Tech

An artist and a hacker turned their home into this trippy funhouse

Chris Weller

2016-04-12T13:13:00Z

Alexa Meade and Chris Hughes don't have an eager-eyed puppy to greet them at the door, but they do have a rainbow staircase.

The multi-colored installation is just one of many eye-catching renovations that Meade, an artist, and Hughes, a hacker and engineer, have made to their 800-square-foot Los Angeles apartment over the last two and a half years.

Other revamps include a breakfast nook that turns into a disco club, a jellyfish bathroom closet that pays homage to Nelson Mandela, and a Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe medicine cabinet.

"It's so much of our energies coming together in an explosion of creation," Meade tells Tech Insider.

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Just about every square foot of Meade and Hughes' Los Angeles apartment has been repurposed as a colorful playland. The couple sets aside three weeks out of the year, typically around Christmas, for a "Let's Build" session.

Their funhouse overhaul begins with the rainbow steps as soon as you walk in the front door.

A reflective, shimmering surface on both walls immediately gives the visitor a disorienting welcome, almost as if the walls were melting.

rainbow home from Funhouse House on Vimeo.

Once people reach the top of the steps, they notice the mirrors.

"We have it set up so that while lying in bed we can see every window in the house at the same time," Meade says. "And they're on hinges, so Chris can be in the kitchen, look over in the mirror, and then it bounces off four other mirrors, and see me in the living room making art."

In the kitchen, the couple has created a breakfast nook that lives a secret life.

With the flip of a few switches and the swipe of a curtain, the nook becomes the Breakfast Club.

Glow-in-the-dark paint, fog machines, laser lights, and techno music can keep a party of up to 9 people (squeezed tightly) going til the break of dawn.

Meade says the Breakfast Club speaks to the design constraints of living tiny. "Each space has to have like four different functions if it's actually going to be a home," she says.

disco kitty from Funhouse House on Vimeo.

"We have no closets left anymore," she adds, and that includes the bathroom linen closet, which now has neon tassels of spandex "jellyfish" hanging from the ceiling.

Guests can sport 3D glasses to get an even more psychedelic effect in the room, which was built as a (tongue-in-cheek) tribute to Nelson Mandela shortly after he died in 2013.

The actual home goods are stowed away underneath the couple's beds and in the remaining cabinet space in the kitchen.

Through the bathroom closet from Funhouse House on Vimeo.

In the house's Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe, visitors can browse through various wares, such as canned unicorn meat and shrinky-dink art.

Lamentably, the house itself isn't open to the public. Meade and Hughes still rent from a landlord downstairs, who vetoed their idea for a hopscotch floor and hallway croquet.

Many of the renovations are held together by tape and staples so they can be easily taken down. But there are still plenty of surprises, like in the gift shop's adults-only section.

There's even a mock credit card swiper built into an old Chinese abacus.

The couple's biggest goal is to make the funhouse a place of love, fun, and straight-up adventure. "We just love being silly," Hughes says.

"Everything is novel and anything can happen here," Meade adds. Both she and Hughes point out that nothing is meant to be sacred. Nothing needs to be tiptoed around.

It'll also never be completed, they say, though Meade has visions of someday starting her own business where she and Hughes "funhouse-ify" other people's homes.

Ultimately, bringing optical illusions and craziness to other people's lives is its own kind of joy. As Meade explains, "Every time, it's exciting to open the door and know what's on the other side."

isaac mirrors from Funhouse House on Vimeo.

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