Brixton approached its business about as backward as a snapback hat, operating solely in e-commerce and wholesale for the 17 years since it started in an Oceanside garage. But at long last, the North County hatmaker opened its own brick and mortar in Encinitas in December.

Brixton Inside

Mikey Gould

It’s all a part of CEO Raphael Peck’s crusade to breathe new life into the brand. Peck (pictured above) joined the company two years ago, after stints at Oakley and Under Armour. Of course, he was already a Brixton customer first.

“I always liked the fact that the brand felt like Southern California, but it didn’t feel like a surf brand or a skate brand,” he says. “It felt like an Americana lifestyle brand. I love that differentiation, that toughness, that durability it had. There was a tremendous opportunity to get back to our roots, and I thought, ‘What does the physical manifestation of our brand look and feel like?’”

Brixton Inside

Mikey Gould

If the Encinitas store is any indication, that would be a modern millinery, or hat shop. It’s in this brightly lit, 980-square-foot space that headwear isn’t treated as just an accessory.

“We think about starting and ending every outfit with a hat,” Peck says, nodding toward the shop’s “power wall,” which towers over the other apparel—in this case, the accessories. There’s also a service station for hat fittings, product customization, and steam cleaning. Here, they’ll eventually be “cooking headwear right in front of customers,” building and designing hats, testing out textiles, leathers, felts, and wools, and even holding seminars and events to get the community involved.

Becoming a part of that social fabric was an important motivating factor behind Brixton’s homecoming. “We like to think of ourselves as a son of North County,” Peck says. “What Oceanside, Encinitas, and Del Mar have done for Brixton—how they’ve put us on the map—we felt the responsibility to open a store for them and give back in every way we can.”

Brixton Inside

Mikey Gould

That’s not just hype: For every face mask purchased online or in-store, Brixton donates one to the Carlsbad or Oceanside police or fire departments. Additionally, it offers a 15 percent discount on all merchandise when customers show a receipt from neighboring restaurants on Highway 101. The company has also partnered to provide merch to Rollin’ from the Heart, a nonprofit that teaches disadvantaged kids how to skateboard.

Brixton is planning to open its second US location and true flagship this summer in their hometown—Oceanside. The shop will be nearly double the size of the Encinitas location and part of the Tremont Collective, a trio of former auto repair garages along Tremont Street being restored by local developer Fabric Investments.

Most importantly, Peck says: “We want to go where it makes sense. And I don’t want to be too far from home.” After all, home is where you hang your hat.

Brisxton outside

Mikey Gould

The post Look Inside Brixton’s First Brick-and-Mortar in Encinitas appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Tomatoes

Wait for the last frost, then plant—this could be considered the cardinal rule for when to introduce tomatoes to your garden. (If you’re beginning from seed, grow your starters indoors six to eight weeks before that last frost.) When you’re ready to transplant, remove the bottom set of leaves. For the sturdiest stem, plant the starter about 1/4 inch deep in well-draining soil, all the way up to the bottommost remaining set of leaves. Water evenly at regular intervals. Most harvest times are between 60 and 90 days from seed and may differ by variety. Pluck fruits that are even in color and firmness.

Sweet corn

May is the sweet spot for planting your sweet corn seeds. Do so in well-draining soil, one to two inches deep and spaced four inches apart. Pro tip: Plant your seeds in blocks, not rows, to curb the chances of cross-pollination. Corn is a wind pollinator; it’s also a grass that requires deep watering and frequent nitrogen fertilization. Germination should occur in seven to 14 days. In 60 to 70 days, check for ripeness by making a small slit through the husk about halfway down the ear and piercing a kernel of corn with your thumbnail. If the liquid is milky white, the corn is ready to harvest!

Watermelons

Begin with a soil temperature check before sowing your watermelon seeds—your well-draining soil should be between 70 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Plant seeds 1/2 inch deep and spaced three to four inches apart. Watermelon vines can grow 10 to 15 feet long, so consider growing them vertically on an A-frame trellis and using a sling to support the fruit. In 70 to 90 days, do the three-part test to determine whether your watermelon is ripe: First, tap and listen for a hollow sound; second, find a yellow spot where the melon rested on the ground; third, look for a dry curly tendril next to the stem.

