Tours

The offbeat occupant: Beretta Fleur! Designer, writer, artist, domestic perfectionist, pinup model, frequent Offbeat Home contributor.

Other occupants: Husband, Dogs #1 and #2, and Moses Cat

Approximate square footage: 1000-2000 sq. feet

How many bedrooms? 2

Lives in: Los Angeles, California

Let's start with the neighborhood. What's it like where you live? It's a nice blend of ethnicities, lifestyles, and classes, which is typical of LA's urban sprawl. Most of the houses on our street are the same style, and there are many mature trees. It's very leafy and green and for being in a major city it has a very suburban feel.

This is the first time in my adult life that I'm not renting my space, and it's thrilling to demolish and tinker to my heart's content. What I'm showing you today is a collection of pictures I took over last winter and early this spring — we've made no major overhauls so far but have big plans (including installing a washing machine and a kegerator, as well as painting the interior and retooling the dinette). For now, though, this is home, and I really love it. It's cozy and frankly, bigger than our shoebox in Toronto. How about that?

We've talked about Sacred Groves before — it's Ariel's mama's land in Western Washington that used to be an intentional community. But it's worth revisiting, since I just got back from the Offbeat Retreat with fresh photos and new stories. Sit back and dream your way through this quickie home tour.

What would it be like to inhabit a normal-sized home that's actually a treehouse? Now we know. We picked up a friend of ours and offered her a ride, and we didn't know we were in for such a treat when we got to her destination!

We moved in a month ago and have worked extremely hard to make it feel like a home. We are strong believers in “reduce, reuse and recycle” and try to apply it to our home as much as possible. We tend to shop at thrift stores and garage sales — and love a good Craigslist deal. Take a look around and I hope you find inspiration in what you see.

This is the story of the Russian-style summer house I crafted in my backyard in Newcastle Upon Tyne. In ten months, and for less than £5,000, I took it from clay model a to stained-glassed, mosaiced den place to drink a Guiness whilst foxes run in the garden.

Eight years ago, I moved into my current home. That was when I began putting together my unusual office, a small space filled to bursting with books, curiosities and Professor Snape collectibles. It is also whimsically known as "the dungeons."

I think of the room as a collage of sorts, a work of art, a sanctuary. I love arranging objects in an aesthetically pleasing manner, and finding ways to cram yet more of them in every nook and cranny. I love jars, and bugs, and memento mori… I love things that belong to a more genteel age: quills, ink wells, hourglasses, Oriental carpets.

I bought this house when I was 20 years old. I bought the home SEPARATE from the lot and I had it MOVED ACROSS TOWN. That was an experience in itself!

I worked and worked to gut and remodel it. I didn't know what I was doing and many things were done incorrectly. When I moved in, after 2 years of working, I didn't have trim or interior doors. My furniture was a cobbled mess of thrift store finds that I planned on SOMEDAY refinishing. And I was happy in my pile of a home!