Bellevue woman rejuvenates her living room with a playful theme

When Nancy Fernandes was a kid, her Bellevue living room was strictly off-limits.

"We had all white walls, and you couldn't sit on the furniture," said Fernandes, 41. "When my parents passed away, I thought, 'You know what? I've got to change it.' "

Today, the most white you'll find in Fernandes' living room is on a cue ball. Today, the living room revolves around color, billiards and fun.

"I picked the pool theme because I don't have room for a pool table," said Fernandes. "Actually, I suck at pool. I just thought it was a good theme to put color in."

Her circular glass coffee table (originally a table aquarium) is filled with 28 sets of plastic, wood and clay pool balls from eBay.

A set of pool-ball ornaments decorates one end of the fireplace mantel, and a gumball machine holds tiny rubber pool balls.

A string of pool-ball lights dangles from a full-size pinball machine. It's called Cue Ball Wizard.

And then there is The Mural. It's the first thing you see when you come in.

"I wanted a 'wow' statement," Fernandes said.

So Redmond artist Colleen O'Grady painted a one-of-a-kind wall mural of a pool-playing, purple-shirted Elvis. Under one of the two red pool tables sit two of Fernandes' three cats. In the background is one of her seven jukeboxes. And coming off Elvis' stick is a 3-D wooden ball, painted Number 15 — Fernandes' number as a 911 operator in Renton.

Eleven Number-15 balls follow a ricocheting path from the mural to the end of her hallway, until one lands in the hand of Sammy Davis Jr. in a framed poster from the original "Ocean's Eleven." In it, the Rat Pack is playing pool.

Muralist O'Grady and Camano Island carpenters Cal and Cabot Fuqua combined forces to create a 7-foot-tall cabinet, built and painted to look like an old Polly Gas pump.

Inside, Fernandes will store the 3,000 45-rpm records that fuel her jukebox collection. Three of those jukeboxes fit in her living room.

Fernandes wanted one since she was 21. She saved half the money for her first jukebox, a 1968 Wurlitzer All-American, and friends pitched in the rest as a birthday gift.

There is room for furniture, too — as long as it's fun. Fernandes first saw her Todd Oldham diamondback sofa on TV and thought, "Yep, that's it." She had a chair recovered in playing-card fabric at It's 'bout Time Upholstery in Bellevue.

She found a 1964 Sputnik lamp and a Sputnik clock on eBay. A custom shelf above the window holds about 50 rubber Devil Ducks all in a row, some from friends, some from Archie McPhee in Seattle.

And everywhere, there is meaning in the details:

• On the cabinet door, gasoline is 63 cents a gallon. Fernandes was born in 1963.

• Two mosaic tables painted by O'Grady, one green and one purple, feature meaningful card combinations — three 5s equals Fernandes' operator number, for example, while four 10s and an ace equals her friend Peach's age (41).

• Her 1962 Princess Royal jukebox is filled with music from Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ray Charles and Connie Francis — her dad's favorites.

To Fernandes, it all adds up to a true living room.

"A living room should be for living," she said. "I've learned really quick in my job that you only live once. You have to make your own happiness, and you have to love your friends and family. Life should be overall fun."

Personal Space, an occasional feature in digs, showcases real people's treasured home and garden spaces.