Thank you to San Diego County Master Gardener Jodi Bay for the tips provided here. Hungry for more advice? Check out Let’s Grow Together San Diego, an evolving list of resources available here.

The post 3 Things You Should Plant This Spring appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Jen Kennedy

I launched this with my husband a little over a year ago. He would pack the boxes and help me ship them. Before this, I was the senior vice president of product development at Jack in the Box. I was there for 12 years, and I even launched the Munchie Meals. I kind of have a design eye around packaging. It’s a love of mine, and it translates to Honeybug. We grew from inside the house to the garage, then hired our first employee to work out of the garage. We had maybe only 100 items. Now I have four employees total and 1,600 products people can select from, even through a “build a box” function.

It’s really important that we work with vendors who fall in line with our brand. I use a vendor scorecard to rank them based on criteria like social responsibility, female or minority leadership, price, and so on. We now have 20 core boxes, in themes like dinosaurs or “bringing home baby.” Another is a play on the children’s book Guess How Much I Love You. Many are gender neutral. We don’t want to be a niche gifting brand that you visit just once a year. We want to be accessible all year long and create a place for everyone to celebrate what they want to, whether it’s Chinese New Year, Diwali, or Hanukkah. We got you.

Honeybug Gift Box / Open Box

Honeybug

@shophoneybug

Honeybug Gift Box / Contents

The post Shop These Local Gift Boxes Fit for Every Occasion appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Wedding Woes

What better way to start a marriage than being on the fence about whether you should even get married? This was the reality for most engaged couples in 2020. My partner, Colton, and I were one of them.

The first weekend of the spring stay-at-home order, we naively mailed our save-the-dates for November 14—a 100-person shebang at The Pearl Hotel. Within weeks we were addressing “change-the-dates.” Postponing our celebration was an easy decision. Breaking it to our families that we still intended to get legally married on our

original date—and that we didn’t feel it was safe for them to travel for it—was difficult. Colton and I had been together for a decade. Nothing was going to stop us from finally signing those papers.

So, as the 2020 adage goes, we pivoted, landing on an elopement to Joshua Tree, stripped of all the usual wedding frills. Colton didn’t even bother with a suit. I donned my mom’s prom dress. Our ceremony music was played on the same phone that took our wedding photos. It felt freeing to take the pressure off the whole ordeal and instead focus on ourselves. The best part of all: Our families supported it.

The pandemic has forced many couples to rethink their weddings; read on to see how three other 2020 newlyweds navigated their nuptials. The consensus? Love is not canceled, and life must go on.

–Sarah Pfledderer

Amy Truong and Leilani Gobaleza

“We had our first dance in our living room.”

—Amy Truong & Leilani Gobaleza

Amy and Leilani still remember the first day they met, during a study-abroad trip in Yokohama, Japan. They were surrounded by sakura (cherry blossoms). Exactly ten years later—April 11, 2020—they were determined to marry. And so they did.

Of course, it wasn’t the wedding they had envisioned—a celebration at the Bankers Hill Club, themed after the Japanese custom of hanami, or flower admiration, surrounded by 150 loved ones and complete with a custom tea they created (they’re cofounders of Paru Tea Bar).

“When guests from Paris and Tokyo retracted their RSVPs due to travel restrictions in March, we knew we had to cancel,” they recall. “Then a few days before our original date, we both started to feel strongly that we should still get married. Members of the LGBTQ community haven’t been allowed to get married for very long. We wanted to exercise that right to celebrate our love and honor the trailblazers who paved the way for us.”

In a matter of days, they cobbled together a ceremony. Leilani’s uncle, a retired pastor, officiated in front of her childhood home. Her family, who watched through a screen door, surprised them with handmade signs, flowers, and a makeshift aisle runner. All the while Leilani’s wedding dress and Amy’s tux stayed hung in their closet.

