Jennifer Garner is giving fans an inside look at her private life at home in Los Angeles.
The "Alias" star recently gave Architecture Digest a tour of her home where she lives with her three children, Violet, Seraphina and Samuel. She built the home more than five years ago when she couldn't find a house she felt suited her.
"I looked and looked for a house to move into, but I needed privacy, and any house that had privacy was more grand than I felt comfortable in," she told the outlet. "I was frustrated but finally said, ‘OK, I think I’m going to have to build,’ and found this lot."
She teamed up with the husband-and-wife designing duo Steve and Brooke Giannetti to build her dream house. The house is full of small details, such as stained-glass windows, artwork painted by dear friends of the actress and a reading nook, which make it the perfect home for the actress.
The famously private Garner decided to take the leap and give fans a look inside her home because she is "proud" of what she was able to accomplish with it.
"I'm such a private person about my home, and here I've just taken you through the entire house, and really it's for a couple of reasons," she explained. "I've never built anything all by myself before, and I'm so proud of it. I am filled with gratitude every time I walk into my house, that I get to live here, that I'm so lucky to have my kids here. So, it's unlike me, and yet I'm so happy to have shared it with you."
When it came time to design the home, Garner described meeting with the designers once and telling them "exactly the house I want to build," adding, "and that is exactly the house we built." She recalled feeling anxious "in the middle of the build" since she never gave the Giannettis any references from magazines or Pinterest, and began to wonder, "What if I hate it?"
Ultimately, she is "really, really happy" with how the home turned out. Upon entry, guests are greeted with a spacious living room, which Garner says is "the biggest room in the house." She designed it to be as grand as it is so that everyone could fit comfortably, whether they are "playing Rummikub over there" or "sitting around the fire."
"A special feature, especially in the summer, is having these doors all the way wide open. Here we have it, indoor, outdoor," she said in the Architectural Digest video. "The only problem is, if my kids are having their class pool party here or something, it's very hard to keep wet kids out of the house. I have to really just stand guard and say, ‘Get away.’ I'll look over, and [there will] be two wet teenagers playing the piano, and I'm just like, ‘OK, don’t look, don't look.'"
The room features large sliding glass doors that provide indoor-outdoor living, high ceilings with exposed wooden beams, hardwood floors, and a fireplace on a wall consisting of wood paneling and built-in bookshelves. The room also features artwork painted by "Alias" co-star Victor Garber's husband and stained-glass windows created by the son of her close friend.
The kitchen is also on the first floor of the home. From the flooring to the wood paneling on the walls and the wooden cabinetry, there is no doubt Garner "love[s] a wood kitchen." Much of the house has wooden elements, with Garner saying "the house really is like being inside a tree house."
The kitchen features a hidden refrigerator, plenty of storage space and a large center island, as well as a casual dining area near a fireplace. When speaking about the fireplace, the "13 Going on 30" star said "it just adds so much coziness."
A unique feature of the star's kitchen is the baking section, which comes in handy when she is filming her "Pretend Baking Show" on Instagram.
"So, I knew when I imagined my favorite kitchen ever, in my mind, that it would have an area dedicated to baking," she explained. "It just makes it so much easier to have it all in one place and to know where your different flours are and your chocolate chips. Chocolate chips are the most important thing in the whole house, and I could tell you where they are."
Connected to the kitchen is the dining room, which features photography by one of Garner's first friends from when she moved to Los Angeles, as well as a wooden dining room table large enough for 10 people. There are also blue sofas, green walls and a door leading to the yard.
The dining room also doubles as Garner's conference room. As she noted during the tour, she put doors on the room so she could have meetings there. As an actress and businesswoman, she explained that "actually I have a lot of meetings in here. I work from home if I'm not on set."
"Brooke Giannetti and I had a blast looking at light fixtures. I can never figure out dining room lights, but you know what? You live with the choices you make, and I think I'm good with it," she said. "We really eat at home almost all the time, and we eat in here pretty regularly."
