How a Crumbling Barn House Became Inglewood's Most Colorful Home
More is more in this L.A. 'barn' exploding with thrifted finds and maximalist flair
Interior designer Meeshie Fahmy turned a barn-style home in Inglewood into a bold, colorful space filled with second-hand furniture and plenty of art.
"Gambrel roofed Barnhaus," the listing read, "next door to the best burritos in town."
Its photos revealed something unusual for Inglewood, which is famous for its mix of architectural styles, including Midcentury Modern homes by R.M. Schindler and Googie-style coffee shops: a brick-red barn-style house on a large corner lot, listed at $449,000.
When Meeshie Fahmy and her husband, Aaron Snyder, toured the house, they learned that the burrito claim was true. The photos, however, had clearly been touched up to make the house, located just a few miles from the Kia Forum and SoFi Stadium, look better than it actually was.
Inside, the house had wall-to-wall carpets on both floors that were heavily stained and worn, dated wood paneling on the walls, holes in the walls," Fahmy says.
Despite these flaws, the couple saw the home's potential and decided to buy it, even though a leaning retaining wall nearly derailed their escrow. "It was a blank canvas for us to play and experiment," she recalls a decade later.
After they moved in, neighbors revealed the house was not original to the site. Years earlier, the original Craftsman had been torn down; the current house, a sweepstakes prize, arrived in two pieces by crane. "Our neighbors recalled it was quite a sight," Fahmy says.
At the time, Fahmy, 44, worked as an event planner at the Getty Museum. As renovations started and she followed her passion for interior design, Snyder proudly introduced her to staff at the local Carniceria as "an interior designer." She replied, "That's not what I do."
"I told her, 'If you don't start saying it, it's not going to happen,'" says Snyder, 49, who pursued his own dream of becoming a professional skateboarder before moving into video editing. "Speak it to existence."
Finishing the house took years, patience and a lot of DIY projects because of their budget. But Fahmy didn't just dream - she made it happen. In 2018, she started working for interior designer Willa Ford, who mentored her at WFord Interiors. By 2020, Fahmy launched her own design firm, Haus of Meeshie. "It's been a progressive layering of colors, furniture, reupholstering, adding art, wallpaper, lighting," she says. "Low and slow; the flavor is richer."
The vibrant, layered four-bedroom house is a maximalist fever dream, packed with furniture, accessories and art sourced from Facebook Marketplace, vintage shops, flea markets (Long Beach flea is a favorite), estate sales and secondhand stores in L.A. and elsewhere.
She estimates about 90% of the furnishings and accessories in her home are thrifted, antiques or things she found on the side of the road, and nothing is too precious, reaffirming her playful approach to decor.
The color story flows through the house: The powder room is purple, the entry hall red and the dining room walls pink, with one wall in a bold 1970s-style mushroom-pattern wallpaper from Londubh Studio. The speakeasy features a vintage standing bar from Craigslist that Snyder squeezed into his car, barstools and a Geo pendant light by Los Angeles designer Jason Koharik and a mirror Fahmy found at a nearby estate sale.
In the kitchen, they removed the 1970s-era wooden cabinets and Formica countertops, replacing them with more pink walls, Moroccan-style tile flooring and blue cupboard fronts from Semihandmade, which creates cabinet doors for IKEA cabinets.
Fahmy painted a Keith Haring-style black-and-white mural at the top of the stairs and continued onto the second-floor walls using a paintbrush taped to a broomstick. She finished by painting the handrail bright blue and wrapping each stair with a Persian-style runner.
Outside, the couple leveled the once-dirt backyard, added pea gravel, built a pergola with a handyman and installed a firepit where they enjoy entertaining their friends.
The couple's home is full of memories, and as you walk through, you can sense how much their stories matter to them. In the downstairs hallway, Snyder smiles as he points out photos of his family in Wisconsin. Similarly, Fahmy proudly shows a photo of her great-great-grandmother Theresa "Tessie" Cooke Haskins, a noted harpist whose daughter Maud Haskins was the first harpist to perform with the orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl.
Art is everywhere, from the Polaroids pinned to the walls in the powder room to the ceramics and masks hanging throughout the house. Yet Fahmy's favorite possession is deeply personal: a portrait of her on her wedding day, painted by her father, Walter Fahmy, who studied art in Egypt before coming to America.
For Fahmy, these details matter. "I feel like our home is a love letter to my upbringing," she says, referring to her parents, who were both pharmacists. "It's an ode to them and the sacrifices they made for me."
Visitors feel the same way. "Their house is a true labor of love, apparent the second you enter," Kanian adds. "It radiates warmth and love."
Snyder feels it too. "I feel an immense amount of pride when I walk into our house," he says.
Like a barn raising that brings people together, their house has become a welcome part of the neighborhood with its blue siding, bright yellow front door and a playful mural by Venice artist and skateboarder Sebo Walker. "We've had neighbors knock on our door and tell us, 'We love what you're doing,'" says Snyder.