“Confronting what was most important to us as a couple and as individuals, and dropping everything else, felt cleansing,” says Amy.

Case in point, their reception: “It was held at our apartment in Bankers Hill. The guest count was four: the two of us and our dogs, Benji and Sylvester.”

James “Vick” Waters and Christina Causland

“We tried to keep it our own.”

—Christina Causland & James “Vick” Waters

Christina and James were this close to putting down a deposit on a wedding venue in Rosarito, Mexico. Then, COVID-19 threw a wrench into their plans.

Determined to keep their October 10 wedding date, they took up a friend’s offer of holding a small wedding at their Del Mar home. “One of the most challenging things was being flexible and realizing it wouldn’t be exactly as we thought it would. But at the end of the day, it’s about you and your partner,” Christina says.

So, they controlled what they could and put a south-of-the-border spin on the big day with barbacoa and agua fresca for dinner, bright flower arrangements, and more festive touches. And while the guest list had to be slashed by more than two-thirds, loved ones Zoomed in to the ceremony and even ordered Mexican takeout to feel a part of the celebration.

Even though there were tradeoffs—no dancing, and their high-risk fathers couldn’t attend—the couple found many a silver lining in their pared-down wedding. Most important, Christina says: “No one got sick from our wedding. We did it in a respectful and safe way. We all have to keep that in the forefront of our minds.”

Matt and Kendall Davidson

“It’s not about the party.”

—Kendall & Matt Davidson

Last year, Kendall and Matt planned a wedding not once, but three times.

The couple were living as nomads when their first wedding, a 200-person “toes in the sand” celebration in August, fell through. Once our new reality set in, their nomadic lifestyle no longer made sense and they opted to hunker down in San Diego.

“We did not want to push it to 2021,” Kendall says. Instead, they delayed plan B as long as they possibly could—to New Year’s Eve.

By early September they had to face the music once more. “We did not want to be a super-spreader event. It brought us down to ‘What are weddings truly about?’ It’s not about the party. It’s about you and your partner.”

So they found a date when all of their previously signed vendors were available, and set plan C for October 16, 2020 at The Lodge at Torrey Pines. Which meant they had a mere three weeks to prepare.

Event planner Robyn Fallon, owner of Ivory + Stone Event Co., created an elevated outdoor party, complete with a string light pergola, lawn games in lieu of dancing, and lounge areas for their shortened guest list to enjoy.

LockDown Love Stories

Shelby and David

When Shelby Met David…

“When the stay-home order was issued, I decided to join a dating app because I knew I’d be bored at home. David was one of my first matches. We talked for four hours straight on our first FaceTime date! I felt like I’d met my best friend. The shutdown allowed us to get to know each other in an authentic way. I ditched my makeup and he’d be in sweats—no fancy date looks here! And given the pandemic and the election, discussion on those big issues was a must. We knew how each other felt from the start and that really helped solidify our relationship.”

Danikka and Brian

When Danikka Met Brian…

“I first saw Brian two years ago at Fernside—he’s the brother of a bartender I knew—but never said anything. Flash-forward a year and we matched on a dating app! Only ten days after our first date, the stay-home order was announced, I was furloughed, and we were suddenly in an unprecedented set of circumstances. We spent our time catching up on movies, doing our own liquor store bar crawl, and braving crazy Costco lines. But we also dealt with the hard stuff that most couples don’t tackle until they’re years in. The pandemic has turned our dating life upside-down, but it gave us a much more real experience.”

Love During COVID / Divorce Dilemma

Photo illustration by Tania Roulston

The Divorce Dilemma

Not all happily-ever-afters held up in quarantine. Despite a spring shutdown that saw most of San Diego’s family court proceedings come to a ten-week standstill, local divorce lawyers report an uptick in business of up to 20 percent since the pandemic began.

When the courts closed on March 17, couples already in the middle of a divorce were hit with trial postponements and a processing freeze. Those driven to the decision by quarantine life had to wait until family court reopened on May 26 before they could file.