Rounding out the common areas on the first floor of the home is the library. The room, which is blue from top to bottom, features wall-to-wall built in shelving, which are stacked with books, and boasts plenty of natural light coming in from the windows and the door leading to the garden.
Garner told Architectural Digest during the tour that the library was "the first room I described to Steve," saying she wanted a room that would be "a super awesome cozy-up-with-everyone TV room" that was a "deep-gray blue" color, adding that "he kind of nailed it."
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"This is everyone's favorite place. You just don't need some huge old screening room. We're pretty happy just being right in here. Feet go anywhere, I am so not fussy. There are feet, there are dogs, there are shoes. If you're going to build a house, you have to live in it."
One of the main criteria for the library, aside from it being a blue room, was that it was still full of light. To accomplish that, there is a door leading to the front yard that goes "straight out into the garden" and the fire pit. The fire pit is surrounded by clover because "it's cheerful."
When it comes to her yard, Garner made sure to pay homage to her life growing up on a farm in West Virginia and planted "a little orchard" in the back.
"I love it so much. We have apricots, figs and cherries right here, and then we have peaches, nectarines, apples," she said. "I love that you can come out here in the middle of the summer and find a snack. Growing up the daughter of a farmer and having such connections to my family farm, it just truly thrills me. So, pretty much everything here is edible."
She also has a "cute" vegetable house where she grows organic herbs and vegetables that both she and her kids love.
Giving fans a peek into her morning routine, Garner said she likes to have her morning coffee on the couches near her pool, adding she enjoys sitting on her patio near the fireplace when she has friends over at nighttime.
Heading back inside, the "Deadpool & Wolverine" star proved every inch of her home is utilized, showing off the landing at the top of the stairs. The area features a large fish tank, which she explained was gifted to her on Mother's Day years ago, and a large table where her kids can study and "spread out and do projects."
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Next, Garner's "favorite spot in the house" is the reading nook. The nook has more stained-glass decoration, which features "a big old oak with three little owls" representing her children perched on it and with their dog "Birdie looking up at them."
"There was one magical night where exactly what I hoped for happened, and all three kids were piled in here with me, and we pulled down all the books from when they were little, and we read them one after the other. That's really all I could hope for," she said. "All of us are readers, and if you're building your own house, you might as well offer people as many great places to read as possible."
Elsewhere in the home is the slumber party room, which Garner referred to as "a dream come true room" for her because she loves to have her kids' friends over for sleepovers at her house.
She wanted to have a place in her house "where kids can be kids" and all hang out together.
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"I'm also a stickler about sleep, although sometimes there are literally kids everywhere," she explained. "I wanted built-in bunks where kids could cozy up all in one together, which is usually what happens. Late at night you'll see them all bent over something that they're looking at together. They're all in this bunk watching something on TV."
Garner also keeps her kids' favorite toys from when they were younger in the room, in case they have a younger visitor or in case her kids feel nostalgic and want to feel like a little kid again, which she says happens "every now and then."
Proudly displayed in the actress' bedroom is her teddy bear named T-Bear, which was gifted to her by her late father when she was 3 years old. The room features a balcony, a few lounge chairs and a large bed with a blue comforter.
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When speaking about her room, she explained she "wanted something that felt tight [and] compact" and that her bedroom wasn't "a space that [she] needed a ton of room to devote to."
"I love that I can open these doors at night and wake up to birds," she said of the balcony doors. "So, I didn't need a huge bedroom. I did want a large bathroom … because so often we get ready for work at home, and it's always in your own bathroom, and you need space for everyone to be comfortable."
Her bathroom features a standing shower, a bathtub and a vanity where she jokes that her glam squad transforms her "from one old gal to another."
"I wanted my bathroom to be really neutral, really calming. We wanted a kind of white that was flattering to have light bounce off of. I also wanted the house to look like an old farmhouse next to an old barn, and this is obviously the barn part because you can see the barn window," she said. "This bathtub, I love being next to the window. I love the quiet. I love having a tree in my bathroom. I’m very lucky."
