Decorating ideas from a pro party house (or two)

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How’s this for a sign of a successful remodel: Friends want to throw parties at your home.

Sherry Walsh, a former fashion designer, and husband Miguel Nelson, an artist, took those requests and turned them into a business, renting out two spaces for parties, weddings and more -- venues with unusual designs that do-it-yourselfers will want to steal.

The first, a free-flowing indoor-outdoor space they call Marvimon, had been auto showroom. That’s it pictured above, with the couple’s Woolly Pockets creating a vertical garden along one wall. Walsh and Nelson’s second venue, SmogShoppe, is a former smog-check station in Culver City.

Both spaces are loaded with ideas: tables stained with coffee grounds, bookshelves wrapped in metal mesh, glazed brick used instead of tile, old doors lined up to form wall paneling. Check out our 19-image photo gallery here.

-- Jan Molen

Photo credits: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times