Our interiors are spare, architectural, with a well ordered structure providing the bones. The spaces are warmed with soft inviting comfortable seating and made personal with pieces a client connects to, such as an interesting chair, artwork, arranged objects, and so on. We use natural fabrics, textured woods, and focused use of color and pattern to enrich our interiors. We look to create spaces that are aesthetically pleasing and at the same time give a sense of being lived in. Each project maintains it’s own identity due to the tastes and lifestyle of each client as well as the nature of the space itself. Our work includes traditional spaces as well as contemporary ones. All our projects include custom furniture, and cabinetry, in environmentally conscious materials, that we design to suit each space. Kitchens and bathrooms are inherently a part of the overall design. My mid-century home designed by Craig Ellwood has had a real influence on me, in the way he’s combined modern exposed structure with tactile natural materials. For many years I worked under my own name, Laura Clayton Baker Interiors, before incorporating as The Uplifters Inc in 2006. In 2014 Annica Howard joined me as a design associate. The scale of projects taken on ranges from a small bungalow in Venice, to a film production office for a firm of ten employees, to an estate in Montecito. On our web site you can see our work in Elle Decor, Martha Stewart Living, Architectural Digest, and House Beautiful.
Living Room, Santa Monica: Using velvet wing chairs and a velvet sofa is an inviting counterpoint to the stone floors and glass walls in this Craig Ellwood home. Photo: Victoria Pearson Living Room, Santa Monica: For a corner of the living room I designed a three legged table inspired by Charlotte Perriand. I selected mismatched chairs to go around it, and Uplifters Ceramics provided the ceramic pendants overhead. Ken Price drawings are hung on the left, and a 1960s vessel sits on a wood tree trunk on the right. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Living Room, Brentwood: In this room soft tactile furnishings warm up a minimal architectural space. The use of texture without pattern creates a foil for the client’s art collection. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Great Room, Montecito: This enormous room is broken up into various seating areas for different sorts of groupings. The modern Italian sectional roots the room at the center, with French Bergeres and other traditional elements giving depth to the design. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Library, Montecito: This room is actually a very wide hallway, yet the placement of the furnishings and the way architect Michael Paladino placed the curved yellow wall at the end has turned it into a well used room. The traditional seating, made more casual in slipcovers, sits happily with the modern design elements. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Breakfast Room, Montecito: Michael Paladino and I worked on this custom table…seemingly random oak columns supporting a slate top. The Saarinen chairs are a favorite of mine, and hold up well to small children upholstered here in ultra-suede. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Family Room, Montecito: In an effort to make a large scale and impressive room cozier and more casual we selected this chaise deep slipcovered sofa at the left. We used a limed wood custom coffee table for texture, and a patchwork rug for it’s informal character and so that it’s easy to repair if needed. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Master Bedroom Suite, Pacific Palisades: The master bedroom suite was restructured to create both an entry and this corner, a place for a bookshelf and a comfortable chair. The new wood trim is narrow, making for an elegant detail throughout the suite. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Master Bedroom Suite, Pacific Palisades: This deep window seat was designed to make the most of the spectacular view. The bookshelves on the left are sized for a large collection of art books, and the surface is made for leaning artwork and as a pedestal for sculpture. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Wattles Show House, Hollywood: View from the entry into our show house space. It was a maid’s room that we turned into an elegant guest room. We used luxurious elements like silk taffeta drapery, brass rods, brass hardware, a velvet daybed, a velvet ottoman, and raw silk walls, and grounded them with rustic jute carpet, ceramic pendants, and driftwood finished reclaimed wood tables. You can see more images on painting-box. Photo: Carolyn Reyes Wattles Show House, Hollywood: We designed this custom table desk to make the most of the space in this tiny maids room. The angle allows for room to walk into the room comfortably. The desk is made from reclaimed wood, with a limed finish, and we used brass cylinder legs. We selected dark teal silk taffeta for the curtains over a natural toned netting roman blind. We paper-backed a sage green silk for the walls. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Master Bedroom, NYC: In a prewar apartment a custom window seat was built into this master bedroom, with a new closet on the right as the end wall. The blue velvet cushions make for an inviting place to read. The ledge has openings to allow for heat to come out. There are two custom brass reading lights. The rest of the room was covered in a patterned paper, and the effect of the niche was emphasized with a change in wall treatment. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Bungalow Living Room, Venice, California: This tiny Living Room in a Venice Bungalow from 1922 needed to be many things. I designed this cabinetry wall to provide storage, visual interest, accommodate a television, and function as a home office. I wanted to keep the room as open and airy as possible, and without doors the full width of the room is experienced. The velvet chair in the foreground is vintage…refinished and recovered it’s unrecognizable from its tattered past. