Cohen-Bray House, Oakland

I love having paint dates, which basically entail picking a location, bringing our watercolor kits, and painting for a couple hours. It’s a lovely break from the work day and a nice reminder to set aside time for painting just for fun. I began these with my friend Pamela who’s actually a professional watercolor illustrator, but I’m always happy to have other friends join. For July, we expanded to four people and organized a special location for our paint date! Lizzie is actually a direct descendant of this historic home in Oakland, the Cohen-Bray House, and so she and her mother hosted us in the house for this wonderfully inspiring afternoon.

Here’s Lizzie’s mother welcoming us in through the front door. The house was completed in 1884 and has been occupied by the family ever since! It’s quite rare to see old homes like this 1) still standing 2) still privately owned and 3) continuously occupied. What this means is that there is a whooole lot of old stuff that has never been moved out of this home. It’s really quite the treasure trove.

Let’s be honest, I was almost too busy touring the house to even sit down and paint anything. And where to even begin? There were so many potential things to paint! But I selected a lovely tea set that had caught my eye in the dining room, and I also painted a wooden egg that Lizzie found. The wooden egg had a painting of the front of the house on it, haha. Very meta.

Here are my fellow paint date friends! Pam and Stephanie.

Here’s Lizzie’s teacup that she painted. So beautiful! And Stephanie’s… some sort of container? Lovely pattern.

Plus Lizzie.

And a closer look at my paintings, after I finished them off at home.

Thank you so much for hosting us at the Cohen-Bray House! We can unofficially consider this the 101st Bay Area Gem. I hope to visit again soon!

Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.