But file they did. By the end of summer, new divorce filings faced a four-week backlog just to be entered into the system. “I am turning down cases because there are so many,” says attorney Kristen A. Holstrom of Holstrom, Block & Parke.

A similar pattern emerged for the firm of Goldberg Jones. Managing attorney Zephyr Hill explains that their business saw “a three month dip, then a three month spike that completely wiped out the dip.”

But most divorce lawyers don’t want to pin the increase in filings to those initial months of social isolation. “Happy marriages are still happy, and bad marriages are still bad,” Hill insists. But they’ve definitely seen clients initiate divorce after losing jobs or otherwise having their relationships impacted by the corona­virus.

Conversely, some lawyers speculate that the lockdown created an opportunity for unhappy spouses to finally get around to making it official. “You’d be amazed how many people procrastinate on divorces,” says A. Stephen Rocha, a private practitioner who works in amicable, flat-fee divorces as well as contested splits. “People have more time to deal with it.”

Amicable or otherwise, they’ve been handling cases outside the court system as well. Amanda Singer, co-owner of the San Diego Family Mediation Center, confirms that business is up nearly 25 percent. “It usually slows down by Thanksgiving and holidays,” she says. “We didn’t see that this year.”

If holiday divorces sound ugly, early in the pandemic was uglier. San Diego Family Court’s toughest challenge during the pandemic has been adjudication of child custody issues, especially during the spring shutdown.

“There were people taking advantage that the court was closed,” Hill explains. His firm represented several clients whose exes denied their custodial rights. Holstrom, who’s also the cohost of Custody Queens, a radio show devoted to custodial topics, saw it too: “It’s been a really challenging year with respect to custody.”

Many cases involved a co-parent withholding custody from an essential worker—including emergency room doctors and nurses—under the pretext that they were risking exposing their children to the virus. Parents have also claimed that their ex was not adhering to public health guidelines. “Any scenario you could possibly think of came up,” says Margo Lewis Hoy, assistant presiding judge of San Diego Superior Court’s family law division.

There have been some upsides to pandemic divorce, including lower cost. When family court resumed, it did so with online video hearings. Because lawyers no longer have to drive to the courthouse, search for parking, or wait through other hearings, they now bill clients for minutes, instead of hours. E-filings were already slated to begin by the end of 2020, but the San Diego Family Court used its spring downtime to launch the service sooner.

There is still no substitute for in-person hearings in some cases—when viewing evidence, for example. But, Hoy suggests that some aspects will remain virtual even after the pandemic has ended: “COVID has taught us that we can do things differently.”

–Ian Anderson

Love During COVID / Feature

Photo illustration by Tania Roulston

The post Love in the Time of COVID appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

They quit those steady jobs to pour their hearts into launching their online retail shop in October. “Everything about this brand and this company is our love letter to California,” Day continues. “I’m from California, and when Coleman moved here it offered him everything he wanted in terms of community.”

Sun & Loom / Bandana Models

Vivian Kim

As with all good things, Sun and Loom’s collections take time to create, and their current plan is to release new lines just twice yearly in fall/winter and spring/summer. Each line is created in collaboration with a local artist and explores one of California’s unique ecosystems.

The first collection, “Desert Oasis,” was an ode to Joshua Tree. Day and Smith chose the theme and Brooke Kelley designed the apparel. The result was a handful of vintage-soft tees and bandanas that play on the desert aesthetic in line drawings and sayings like “Fill the sun to the brim.”

Sun & Loom / T-Shirt

Vivian Kim

The company’s name reflects their mission. First, the sun: Ten percent of their profit goes to the Honnold Foundation, a nonprofit that brings solar power and solar power initiatives to communities in need around the globe. Second, the loom: As part of the slow-fashion movement, they prioritize the quality of each item over producing mass quantities. “It’s about creating a piece you want to have in your closet for a long time and maybe even pass it down to people you love,” Day says. “Clothing with purpose is something that’s important to us.”

