Stay Awhile
California Cool Casual is the small boutique hotel you didn’t want to leave — terracotta tile underfoot, white plaster walls, linen everything, a door left open to the garden. Layered in neutrals but never flat: woven cane and raw oak, jute and bouclé, the texture doing what color usually does. Relaxed without being undone. Uplifting without being loud. The kind of calm that comes from a room that isn’t trying.
From where we sit, it’s the most travel-shaped of the American interior styles — a room that asks you to slow down and stay awhile. Ten pieces to build it. Starting in the living room.
The Sundays modular sectional — the West Coast cloud sofa. Deep seats, feather-and-fibre cushions over a foam core, removable washable slipcovers in their LiveLife performance fabric (stain-repellent, kids-and-dogs grade). Fully modular: add a section, subtract one, float the ottoman wherever your feet end up. The lived-in look is intentional and earned — the cushions slouch the way deep sectionals are supposed to, not the way cheap ones collapse. We’d configure it in five sections with the ottoman if the room can take it.
The print over the sofa is Thomas LaGrega’s photograph of two skateboarders rolling down a road cut through tall golden California grass — the kind of horizontal landscape that reads like a still from a film you’d want to keep watching. LaGrega shoots American summer in the Stephen Shore tradition: ordinary roads, real light, no filter doing the work. Available framed in four sizes from $199. We’d take the largest the wall can take — a wide landscape this calm benefits from scale, and a deep sofa can carry a print as wide as it is.
The Abaso coffee table — chunky, low, faux-salvaged, oak veneer finished to look like aged wormwood — is a category cliché this one earns. Proportions are right: low and wide, built for a deep sectional and a big rug, oversized in a small room. Here’s the honest part: it’s oak veneer with an applied rustic finish, not salvaged timber. That’s the trade for a slab this size that won’t crack, cup, or harbor the woodworm it imitates. The joinery is real, the kiln-dried core is real, the age is theatre. The shape is the star.
The Valley is the walnut step side table built for books — a tall column with a flat top for a glass or a small ceramic bowl, and a lower extension sized for a Taschen monograph or whatever oversized book you’ve been meaning to finish. The shape lets it tuck right up against the arm of a sofa, which means a drink at hand without leaning. Walnut shows up warm and gets warmer with time. We’d stack one book on the lower shelf, set a single ceramic bowl on top, and stop there.
Valley Side Table, – $650
Ellsberg Woven End Table, $107
The Ellsberg is the woven seagrass end table that doubles as a stool — hand-braided, lightweight enough to drag from the sofa to the patio, structural enough to actually sit on. Top is flat for a glass, a mug, a candle, a small terracotta dish. The barrel shape gives the corner of a room the texture neutrals usually leave out. At $107, it’s the cheapest piece in the post and the one that earns its keep fastest. We’d pair it with anything bouclé — the contrast of woven coarse against woven soft is the whole California Cool Casual point in miniature.
Eindhoven Leather Dining Chair, $449
The Eindhoven is the leather-and-woven-cord dining chair that looks handpicked from a Copenhagen flea market and ships in 1-4 weeks. Walnut-finished rubberwood frame, Ludlow leather seat, woven cord backrest — the materials are honest if not aspirational. Contract grade means it’s built for restaurant use, so it’ll easily outlast the home that buys it. The proportions are clean enough for a long oak dining table and casual enough for a plaster-walled dining room. We’d buy six and put them around a round pedestal — the silhouette holds up under any pendant.
Aurelia Scalloped Rattan Pendant, $279.99
The Aurelia is the handwoven rattan pendant with a scalloped trim — what gets called “boho” in American product copy and just “a lampshade” in southern Europe. The dome borrows from Italian beach umbrellas and Portuguese kitchen fixtures; the scallop is the moment. Throws a warm diffused glow downward through the weave — soft enough for long dinners, present enough to read under. Nineteen inches across, dimmable, E26 socket. We’d put a clear glass Edison bulb inside so the filament glows through the cane. That contrast is the whole point.
Insitu Coffee Table by Moe’s Home, $1,349 (from $1,754),
The Insitu is the terracotta concrete dome that makes a courtyard feel like stepping into a small Mediterranean boutique hotel. Forty-eight inches across, indoor-outdoor rated, available in terracotta or black. The dome silhouette does what most outdoor coffee tables don’t — it reads sculptural from across a patio, not utilitarian. Concrete handles weather without performing reclaimed; the terracotta finish reads warm against gray-washed pavers or pale travertine. We’d skip the matching set and pair it with two woven-rope lounge chairs and a single olive tree. Currently on sale at $1,349 from $1,754 — not nothing.
Tera Short Indoor/Outdoor Planter, $139 (planter alone), $169 (with walnut stand), $179 (large)
The Tera is the fluted polystone planter in warm terracotta — half the weight of real terracotta, frost-proof, sized for indoor or outdoor without restaging. Reads sculptural up close, structural from across the room. Plays well with light oak, dark wood, jute, anything mid-century. We’d plant the short version with a small Japanese maple, the tall with an indoor olive. The drainage hole has a removable plug — you switch between living-room corner and loggia in five minutes. The rare planter you can leave outside in October.
Berrien Linen Cotton Euro Shams, $138 / set of 2,
The Berrien is the block-print Euro sham that goes with everything and dates with nothing. Hand-carved wooden blocks, natural dyes, centuries of pressing pattern onto cotton one stamp at a time — borrowed here at a quiet, contemporary scale. Five soft colorways: stargazer, indigo, rust, ochre, sage. Small enough to read as texture from across the room, detailed enough to reward a closer look. Stack two against a headboard, lean one against the arm of a sofa, set one on a window seat. Sold as a set of two; 26-inch down insert sold separately.
Ten pieces, one home — a sofa you sink into, a print on the wall, a coffee table that pretends to be older than it is, two side tables doing different jobs, a chair you’d buy six of, a pendant softening the light, a dome anchoring the patio, a planter that travels indoors and out, and the pillows that make all of it feel lived in. California Cool Casual isn’t a look you put on — it’s a pace you keep. Pour the wine. Leave the door open. Stay awhile.