A Squirrel Hill home built 95 years ago fuses elements of contemporary, vintage and tribal decorating styles in a way that visitors, somehow, barely notice. Brightly colored walls mix with plain white walls; funky modern art mixes with vintage movie posters from the 1940s and carved wooden furniture from Africa. The predominant theme is contemporary and artsy, but the other elements seem to blend right in without clashing. "I designed the house sort of like an art gallery, where every piece has a happy home; it lets you breathe art," says Rachel Farley, owner of Rachel Farley Interiors. She designed the remodeled home for her best friend, Stacy Weiss, who moved into the house eight years ago after a yearlong transformation from a "real dull, old-looking house" into a "hip, open, wide, airy home," Farley says. The house's eclectic style -- along with elaborate art and furnishings, and the effort involved in restoring it -- is one of the reasons why HGTV selected the home as a subject for an upcoming fall episode of "Generation Renovation." The camera crew and interviewers visited the house on Friday, and visited three other Pittsburgh-area homes throughout the week. "This one's phenomenal; every room is different, and it all kind of flows together," says Gaard Swanson, host of "Generation Renovation," which airs Sunday and Monday nights. "I look at thousands of homes every year." The house has a way of hooking people up. Weiss -- owner of Weisshouse in Shadyside, an upscale store that sells items such as furniture and rugs -- met her future husband, Will Carpenter, when she hired him as a contractor to work with Farley. They married five years ago, and brought Carpenter's two children and Swanson's three children from previous marriages to live in the three-story, five-bedroom house. "It was definitely a nice outcome," Weiss says. Just this week, yet another connection happened at the house: Swanson met Farley, who does work nationally, then hired her to design the kitchen in his Seattle home. When Weiss discovered the house about a decade ago, she saw great potential in an otherwise rough, boring shell. "She said, 'I think I found a house, but it's so ugly,'" Farley says, laughing. The remodeling team punched out a lot of the walls and added several double-door sets. Then they painted, restored and decorated the old house into its current elegance, Farley says. "We just made it a contemporary space instead of a tired, dark old Pittsburgh place," says Farley, who passed on Weiss' and Carpenter's names to the producer when they contacted her. Weiss and Carpenter say they are nervous but excited about appearing on television, and thrilled with the house. "I love it ... it's very much a statement of who we are," Weiss says. Additional Information:
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If you would like to nominate your house for a future episode of 'Generation Renovation,' contact Josh Leonard of Denver-based High Noon Entertainment via e-mail .
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