AROUND MY HOME: Russell and Brianna

 

ABOUT THE OWNERS

Brianna Marks Brownley // Women's Senior Design Manager // Reef

www.reef.com/girls

Russell Brownley // Owner, director, cinamatographer // The Wuss Productions

www.thewussproductions.com

 

ABOUT THEIR HOME
1. Where do you gather your home decor inspiration?

We both have the amazing opportunity to travel a lot with our jobs in fashion and film, so I think that we gather a lot of our decor inspiration from around the world.Our most recent trips, both professionally and personally, have been Bali, Morocco, Paris, Hong Kong, etc.
I am very attracted to vintage pieces, mixed with a worldly view and small touches of imperfections.

2. What would you call your decor style?

Eclectic

3. What is your favorite furniture find?

I have a few favorite pieces:

1. Vintage distressed wooden dining table and rusted metal garden benches - It took me forever to find a dining set that I loved. I finally ended up visiting an antique warehouse in the San Diego area and fell in love with this set, balancing the delicate nature of the table with the heaviness of the benches.
2. Turkish glass mosaic chandelier lamp - This is a favorite not only because of its beauty but because of the story behind it. We bought it at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul when we had a 24hr layover there after a production trip to Israel. We had to buy a Turkish carpet bag just to carry it home on the plane. Russell carried it like a baby through the airport to make sure it would stay safe and unbroken all the way back.
3. Moroccan wedding blankets - I just recently went to Marakesh on an inspiration trip for work. The only thing that I really wanted to bring back for myself was an authentic vintage Moroccan wedding blanket, traditionally used by Bedoin couples during their wedding ceremonies.

4. How long have you lived here? 3 years  What specifications were you looking for when house hunting?

Southern California has a ton of new home developments that lack unique character. We were looking for a house that had something different about it. This house has a lot of impact on first impression because of the open beam ceilings. We loved that!

5. Where do you like to shop for furniture? 

We are lucky to live near several amazing vintage swapmeets. I have bought some of my favorite pieces at Pasadena Rose Bowl Swapmeet and Long Beach vintage Swapmeet.

6. Have y'all done any renovations?

We have only done minor renovations since moving in... knocking down a partial wall, refinishing the wood floors, painting the kitchen cabinets. However, we have a new kitchen remodel in mind for the next few months... Excited to see how that goes!

7. What is your favorite room in the house?

Well, one of the things we love about our house is the open floor plan in the front of the house. I'd have to say that the living/TV rooms are my favorite places in the house because they are such cozy seating areas to hang out in and the openness allows for great parties. 

8. What is your social security #? I kid  I kid! Anything else you'd like to share? I am in love with your house y'all did an amazing job!!! I felt really comfortable there, I was in awe, and it didn't feel like I couldn't touch anything. So many cool things put together so cleverly. It was just all around bad to the bone! and it was Great to party in:)

We love having a place where people can feel comfortable to hangout in... A place of refuge for the night or celebration with a group. I appreciate having a lot of separate intimate seating areas that friends can talk and meet in, while still being open to the rest of what's going on.

We have a few collections that help to round out the character of our home:

1. Natural minerals - My mother is an amazing jewelry designer (barbaramarksstudios.com) and she frequently takes me to gem and mineral fairs with her. I have a deep appreciation of the beauty of rocks and crystals in their natural states and see them as miniature pieces of art.
2. Shoes - As a shoe designer, this is obviously one of my first loves. I have over 200 pairs and try to use them all, but obviously have some favorites. Now I just need a bigger closet :)
3.  Surfboards - This is Russell's collection (although I have one foam board for myself). He is constantly buying, selling, switching boards... And like my shoe collection, all are used frequently. My favorite is the balsa wood fish in our living room shaped by our amazing shaper and friend Richard Prause (grasshoppersurfboards.com), I think too pretty to use in the water.

BONUS: These two love birds just started a blog. Check it out.

we are back from our coachella roadtrip!

hello friends! im back from our very long but exciting 9 day roadtrip from houston to encinitas to indio and back to houston!
justin, jacob, and i had a blast the whole time at coachella along with visiting friends on the way up in encinitas. gosh i love that town!

COACHELLA!!! oh man! i am uploading the pictures right now as i type so i will be posting all week!
 
 stay tuned for:
- celebrity sitings
- coachella style posts
- record store day
- do's and don'ts 
- roadtrip tips
- coachella camping 
- bands we saw and loved
- roadtrip playlist:)

follow my tweets for updates and giveaways @sunchildsalon
missed you mucho mucho and its good to be back:) 
brandi 
oh and WOW i came home to some special packages for my birthday (it was the 9th)
a super huge THANKS to the stunning and talented danielle from DINOSAUR TOES, 
she made me this amazing necklace!
i totally freaked out when i saw that the package was from her bc i knew it would be something amazing!
bullet and coral= perfect! i am in love with it!
go check out the pretty things she makes. 
danielle i love you mucho mucho!

please excuse how crazy i look. remember i've been in the car for over 22 hours!

more engagement photo inspiration.

