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Inside Photographer & Artist Venea Meyer’s
Carefully Curated Desert Modern Home

Featuring a show-stopping
display of frames by yours truly.
Venea Meyer’s mother has always reminded her that good things come to those who wait. And in a world that often celebrates convenience, the photographer thought she knew the meaning of the age-old adage better than anyone. That is, until she and her husband, Derek, set their sights on a plot of land back home in Arizona, where her patience was put to the test.

With her mother’s wisdom guiding her, Venea embraced a slow approach at every step of the design process, thoughtfully curating each detail with the belief that her home would become so much more than a house—it would be a true work of art, as beautiful as it is functional.
As new chapters of life unfold, priorities shift and evolve with the seasons. When the Meyer family learned they were expecting their second child in 2019, Venea felt a new shift—an urge to be closer to friends and family and a yearning for more space.

“Looking back, we were so blissfully ignorant... Which I almost think you have to be to take the leap with something that big. Even though it was a stressful project, today we can both say it was the best decision we ever made.”

Her lovely little neighborhood in Manhattan Beach had become comfortable and familiar, but for the mom and artist, the lack of space had become increasingly taxing. That’s when Venea and Derek decided to return to their roots in sunny Arizona.

After years of renting fixer-uppers in California and months of searching for the perfect house in Phoenix, the couple had the crazy idea to build their dream home from the ground up.
The couple had begun dreaming up ideas for their home long before they broke ground. From decorating doll houses as a little girl to playing with space and scale in their 1,000-square-foot Manhattan Beach bungalow, Venea has always had a passion for design.

She knew she wanted to incorporate earthy elements that would mimic mother nature and bring the outside in—and that she did. With sweeping views of South Mountain through every window, the home’s connection to the surrounding landscape is felt from the moment you step inside.

“We kept everything really neutral, and that was intentional because you can update things like paint color as your style changes—but it’s time consuming and costly to change the bones of your home.”

“As a photographer and artist myself, it felt so important to support other artists and to make our house feel like an original work of art itself.”

Her timeless aesthetic also stems deeply from her travels to far-flung corners of the world, and she wanted to infuse the home with those enduring elements that had inspired the couple to build in the first place.

Almost every specification in the home was created by an artist. Tile handmade in Morocco, terracotta sourced from artisans in Mexico, light fixtures from all over the world, like the African, handwoven pendants that hang above her kitchen island.
For the Interior Design aficionado, building a home wasn’t just about aesthetics—it was about creating a space where she and her family could truly be themselves. Venea often reflects on how her roles as mother and artist guided the design process. “I wanted to be able to work when I feel really creative, and shoot when the light is magical and dancing across my house. I wanted my kids to be able to have friends over and scooter and rollerblade through the living room,” she explains. “There is a fine line between beauty and functionality, and when designing a home, you really have to balance both.”

“We sat with this room the longest, and we just wanted it to be fun and funky and a place where the kids and the adults can play together.”

Perhaps one of the greatest displays of this balance is the family game room, anchored by a vintage pool table she never thought she’d own, a to-die-for wallpaper by Sarah Sherman Samuel, and well-styled Brass Modern Metal Frames by Artifact Uprising.
When we asked Venea to tell us more about her inspiration behind the design of the family game room, she laughed. “Funny story. Earlier this year around Father’s Day, I asked my husband what he wanted, and he’s like ‘I want a pool table.’ And my design heart was like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do with a pool table?!”

Despite all odds, Venea set out on a mission to make her husband’s pool-table dreams come true, and after searching high and low, there it was. A beacon on Facebook Marketplace. A cool, vintage pool table that only needed a little TLC and a place to call home.
After she surprised Derek with the refinished pool table, everything else fell into place. Since the rest of the home is soft and neutral, Venea decided to design the game room with a bolder, more playful feel to match the purpose of the space. She chose a sunset-hued geometric wallpaper and our Modern Metal Frames to complement the room’s centerpiece.

Venea and her husband planned for the best possible wall arrangement by piecing paper together to mimic different frame sizes. They created two layouts—a gallery wall of smaller prints and a diptych of two large-scale frames. “This trick worked wonders for our decision paralysis,” Venea shares. “After sitting with each layout for a few days, we just LOVED how the large ‘frames’ looked in the space.”
Though Venea has collected hundreds of scenic photographs over the years, she filled the frames with two giant pictures of her kids in their element: Her son, Mason, zooming around on his toy motorcycle and her daughter, Abby, sporting her favorite heart-shaped sunglasses. “It needs to be about the kids right now,” she says. The candid snapshots capture the true essence of this room and preserve the fun and fleeting ages of her two precious children.

As she and her children change throughout the years, Venea plans to update these frames alongside each new season of life. But for now, she resists all urges to shift and simply clings to the beauty around her—her beloved landscape, her sweet family of four, and her idyllic forever home.

Inspired to design your
own well-curated wall?

Explore our new frames collection, filled with color, texture, movement and more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Follow Venea for more insights into how to make everyday living an art: @venealoren

Build and Architectural Design Team: Beckett Construction, Joel Contreras Design, Amy Williams Design and Brock O'neill, of the Design Office

Family photographer for large prints: Vienna Glenn Photography

Story written by: Chandler Stroman