life list #41: stay at luminhaus

Fill in the blank: People in glass houses shouldn't ____________.

After seven hours on the road, and a stop at Blue Mountain Brewery, we finally made it to the secret destination: Luminhaus. As we pulled in, the sun was setting and the house was starting to glow. We got out of the car and Larry exclaimed "This is awesome!"


And Luminhaus is awesome. It's a two-bedroom modern pre-fab home designed by architect Rocio Romero and built by Jennifer Watson and Barry Bless in the Blue Ridge Mountains outside of Amherst, Virginia. I'd been wanting to visit this place ever since we stayed at Lost River Modern in West Virginia last year. Modern homes are unfortunately few and far between in this part of the country. In fact, Larry commented several times during the weekend that he felt like we were in Northern California. Indeed.

The simple glass and metal rectangular structure is impeccably decorated with modern art and furniture. The views of the woods from the massive windows are stunning.

Surrounded by nature:


Dogs are not allowed at Luminhaus, so we had to leave the pups behind for this trip. But after admiring the large expanses of glass, I realized the number one problem we'd have living in a glass house: SNART. Yeah, this view wouldn't be so impressive with dog snot covering the windows:


As soon as we got inside and unpacked the groceries, Larry located the beer glasses. We poured a couple drinks and started exploring the place. Between my love of modern architecture and art, and Larry's love of books, music, and nature, this place was perfect for us! (Clearly the owners have similar interests!)

Beer glasses? Check!

Here's a tour. The living room:





Kitchen:


I would LOVE to be organized and minimalist enough to have a kitchen like this. Maybe it's only possible in a vacation house?

Bedroom #1. So colorful - I love all the art and patterns in here!




Bedroom #2. We chose to sleep in this room because it was slightly larger and the bed faced the window:

As soon as we arrived I hung up this birthday/art market garland to make the bedroom feel more festive:



And I left a little surprise on Larry's pillow. (It was a Nook.)
Even the bathroom was amazing. It was full of really cool art and it had a corrugated plexiglass ceiling - which wasn't exactly soundproof. (Tip: don't go to Luminhaus with anyone you aren't comfortable sharing bodily noises with!)

The house is situated on SIX heavily wooded acres. Basically, it's just you and the trees as far as you can see. We also saw several deer. Oh, and bugs. There are lots and lots of bugs. Luckily, we are never without our daily dose of DEET.

Here's a view of the back of the house. There's a platform deck for eating/relaxing/admiring the house from outside.

I really loved how the house glowed at night. There was even a little shed that lit up like a lantern in the evening. Larry and I already have plans to replace the dilapidated old shed in our backyard with something similar.




Once the sun went down, we discovered another challenge of living in a glass house: Moths are crazy for the illuminated windows. Seriously, the windows were covered with thousands of moths each night.

And not just any old moth. Meet MOTHRA:

EEeeeeeks! Mothra came back every night, flapping its wings against the windows. Let me in!

Self portrait with Mothra.

We slept well that night. Actually, we slept well every night. My body felt like jelly the entire weekend. It's hard not to be relaxed at Luminhaus.

I could get used to living in a place like this.

the art at luminhaus

One of the things that immediately struck me as soon as we entered Luminhaus was the art. Art was everywhere - big, bold, eye-catching pieces - it was like walking into a museum of modern art. I loved it. And I immediately felt ashamed of the unadorned, artless walls in my own home. It's amazing how much artwork can change a space. (Yes, I'm an artist, I know this...and yet, I can't seem to make a decision as to what should hang on my own empty walls! I have plenty of art in my home, it's just stacked up in my studio waiting to be shipped out to my Etsy customers.)

I wish I knew who the artists were for the pieces below. I'd love to give them credit (and maybe buy some of their pieces for my own blank walls!).

We spent a good portion of our evenings discussing this painting. What is it? What do you see? It was such a large piece that you couldn't help but stare at it. The fact that our modern art interpretations were fueled by wine made our discussions all the more interesting...


We both agreed that the shape at the bottom left was a watermelon. The yellow outline to the right looks like thighs wearing underwear to me. Larry also saw trains and I saw helicopters and architectural sections through buildings. What's above the watermelon? A bone? A barbell?

Edited to add: The painting above is by artist Brad Birchett. He describes it as "a stream of consciousness piece centered around bits and pieces, memories and simple abstract form (inspired by torsos and French train stations, etc.!)" Love it!

Another piece we discussed a lot:

Him: It's a lamp or a light.

Me: It's a pint of beer.

(As you can see, I eventually swayed him to agree with my interpretation!)

We couldn't agree on these:

Him: It's exploding skulls!

Me: It's ice cream cones! With sprinkles!

(Ahh, the differences between the male and female brain!)

Case Study Houses - these spoke to my love of pop art and architecture:


Music-inspired art in the kitchen:


I seriously LOVED these clay tiles that were hanging in the bathroom. I also loved how they were secured to the wall with exposed nails. I've always wanted to take a ceramics class so I could make clay tiles like these. I actually have some similar tiles on display in my own bathroom that my dear friend Sarah brought me back from New Zealand, but now I want more!



Another inspiring favorite from the bathroom. I've always wanted to learn encaustic painting and I'm now obsessed with it. This was one of my favorite pieces in the house.


One of the coolest things was a collection of miniature art. I totally want to start a collection like this of my own:


Hugs and kisses and dentures??? (The teeth had a pin on the back so you could wear it on your...lapel???)


Love these mini houses!


A silver cracker:


And don't you love discovering that other bloggers have been somewhere before you? The incredibly cool and creative Shauna and Stephen of Something's Hiding in Here were at Luminhaus last year and they left behind a little wooden house:


I was digging the texture of these:


And as a special touch the owners had left little bits of natural art on display - acorns, seed pods, pine cones, flowers, etc found on the grounds of Luminhaus:



Another favorite piece. (I had a lot of favorites!) I want this - or I want to create a large-scale piece inspired by this. So simple, but makes such a big impact. Love the texture, too.


On the other side of the bedroom was this piece. The colors! The shapes! Amazing!


The pillows were works of art, too:


I even left a piece of my own art behind as a contribution to their collection. I don't know if the owners will dig it, or think WTF? and throw it away...but, hey, I think every kitchen needs a little more cheese!


I left Luminhaus feeling so inspired to try new things with my art, to loosen up, to go big, to get my hands in some paint and clay and make a mess!