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Studio, Santa Monica: I designed this studio in homage to Ellwood’s design of the main house. Architect Davida Rochlin took the design to working drawings. We kept key elements of the house such as the flat roof, the rhythm of the beams, the glass walls, a Douglas Fir ceiling, the extension of the wall past the glass, and the overhang with the exposed can lights. Instead of a slab foundation we decided to float the house. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Studio, Santa Monica: A vintage Karpen chair, oak pedestals, and ceramics fill the corner. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Studio, Santa Monica: The ceiling, floating shelves, and the cabinets below are made of Douglas Fir, to connect to the main house ceiling. The low height of the cabinets create a place to perch, and makes the ceiling appear higher. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Living Room, Santa Monica: Placing this sculptural Adrian Pearsall chair and ottoman in the corner helps draw attention to the distinctive angled windows facing the front of this 1960s home. An Elizabeth Eakins Tatami rug creates a subtle pattern on the floor. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Living Room, Santa Monica: A custom sectional focuses the seating towards the fireplace, with a view of the angled window at the left. The coffee table is a custom design, travertine top on bronze base. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Master Bedroom, Santa Monica: In this view of the Master Bedroom the bed sits on a floating wall. I added that wall to the room in order to create a place for the Master Bath and closet to be situated behind the wall. I used the detail Craig Ellwood used throughout the house, of the 12″ space between the top of the wall and the ceiling, with glass to separate rooms. The Robsjohn-Gibbings night table, and the African bench give character to a very simple architectural composition. Photo: Tim Street-Porter Master Bedroom, Santa Monica: Across from the previous photo, this corner shows a vintage Karpen chair, with a personal collection of art and books, against a pale blue accent wall. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Closet, Topanga Canyon: The rhythm of the shiplap detailing hides the multiple openings in this bungalow closet. The vintage rug provides character and color as there isn’t space for art. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Venture Capital Firm, Venice, California: My client, a venture capital firm based in Boston, leased this loft like space on Abbot Kinney as a branch office. They loved the Southern California openness, but it needed to function as an office. To create privacy as well as warmth I had rich wood veneer wall units made which could fit in below the beams. I chose a heavy linen as interior drapery for accoustical value, also creating privacy when required. Vintage surfing photos were selected to emphasise the California beach location. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Film Production Office, Santa Monica: This is the general office area for a film production company. My client wanted the office to have an old Soho loft character, raw, and unpretentious. I chose construction quality Douglas Fir for the desks to help create that character. The grain of the wood was used as a decorative element. The interior windows bring light into the central office, and the wood frames echo the material of the desks. I used rice paper pendant lamps from IKEA throughout, giving a warm glow and a casual appeal. Photo: Dominique Vorillon Apartment shared patio, Santa Monica: In the patio of an apartment building we updated, we used color to create a lively set piece. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Master Bath Mandeville Canyon: above and below. Photos: Laura Clayton Baker
Master Bath, Pacific Palisades: In this master bath shower we used vein cut travertine on the walls in slab, and cross cut travertine on the floors in tiles. The light is a hidden LED strip that washes the travertine wall. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Master Bath, Pacific Palisades: This view of the master bath shows the walnut cabinetry, the travertine counter, and a custom mirrored medicine cabinet that houses a magnifying mirror in it’s extra deep recess. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Kitchen, Santa Monica: In keeping with the Ellwood’s design for this home, we selected Douglas Fir cabinetry, and echoed the black structural elements of the house in the black base and honed granite counters. The glass is textured to blur the objects inside. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Kitchen, Santa Monica: The linear detail of the cabinetry unifies this kitchen. The windows were enlarged, so that the bottom of the windows came down to the counter height. The client’s table was utilized instead of including a built in counter, warming up the room and making it feel personal. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Streamline Moderne Kitchen – This is a Kitchen I designed in a Hollywood Hills Streamline Moderne house. We gutted the existing Kitchen, using design elements from the Moderne aesthetic to create the new space. I played with the round theme inherent in Moderne design by custom making round inset pulls for the drawers and doors. I enlarged the window down to the counter for a greater sense of light and openess. The tilework behind the stove was intentionally designed to include something unresolved, imperfect. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker Kitchen, NYC: This very small Kitchen is at the heart of a three bedroom penthouse apartment on Central Park West. We wanted all the details to make the most of the space we had to work with. The antique mirrors set into the doors above the sink enlarge the sense of space. The character of the cast metal pulls adds personality to the Kitchen. The color scheme carries through the apartment creating a calm continuity. Terrace, Marina Del Rey: The lime wash wall colors were inspired by Luis Barragan. We endeavored to soften the sense of enclosure by breaking up the wall surfaces. Photo: Laura Clayton Baker
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