The Kansas City Designer Toy Dream House

Yesterday, no fewer than a dozen people sent me a link to Apartment Therapy’s tour of Sara and Jason’s amazing “toy-tastic” home. Each time I opened the email, I clicked in, and re-took the tour. Why? Because it was like digital Disneyland. No, it was way better than that. Sara and Jason are both designers and collectors. They live in Kansas City with three cats. Their toys are color-coordinated and flanked by Pete Fowler‘s Van Orlaxes.  The picture above is eyeball euphoria. A commenter named “blue_eyes” wrote in:

I’ve seen my future! My fiance collects action figures, so I’m pretty sure this what our home will eventually look like. If only I can convince him to display his toys by color and not by comic…

Oh blue_eyes. Get a pre-nup. Your house is never going to look this good. I say this with love.

Call them designer toys or art multiples, but here’s the thing: it’s a nice, warm, familiar, cozy, happy feeling to see a piece you own (or want to own) in another person’s collection. In this photo alone is work by Julie West, Jeremy Fish, Gary Baseman, Joe Ledbetter and Travis Lampe. I’m not alone in doing my identification homework. I love this blog comment referring to Fish’s Platinum Turtle Camper and Rotocasted.

Look at that Expedit! Crammed full of toys and books…the stuff of dreams. Knowing that the homeowners have “three fur children,” I wonder if they should Make Their Shelves Cat Friendly? You can get a lot out of reading blog comments (it makes me so happy when people leave them here). Sara answered my question with “Luckily the cats behave themselves, they are kind of old now but there has been some incidences in the past, ha!”

Speaking of those cats, I’m glad another commenter posed a question about the adorable cat dishes (at lower left, next to what has got to be a Simple Human trash can). Sara points out that they’re pricey, but awesome. There’s four colorways (at $90 each) by Milan-based designer Miriam Mirri for Alessi available here. (Put THAT on your Rotocasted Wishlist, right?)

Here we see some more Julie West, a bunch of Nathan Jurevicius and appearances by Amanda Visell and Andrew Bell. The whole house is just done so tastefully. What could quite easily have turned into a hoarder home looks like a gallery space. Feedback on their home was almost overwhelmingly all positive. The only bits of disagreement can be summed up as: “Adults with major toy collections freak me out a little” and “Must be a drag to dust”. We get over these things.

Let’s conclude with a succession of Tim Biskup Qees, and this advice from Sara and Jason: “Be creative and make your space represent who you are. You live there after all, so surround yourself with what you love!” Enter Apartment Therapy’s full house tour here.