And they’re onto something. It’s estimated that over 50 percent of Gen Zers and Millennials prefer to buy from sustainable brands. Day and Smith are obviously among them.

“When we were brainstorming the company, we were looking in our closet at things that we held on to longest,” Day says. “It was clothing that used to be my mom’s and Coleman’s dad’s. It’s about having a few things you love, instead of having a lot of things.”

Sun and Loom

@sun_and_loom

Sun & Loom / Bandana

Vivian Kim

The post Sun & Loom Captures the Essence of Southern California Living appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“It’s a fun process, like wabi-sabi,” Dore says. “There’s beauty in imperfection and beauty in watching flowers change. I find drying flowers poetic.”

Best part of all? “Everyone can do it,” Kinney adds.

Here’s their three-step guide to drying out a flower bouquet.

Dried Flowers 101 Step 1

Step 1

Choose wisely

The first thing to realize is that flowers decay at different rates, and your typical bouquet is likely to contain several different kinds. Generally, woody varieties with large seed pods, such as Protea and poppies, dry out best; grasses like thistle and Banksia dry the quickest. Mold is the biggest bane of flower drying, and usually, the more petals, the higher chance of it. For this reason, consider avoiding varieties like Ranunculus and peonies and note that others, like roses, strawflower, and Gomphrena, might lose their color and take longer to dry out.

Dried Flowers 101 Step 2

Step 2

Separate and tie the stems

After a few days of enjoying your fresh bouquet—don’t wait until they wilt, because the stems will lose their sturdiness—extract the flowers that you plan to dry and separate them into like types. Consider removing any leaves, as they’ll just go brown and could hold moisture. “You want the main focus to be the flower anyway,” Kinney says. Use twine or string to tie together each group of flowers at the stem, and make sure they’re spaced out to avoid mold.

Dried Flowers 101 Step 3

Step 3

Hang upside down

Use a nail or wall hook, or string up a line in a room with moderate natural light—avoid total darkness, like a closet—and hang your bundled flowers upside down from it. Yes, it’s that easy. The hardest part is having patience. Depending on the variety, it might take two weeks or a month for flowers to dry out entirely. Once they do, Kinney says they’ll be preserved “pretty much forever.” Whether you style them in a vase or leave them hanging for years on end, the final step is the same: step back and admire.

Grab Some Buds!

In addition to online orders, Best Bud Floral has a Flower Deli cart (free pickles!) outside of Home Ec in Little Italy on Sundays, including Valentine’s Day.

Dried Flowers 101

The post A Step-by-Step Guide to Drying Flowers appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Let There Be Light—and Macramé

When you’re working with an all-metal room, a little texture never hurts. Moriarty looked to macramé light fixtures to help. The first is in the bathroom, and the second is the showstopper in the bedroom, where the client wanted to “feel as though she was sleeping surrounded by water.” The underwater vinyl film on the ceiling helped with that, but the macramé was the icing on the cake. “It hovers over the bed like a big jellyfish.”

Function First

Capitalizing on every inch of the RV meant sacrificing some frills for function. Moriarty replaced a cumbersome folding door in the bathroom with a shower curtain, and in the living room, she did away with the original dinette and its oversized tabletop, and reimagined the seating into a sectional by adding a large storage ottoman—per request, it’s now big enough to seat both her client and their two large poodles.

Airstream Renovation / Flamingos

Deborah Shields Photography

Flamingos Set the Stage

“Flamingos and Airstreams go together like peanut butter and jelly. Together, they’re retro, kitsch, and all-American.” Moriarty made this statement loud and clear by installing a flamingo accent wall at the entry of the Airstream. It’s a custom vinyl mural that set the tone for the rest of the design. “The turquoise and coral colors in the mural were the inspiration for all of the fabrics and finishes used throughout the interior.”

Airstream Renovation / Vinyl Film

Deborah Shields Photography

Vinyl Film for the Win

All of the custom vinyl film applications were transformational, Moriarty says. Beyond the flamingo accent wall, she points to the groovy refrigerator, the retro bathroom vanity, and the aquatic bedroom ceiling. Still, they weren’t without challenges—the most obvious being the Airstream’s iconic silver bullet shape, with its convex ceiling and narrow ends.