 

  

  

  

  

  

wow. aren't these photos breathtaking!? kelli and sam's engagement photos are some of the sweetest couples shots i've ever seen!i think they are absolutely angelic. when i first saw them i thought they looked like models in a swell catalog. i just love how personal and unique they are. make sure you visit her blog, and take a look at her amazing art.

what i love about this shoot

how pure and innocent it is. i love the sunlight. the grass and cat tails. i love how it reminds me of first love. boy meets girl. love at first sight.

here are a couple questions i asked kelli and she kindly responded. hope this helps all you lovebirds out.

1. is there any advice you have for people looking for a photographer? or for people with a budget? do you think its important to have an engagement shoot?

I love photos...so hiring a good photographer for our wedding and engagement shoot was a must. I have a good friend whose photographic style I love, so I knew right away that I wanted her to shoot us. She is not only super creative, but also very reliable and was more than accomodating in working with our budget. 

I don't think everyone HAS to have an engagement shoot, but for us, it was a great excuse to get some awesome photos taken that we would otherwise never do.  With this shoot, it was fun to get creative and try to show a bit of our personalities through the pictures.

2. how did you choose your photographer? did they direct the poses? did you feel awkward?

Erica is a friend, so nothing is really awkward with her! She is really good about capturing the moment without us even knowing she is there.  Those are some of my favorite pictures.....the ones that are natural and un-staged.  But for many of the pictures, yes, she positioned us and thought of creative angles to shoot from.  A little direction in where to look or how to stand is always nice when you are not used to doing it!

3. did you already have a vision of how you wanted the shoot to go? how long did the shoot go on?

I think I ALWAYS have a vision of what I want.  Which can be both a blessing and a curse!  But Erica nailed it.  

She told us to bring three changes of clothes and we would bounce around our hometown of Encinitas, CA.  I wanted the pictures to be "close to home"...not somewhere we had never been or that was unfamiliar to Sam and I.  We picked out a few locations we loved...and went from there.  I knew one of the "looks" I wanted to be very soft and romantic.  So I chose a silk ivory dress I made from one of my mom's old nightgowns, and a wire garland crown.  Sam wore a soft grey wool button up and his "go-to" denim pants.  I think out of all our engagement pictures...these turned out to be my favorite.

The other two changes were just "us".  We chose a few of our favorite items and matched them up to see what worked.  

All said and done...the shoot took us about an hour and a half with all the bouncing around to different locations.

4. how did you decide what you wanted to wear? and the place of the shoot?

answered above...

thanks kelli you rock!

b

i love the dress you made out of your moms nightgown. precious.

and the wire garland went perfect with it:)

NOW MEET SOME OF OUR BEST FRIENDS

The nettles. they are the cutest, most genuine and real. i love these photos taken by our friend ryan bc he totally captures who they really are. chloe is just a doll and is always giggling so when i see these photo i can hear her. and look at those dimples on both of them. ugh it's sickening how perfect they are together:) and brent...he's just so cool.

i love them. i miss them. they now live in encinitas, california.

 

  

  

 photos by: ryan booth

i asked chloe to share their engagement story and this is how it went.

Brent proposed to me on the 2 year anniversary of us meeting. We spent the day before at a water park in new braunfels (schlitterbahn) and the next day exploring Austin Texas and conoeing down the river in Zilker park. After we swam in the river and went back to the car he surprised me by pulling out a cute dress for me to wear to a fancy dinner, so i changed inside a gas station and he brought me to a candle light dinner at Houstons. Afterwerwards he told me he was going to bring me to get dessert so we went for a little drive and ended up at the top of Mount Bonnell in Austin. Brent had been timing the sunsets the week prior and so right at 8:15pm he started saying really sweet things and hugged me and I thought it was weird that he was shivering in the middle of August, but he was nervous and shaking and then I felt him put his hand in his jacket pocket and he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I didn't see it coming at all because the week before he tricked me and said he wanted to wait two years to get proposed, which i was super bummed out about but thought it was worth the wait hahah. Another funny thing is, he didn't know what size ring i wear and didn't want to get one too small so he got a size 6 ring and i wear size 4, so it was huuuge on me, but i thought it was really cute. 

I agree super cute! thanks chloe bear! can't wait to come up and visit the nettles/halford and sebree's soon!