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Curbed's weekly original tours series takes you inside homes with eye-catching style and big personality—from modern tiny homes to pedigreed midcentury gems and everything in between.

Our House Calls feature takes you into homes with great style, big personality, and ineffable soul. Today we look at the Pasadena home of actors and writers Amanda Lund and Matt Gourley, who customized a 1947 Craftsman bungalow, making it into a handsome home with woodland flourishes.

The couple associated Pasadena with mansions, so they were pleasantly surprised to stumble upon a “runt,” a two-bedroom with a large back yard on a tree-lined street west of the Arroyo Seco in the San Rafael Hills.

“I love this neighborhood,” Lund said. “The trees, the houses are set back.”

“It does feel like we got a little bit lucky,” Gourley said.

Luck might have had something to do with it, but Gourley and Lund invested sweat equity into the house, which they purchased two years ago in June. Right around that time, Lund travelled for work for 2.5 months, leaving Gourley to put his degree in scenic design to use, stripping and refinishing window frames and installing wainscoting.

He did not have the structural knowledge to rework the kitchen, the one part of the house that had given them pause when they first looked at it. “I remember feeling like the kitchen was a real puzzle,” Gourley said.

It was small and dark and partitioned from the dining room. So they hired a contractor to knock down three walls, making a galley kitchen that opens to the dining room that flows into the living room. Meanwhile, Gourley was sending images of materials and colors and finishes to Lund, who weighed in virtually.

“Amanda’s and my taste aligned pretty well. That’s a risk you take moving in together,” Gourley said. But, “our taste probably aligned 75 percent of the time ... I don’t think anyone ever bullied the other into any thing.”

They’re not really the outdoorsy types, but their home says otherwise. The wallpaper in the living groom is forest green plaid, in their bedroom, it’s patterned with aspen trees. Enamel mugs hang in the kitchen. Lund tucked animal statuettes among books and atop furniture.

“It’s like midcentury rustic,” she said.

“It’s like if the Kennedys went camping,” he said.

It does skew slightly masculine, in an elegant Ron Swanson, Made in Oregon way, especially in the lounge area off the dining room, a place where it’s easy to imagine sipping craft cocktails before sitting down to a grass-fed steak and a kale salad.

The space is also defined by oil paintings, black and white photographs of departed family, midcentury modern-style furniture, and vintage finds. The hutch in the dining is from Sunbeam Vintage in Highland Park. “That’s the very first piece of furniture we bought for the house,” Gourley said. “I was sending Amanda pictures telling her, ‘Trust me. It’s great.’”

At one point, Lund’s mom tried to a add a pop of color with a pink throw pillow from Target. Lund said she playfully left it there to see how long Gourley could stand it. He said he was intent on leaving it there for two days to prove a point, but stuffed it in a closet eight hours later.

They survived the pillow incident and are now busy planning a May wedding. The house is nearly finished, except for Gourley’s office, a beautiful, sun-drenched room that opens to the backyard. He’s planning to build window seats with cubbies along two adjoining walls; where they meet in the corner, he’ll install a coffee table.

This is the project Gourley said he’s most been looking forward to.

“It feels like I’ve been using the rest of the house to warm up,” he said. “I’m a little sad it’s wrapping up.”