Airstream Renovation / Exterior

Deborah Shields Photography

Airstream Renovation / Light and Macramé

Deborah Shields Photography

The post Get the Design Details on This Souped-Up Airstream appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Jennifer Du Bois

First came the KonMari craze, then The Home Edit mania. No matter how you interpret these disciplines, one thing is for certain: Home organizing has never been so haute—partly because we’re spending more time at home than ever before. Here, San Diego’s own professional home organizer Jennifer Du Bois, owner of Organized by Jen D, shares some game-changing tips for almost every room of your home.

The Bedroom

“Make your bed. I know it’s cliché, but it sets the spark that helps you clean the rest of your room.”

Just as we each have our preferences for mattresses and pillows, Du Bois says, organizing is individualized. What works for one person does not work for another, which is why your expectations should adjust to your lifestyle. In the bedroom, for instance, it might make sense for one person to fold their shirts while another might maintain their organization better by just dumping clean shirts in a bin. The key is to strategically contain the chaos.

The Kitchen

“When people think about getting organized, they think they have to be perfect. It’s knowing how to find what you need when you need it.”

Establishing zones is imperative to kitchen organization. Good thing is, it’s very doable, thanks to built-in drawers and cabinets. As she puts it: “Those are your guardrails to help you know where to put things back when you’re finished with it.” Take it a step further by establishing zones within those built-in storage areas. A junk drawer is a perfect example. Get down to the essentials, then insert smaller containers (bonus if you label them), and put your “junk” in its assigned spot.

Home Organizing / Illustration

The Garage

“Being organized creates time and space to do things that are more meaningful.”

There’s no getting around it: The garage is considered the dumping ground of the home. “You don’t know where to put something, so you put it in the garage,” Du Bois says. Still, a garage is fundamentally a blank box—you can make of it what you want. Du Bois remade hers into a gym, because her family is athletic. No matter how you reimagine yours, utilize zones. Think: an area for holiday supplies, for athletic equipment, and, yes, for car parking. And be sure to set boundaries. For instance, one shelving unit for those holiday supplies, and that’s it. If you exceed it, time to purge.

The Bathroom

“People think you have to be a minimalist. You don’t have to be a minimalist. Be an essentialist.”

One of the biggest bathroom woes is the multitude of products we store in it, whether we use them or not. That’s where the “daily drawer” comes in. It’s a drawer or another space dedicated to the items you use every day, such as toothpaste, a hairbrush, and deodorant, to streamline your daily rituals away from sifting through excess products. About those extras, Du Bois says: “We’re product junkies. Purge. Get down to the ones you like most.”

The Home Office

“Not everything is important. Think of those manuals for appliances. You can find them online.”

Although we live in a digital world, papers still pile up and the clutter can be a big problem. To avoid this in your home office, consider the papers you need daily, weekly, or even annually and categorize them accordingly. Finally, end your day by eliminating the pileup. Commit the last five to 10 minutes of every workday to resetting your space so you’re starting with a clean slate—and clean mindset—the next day.

Organized by Jen D

@organizedbyjend

Home Organizing / Feature

The post Easy Tips to Declutter Your Home appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Fall-alalala in love with their holiday wish lists and shopping lists in 40 ideas to inspire your own giving this season.

2020 Holiday Gift Guide

The post Your Go-To Gift Guide for the Holiday Season appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The Garretts spend time together in the living room, which is outfitted with a custom couch by Bixby and Ball, a chandelier from Restoration Hardware, and an accent chair from a consignment store that’s reupholstered in buffalo check fabric.

Becca Batista

 This article originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of San Diego Magazine.

’Twas some time before Christmas and all through the Garretts’ Tudor house, a slew of handmade decorations were carefully strewn about—streamers crafted from old children’s books hugging the tree, the names “Conrad” and “Henry” strung together from a deck of French playing cards, and “Merry Christmas” hand painted on scraps of chocolate advertisements, which Mom and Dad had kept from their honeymoon 14 years ago.

