ALEXANDRIA ABRAMIAN-MOTT: Clearly, you love farmhouses. You've got one in France, and now this one in Ojai.

KATHRYN M. IRELAND: Originally, this house was designed by Wallace Neff in the '20s to be a barn. Then another architect, Austen Pierpoint, made changes in the '40s so it could be a home. This is classic Spanish architecture, but with a sense of bohemian fun, comfortable and loose. I get everything I get in the South of France, just 90 miles from L.A. But what I like most about it are the barnlike elements. When people design for animals, they do a better job! It's not about perfect moldings or perfect floors. It's about massive space and amazing flow. I love the way this house moves from the kitchen into the living room. And then these massive iron door handles everywhere. I love to lift them. It's downright medieval.

Farmhouses aren't exactly known for shots of brilliant pinks and greens. What's with all of this amazing color?

I wanted to live in a farmhouse but didn't want it to look like a farmhouse. I've been working on a hacienda for a client that's all about Morocco meets Mexico meets Africa, and I was inspired by all those bright colors. I've done muted, pretty colors most of my career. So many people are doing muted. So I just sort of decided, let's have a lot of fun and color. I have a new line of fabrics that I've used here with big, bright colors. But eventually the sun's going to tone it all down.

You're waiting for time to mellow the punch?

It's how I like it.... Let it get aged. Wash things, hang them on the line, and let the sun do its work. I was appalled when I first moved from England to L.A., and here we are in this sunny climate and everyone has clothes dryers.

Until it's all aged, however, you've put some huge color here but at the same time, you've done all of the walls in your own "special white," the curtains are mostly muted....

I equate it to cooking. You have to know when to stop. So I've limited all this rich color mostly to the textiles — throws, fabrics, cushions.

How does all that color and pattern come together to feel unified, and not chaotic?

First of all, it's about layering pattern on pattern. That's the secret. And don't go for matchy-matchy-matchy. I say, if it doesn't go, it goes. In one of my guest rooms, there's a bright green bedcover from my new collection that just seemed to go perfectly with that big flower photo by Oberto Gili. I love these bright pinks and greens, and the juxtaposition of a William and Mary bed with that oversize photo that looks so modern. It all marries incredibly well.

And there seem to be hundreds of pillows here, no two alike.

One thing about pillows — never overstuff. You want them to bounce back. I want all of my pillows to look like a dog has just laid on them. And then my trick for arranging them — throw them and let them land where they may.

There are all these buildings scattered around, like a real hacienda. How many are there?

There's the main bedroom wing, the stable block, and guest bedroom, the carriage house, the shed, the forge. God knows how many. Probably ten. I've never really counted!

So the main rooms are separate from your bedrooms? You actually have to walk outside, under that covered passageway, to get to it?

That's one of my favorite things about this place! Some people would complain about that but, please, I grew up in Scotland. This way I get to have throws everywhere.

You've managed to pull off a wonderful mix of elegance and bohemianism, English charm, and Mediterranean warmth. All so beautiful, but at the same time so relaxed. Why is it that Brits so often capture the essence of California better than Californians?

It's simply because we don't take ourselves seriously. We like old. We like crumbling. When we see water stains, it's like, 'Remember that time the bath overflowed?' The other thing is that I use the house. It's not just sitting here. We constantly have people here — we put tents on the lawn, air mattresses in the mezzanine, tables in the courtyard for dinner parties. This house is good for 2 or 200.

Two hundred? And yet if you add up all the square footage, it isn't huge.

The charm of this is that all of the sleeping quarters are small and intimate, and the living areas are majestic without being grand. I could never use 10,000 square feet. It's much more fun to be cozy. The truth is, if you live in a house with a foyer, you're in big trouble. That's the epitome of anti-cozy — having a huge house with rooms that are never used. I think the huge, formal house thing, that kind of excess, is all over. If your house is too grand to walk around in your nightie, what's the point?

Do all these fireplaces get used? There must be a dozen of them.

If it's not hot, then they're all roaring all the time. When it's just me and my family, we'll pull pillows inside the big hearth in the carriage room, next to the fire, sit down and have a Moroccan feast on the floor.

Throughout the house, the furniture looks like you put it together over the course of a lifetime, and not just a few months.

I'm instant. When I moved to L.A., we rented and moved a lot, and I got good at Instant House. I already had a lot of this stuff, and I just knew it was going to fit here. There wasn't a lot of thinking that went into it. For me, it's got to be effortless to be good. Even the painting above the fireplace in the living room. When I found it at a store in L.A. it was facing the wall, but I said, 'I'll have it,' only because it was the perfect size. Then the owner turned it around and there was this wonderful Spanish woman — so it was meant to be.