Second Life
Kyla Fairchild finds a home for No Depression online, and another for herself on Camano Island.
View Slideshow »
Picture windows offer stunning vistas, and create a spare, airy feeling despite the many appointments.
View Slideshow »As the sun goes down, the wallpaper made of real leaves shines like white gold.
View Slideshow »Ceiling design and installation by Kyla Fairchild and Jenny Beedon-Snow. For more on Beedon-Snow’s work, visit Linda Hodges Gallery, 316 First Ave S, Pioneer Square, 206-624-3034; www.lindahodgesgallery.com. Handmade paper available at Daniel Smith Art Materials, 4150 First Ave S, SoDo, 206-223-9599; www.danielsmith.com.
View Slideshow »Fully visible from downstairs, an expressionist painting by local artist Dan Amell lends modern drama to the retro home.
View Slideshow »To update opulent bathrooms, Fairchild added modern accents.
View Slideshow »The chalet-style fireplace takes center stage, thanks to a strategically placed sectional sofa.
View Slideshow »Fairchild, always working.
IT HAPPENS EVERY TIME. Friends enter Kyla Fairchild’s vacation home on Camano Island and immediately point to something: the shimmering metallic wallpaper, the very Brady, wood-paneled television set, a stretch of high-pile carpet. “Oh, my God,” they always exclaim. “We had that in the house I grew up in!” It’s no surprise that the house, with its groovy ceramic mushroom molds and plush furniture, belongs to Fairchild. The publisher of roots-music zine No Depression, one of the most respected music publications in the country—the one the musicians themselves read—she is also the owner of cool-kid kitschfest Hattie’s Hat bar in Ballard. Fact is, Fairchild would have decked her place out in one-of-a-kind thrift-store and antique-mall finds no matter what, but she did not start from scratch. The previous owner—the widow of a south Seattle grocer—had built and furnished the house in 1979, then left it alone. When she sold it, she left behind every Danish end table, standing ashtray, and dimpled-glass vase. Fairchild couldn’t believe her luck.
“I love feeling that these things had a life before me,” she says, standing in the long, sunken living room. She points out a brass sculpture of a fish in midleap and two burl wood coffee tables. “These were all here when we moved in,” she says. Even the magazines—among them a 1978 Newsweek with Jimmy Carter on the cover and the headline “Can He Lift the Economy?”—she found after purchasing the property five years ago with husband Ron Wilkowski, a senior vice president at a bank. “Isn’t it amazing?” marvels Fairchild.
It is, and not only because it functions as a sort of aesthetic altar to a Generation X childhood. In many homes, old Atari game systems and psychedelic plaid pillows would look like tacky clutter, but here an open-floor plan and modern, vaulted ceilings have a flattering effect on the massive amber-hued glass lamps and burgundy wall-to-wall. Still, it’s a testament to Fairchild’s exceptional eye that the decor feels always just on the verge of kitsch, but never unsophisticated; nostalgic, but not outdated.
Published: December 2008