Conrad, Alexis, Ross, and Henry Garrett on their front doorstep.

Becca Batista

“There’s a story told in most of my accessories and especially in my Christmas tree,” says Alexis, owner and lead interior designer of Alexis Garrett Design. She and her husband, Ross, and sons Henry, 11, and Conrad, 8, cut down the 10-foot tree themselves on a friend’s farm in Julian and hauled it back to Encinitas.

“I love doing really big, wild trees, and decorate it to be magical and fun. See the tinsel? How it reflects on the walls? I want my kids to come in and remember this as a being a big, sparkly tree, filled with ornaments I’ve collected since I was a girl. I like trees to be sentimental.”

This will mark the Garretts’ fifth year celebrating the holidays in this home.

Alexis carries a bouquet through the kitchen, and in the breakfast nook, an heirloom chandelier shines brightly on a replica Goya painting.

Becca Batista

Flash back to 2014: They weren’t looking to move, and were perfectly content with a 1,500-square-foot tract home in Cardiff. But when a friend alerted them to the half-acre property, they couldn’t resist and made a swift purchase.

“When we bought it, it was really dilapidated. But I would never want a done house; I want a project, especially being an interior designer. There was potential,” Alexis says, and with a smile, “I felt that with some paint and Bondo, it would get done.”

Except for the Smeg fridge, which was ordered online, the kitchen brims with consignment and estate sale finds, including the butcher block table and rug.

Becca Batista

Before the paint and Bondo putty, though, they gutted the kitchen. They also rebuilt the fireplace—it was falling over, Alexis says.

On this day, it’s sturdy as ever with two gray stockings hung by the chimney with care, and a spread of candlesticks and pine cones give another oh-so-subtle nod to the season.

“This is how I do it—minimalist and driven by foliage,” Alexis says of her holiday decorating. “My boys think I’m so bah humbug, because I don’t have a lot of stuff.”

The boys play cards in Conrad’s room, where a retired fireplace is filled with books.

Becca Batista

The tree is always the center­piece, of course. From there come the tabletops. Alexis and her friend Tam Ashworth placed a bunch of red flower bulbs in amber bottles on the dining room table (which Alexis scooped up for $200 at an estate sale). There’s more festive flora in the breakfast nook off the kitchen, where pine cones and pomegranates are placed on a round table from Restoration Hardware, surrounded by wicker chairs from Serena & Lily. A hefty strand of cedar pine garland frames a shelf full of milk glass, which Alexis has collected since she was a kid.

“I would get Victoria Magazine when I was little. I loved antiques. I was always going to garage sales and thrift stores,” she says. “I was the little girl that would move my whole room around. I would shop for my sheets when I was in junior high. Who does that? My dad would ask, ‘What are we going to do with your room?’ and I’d say, ‘I want a seersucker overstuffed chair.’ Why did I know that stuff?”

A 10-foot Jeffrey pine tree is the focal point of the home during the holidays, adorned with handmade decorations like playing cards Alexis purchased at a French flea market and sewed together to spell out her sons’ names, pages of old children’s books cut into triangles and threaded together as a garland, and plenty of tinsel for a magical effect.

Becca Batista

Part of the reason is that she grew up around remodeling and renovations, having lived in 14 homes in San Diego before she even went off to college. She and Ross knew each other at Torrey Pines High School, but didn’t start dating until long after. Alexis got her true start in design working for Solana Beach interior designer Kelly Kaplan, who instilled in her an appreciation for French decor. But the antiquing and handmade decorations are Alexis’s own ingenuity.

Take her admitted obsession with upcycling old sheets. She’ll rip them into strands and drape them like streamers, fashion them into bows or, during the holidays, use them to hang her wreaths. She’ll also use newspaper as placemats, and she’s kept the linens from her wedding all these years, just to put out as hand towels in the bathroom when they’re entertaining guests—which they do quite often.

