Room of the Day: A Garage Makeover That Rocks

Before professional musician Tim Mosher married interior designer Lindsay Pennington, his former hunting cottage in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, was all man cave. As the couple combined their belongings and she put her own touches on the house, she wanted to ensure that he still had a space to call his own. With a semicircular driveway in front of the house, they found they used their detached garage out back only to store things they never used, such as old bikes and mattresses. They even unearthed a 1990s Mac.

In transforming the building into Mosher’s office, the couple allocated almost all of their budget for construction, which included sealing the garage door, cutting in windows and a door, framing, adding drywall, installing a new floor and adding a small deck. Then Pennington got busy outfitting the space with Mosher’s favorite things and repurposed furniture and accessories. Now the newly remodeled space serves as a music room, office, after-party lounge and guest room.

Photos by Ted Thornton

Room at a Glance
Who lives here: Musician Tim Mosher, interior designer Lindsay Pennington and their 2 young sons
Location: Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles
Size: About 100 square feet (9 square meters)

The couple created a small deck space just off the new backyard entry to the garage, which expands the room outdoors. Pennington scored the café set for $25 at Big Lots and the kilim pillow for $10 at a Lulu & Georgia sample sale.

“I’m a really democratic shopper. I look everywhere, from the high-end shops on La Cienega [Boulevard] to thrift stores,” Pennington says. “Bringing all of these things together makes a room feel homey and really personal.”


Pennington wanted her husband to be surrounded by his favorite things. “The room is very masculine and reflective of him and his interests,” she says of the new man cave. One of the biggest ways she brought in her husband’s style was with his art and rock ’n’ roll book collections.

“I love to put a gallery wall in almost all of my projects,” Pennington says. Some notable pieces include a poster signed by members of The Who; a concert poster that includes the band Mosher played with in high school, the Very Nice Plants; an original Wes Lang piece she was given as a gift; and an Alexander Calder print she and the couple’s sons gave Mosher for Father’s Day.

“There’s no magic or mathematics to arranging art,” Pennington says. For arranging a gallery wall, she advises using a mix of sizes and frames, and vertical and horizontal pieces. “The most important thing is to leave room for creativity and experimentation,” she says. Mosher regularly adds new pieces and switches things around.

A Gallery Wall for Every Personality


One of the few new purchases was this CB2 sleeper sofa, which folds out into a full-size bed for guests. The big splurge was the mix of patterned pillows from Hollywood at Home. Almost every other piece was something the couple already owned or an inexpensive score. The Persian rug, for example, was a hand-me-down from a friend of a friend who could not use it in her own home.

Wall, ceiling and trim paint: White Dove, Benjamin Moore


This Lucite coffee table from CB2 is another go-to piece for Pennington. “A lot of the young families I work with in L.A. have smaller homes with tight spaces, and this is a great solution,” she says. “It doesn’t hide the rug; it just floats, and it’s easy to move when we need to fold out the bed for guests.”

By the way, that’s Pennington and Mosher’s dog Dixie to the right of the table. She loves to nap in the office.





Pennington had bought the vintage Mies van der Rohe Spoleto chair and the Moroccan side table years before. The Rod Stewart photo was already part of Mosher’s rock photography collection.





Three new windows bathe the desk area in natural light. Mosher has had the desk for years; it’s an old piece from the L.A. Unified School District. The vintage floor lamp is from a thrift store. The pieces add a little rusty and crusty character to the bohemian mix. (The desk picked up the rust when it was sitting outside during construction.)


A vintage chrome étagère corrals novels, mementos, books and photographs. Pennington had found it dusty, with its glass shelves broken, in the basement of a Silver Lake thrift store years earlier. She knew that similar pieces go for thousands of dollars and she had a great score at $400, even though she didn’t have a use for it at the time.

The vintage Louis Vuitton case on the bottom shelf keeps loose papers and records in one place.


A TV hangs on an articulating arm in the corner above Mosher’s guitar collection, just out of view in this shot. When Pennington is away, Mosher and their two sons like to come out here and have a guys’ movie night.


However, the room certainly is not “no girls allowed.” When the two have dinner parties, they like to keep the after-party going out here so they don’t wake the kids.


If you look closely at the photos, you may notice that a few pieces have been moved around or replaced. That wasn’t due to photo styling; there were two photo shoots several months apart. The couple believes in staying creative and versatile; the music room (and the rest of their home) is constantly evolving.

Tell us: Have you converted your garage to a work or living space? We’d love to see a photo in the Comments!

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