LOS ANGELES — Johanna and Andy McElfresh are the kind of couple who work well together.¶
She admires the way his brain works. “Fish (Andy) is really about the process and I’m all about the look,” she says. “He gets great joy from figuring stuff out.”
He admires her artistic vision. “I would never be able to think up the things she does,” says Andy of his decorator wife.
When Johanna grew exasperated trying to paint a blue-and-yellow chevron pattern on the uneven stairs of their Mid-Wilshire home, it was Andy, a comedy writer, who figured out a way to paint the V-shaped pattern. He created a plastic stencil with his laser cutter, taped it to the steps and painted the staircase in two days.
Their first DIY collaboration began in 1989 when they met at a party at her place in New York. Andy remembers being wedged in between massive football players. Johanna says she asked Andy to fix her broken stereo.
“It was dark in my apartment,” Johanna recalls. “I held a candle next to him so that he could see what he was doing.” His assist came with a price. “I ended up lighting his hair on fire,” she adds with a laugh.
Married 24 years, the couple continue to work on design projects together in their 1933 Mid-Wilshire home, although with less incendiary results.
They moved to the romantic Mediterranean from Park La Brea in 2002 after Johanna got homeowner’s fever.” Fish had a solid job writing for ‘The Tonight Show’ and we finally felt like we could buy a house,” she says.
After years of decorating, the result is a glamorously eclectic home featuring 20 years’ worth of Wertz Brothers antiques, an intense color palette and an assortment of decorative objects, many of them – such as a collection of hand-blown eggs – designed by Andy.
The home is a comfortable, family-friendly place for their children Dashiell, 19, and Daisy, 16 – yet also presents an outrageous personality that feels distinctly their own.
Sophisticated? Yes. Over the top? That’s the point. “I don’t do subtle,” says Johanna.
At the McElfreshes, less is clearly not more. “Just call us the Maximalists,” Andy jokes as he glues a sparkling spiral on top of a ceramic head bust in the living room.
Case in point: Johanna’s office, which she describes as her “ode to Kelly Wearstler.” Here, bright yellow lacquered custom cabinets and walls mix with a leopard print rug, black-and-white striped daybed and coral-colored chandelier.
Andy’s office, by comparison, is located in a closet off of the master bedroom. The juxtaposition is not lost on the comedian who uses the closet to host a weekly “Edumacation” podcast during which he tries to teach indie filmmaker Kevin Smith about science. He recently posted a photo of the tiny space on Twitter that got a lot of laughs, complete with a detailed list of 46 items including “Aeron chair bought in tech bust for $100” and “registration for home-built boat.”
But humor isn’t everything. Much of the home’s pulse comes from the artworks the couple have amassed over the years. Every wall in every room is covered with pieces of art, many of them inexpensive paintings found at flea markets. In between paintings, Johanna has inserted ceramic plates, medals, guitars, crucifixes and mounted bullhorns. There is art in the kitchen, art in the bathrooms.
The dining room, which is furnished with French antiques, is punctuated with Christopher Hyland wallpaper in a palm frond motif, a Chinese Deco rug and a sparkling crystal ship chandelier from Z Gallerie. Surprising details include mirrors placed on top of mirrored walls (the wallpaper was discontinued) and a swinging door upholstered with slick green vinyl and elegant nailheads. Johanna prides herself on mixing high-end pieces with affordable accessories.
When pricey white coral wall sconces from Currey & Co. arrived looking “too new,” she added coral sprays and glittering napkin rings from Z Gallerie to give them a Tony Duquette-inspired update. “I walk a fine line between elegant and tacky,” she says of the never-ending decorating process.
“We’re like the Winchester house, but with rearranging,” Andy explains before thinking of a funnier line: “Our home is like the Rubik’s Cube of decorating.”