Ross, who’s president of the surfing news company Surfline, calls the house the “outpost of adventure,” because it’s where all of their friends and family congregate.

The family gathers in the dining room for games and hors d’oeuvres.

Becca Batista

“We think of it as everyone is out on their adventures and this is where you come back and share your stories and reconnect,” he says. “Holidays are the best time for the outpost of adventure.”

Not to mention the house has no shortage of adventurous amenities. In the backyard, there’s a half pipe, a zip line, a chicken coop, an archery target, and a fire pit. “It’s like summer camp,” Alexis adds. And in a lot of ways, the house is like an old cabin.

Constructed entirely of redwood—believed to be cut from sequoias in the Northwest and floated down to San Diego in the late 1800s—the house has no insulation and not all of the doors line up with their frame, so it gets pretty drafty. (The boys sometimes sit on the floor heaters in the morning to warm up.)

Alexis and Henry enjoy a cup of cocoa on a porch off the master bedroom, where a wreath is hung on an old sheet.

Becca Batista

Standing on his toes, Ross pulls down a small painting. A message on it begins, “Dear Pauline …” It’s addressed to Pauline Oliveros, one of the former homeowners, a composer who cofounded the Department of Music at UC San Diego and pioneered the field of electronic music. She ran an artists’ retreat out of this home from the ’60s through the ’80s, Ross explains, and every homeowner thereafter opted to leave those mementos in place.

“It’s not just our decision,” Ross says, carefully putting the painting back. “Any of those people could have gotten rid of all this, and they all kept it. We look at this house like we’re lucky enough to take care of it for as long as we’re able. It’s a super-special place with a lot of heritage, and we’d like to keep that going.”

In the breakfast nook, garlands are draped over a shelving unit (purchased for $5 from a yard sale) to showcase Alexis’s milk glass collection. Behind it is a glimpse into Henry’s bedroom.

Becca Batista

In fact, they’ve taken the duty so earnestly that they’ve done little to no modernizing, keeping the feeling of the home true to how it was originally built, as a summer house by a gentleman from LA in the ’20s.

The gate to their property is manual, not automated. They have no microwave, cable TV—or TVs, period. Instead, they have family movie nights using a projector and a screen that retracts into the living room ceiling. Also, there’s only one itsy-bitsy shower, and that’s off of Henry’s room. The parents have just a bathtub.

The master bedroom is neutral as can be, with bedding from Kerry Cassill, a painting of Swami’s by Alexis herself, and on the side table, found at an estate sale, a pair of old shoes purchased from a cobbler in France.

Becca Batista

“We do bath showers. There’s a handheld shower head,” Alexis says with a laugh, because she knows others might find it strange. Truth is, she and Ross have always lived this way, even in their first home together. “It’s just how we do it.”

Ross adds: “There’s a certain amount of touching, feeling, and being active with your world that gets eliminated with automation. At home, sometimes those conveniences take you out of intention.”

Low-tech living pays off a lot during the holidays, when they fill their days with old-school entertainment like playing board games, crafting ornaments, and reading books like The Night Before Christmas.

In the couple’s bathroom, Alexis uses their wedding linens as hand towels.

Becca Batista

And come the time Santa’s sliding down the chimney, all of the Garretts’ holiday traditions will be on display: gingerbread houses the boys have made, cannoli set out for St. Nick (cooked every year with the help of Alexis’s grandma), popcorn strung together and hanging on the tree. But nothing will be over-the-top.

“My philosophy is, the simpler the better,” Alexis says, and appends a somewhat surprising piece of advice: “Enjoy the season and don’t have it be all about the decor. Work with what you have … with what tells a story.”

The table’s topped with red flowers for the holidays with help from florist Tam Ashworth and a festive charcuterie spread by Al Fresko.

Becca Batista

The family roasts ‘smores around the fire pit, in chairs from Wayfair.

Becca Batista

The post Home for the Holidays in San Diego appeared first on San Diego Magazine.