In a sign of whimsy to come, the front porch of painter and collage artist Miranda Lake greets visitors with a small toy horse resting in front of a vintage scale topped with a pot of succulents, a rusty typewriter turned into a nest for bird figurines, and a plastic deer head peering out of a flower pot. Little wonder she tells Apartment Therapy that her home of 15 years is a kind of decoration-as-collage extension of her portfolio work, which is also full of assorted fauna and heavy on the dark blues and greens. "It's as much me and as much of my art as it is a house," she says. "It is an experience," and that experience could be summarized as an encounter with the "beautifully strange."
When it comes to decorating, she opts for a "go big or go home" approach to color, and has as her dream source "whatever Kelly Wearstler is looking at." The most important piece in her largely thrifted and Ebayed collection might be a hand-painted 1920s wood bar—after all, how could you pick just one furry friend from the menagerie of real and faux taxidermy—but the 1952 double-decker bus she bought from a friend and keeps in the backyard (as folks seem wont to do these days) is another highlight. There's also a beautifully restored '62 Shasta camper trailer out back, but the bus, which she plans on turning into a kind of poolside cabana, is "one big shiny, giant happy pill." Experience the distilled version of this live-in curio cabinet below, and take the full tour at Apartment Therapy.
· The Beautifully Strange World of Miranda Lake [Apartment Therapy]
· Adventures in Interior Design archives [Curbed National]
· All New Orleans coverage [Curbed National]
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