Roberta Smith and Paul Majors fully renovated their downtown home to reflect their colorful taste. Photo by Paula Jo Jaconetta.

Roberta Smith has always been drawn to color. This is clear the moment you walk through the front door of the downtown home that she shares with her husband, Paul Majors.

“I have no artistic ability at all, but I think that bright, bold colors make me feel comfortable and happy,” she explains. “I also think being unique is part of that. I’m going to buck the trend; that was always something that I liked.”

“I’m waiting for you to come out with Mr. Plumbean,” Paul says.

“Oh, right,” Roberta answers. “That was my favorite book.”

The book that started it all was “The Big Orange Splot,” by Daniel Pinkwater. Roberta recalls the story: “It’s about everyone conforming on a street. A bird flies overhead with a big can of orange paint and spills the paint on the house. All the neighbors want it fixed, but instead, Mr. Plumbean creates this magical house around the color. The point is that everyone expresses themselves differently and has a different take on their houses. I always wanted to have something that was different from the ordinary.”

Now she does, with a home that includes a Lego loft, a knitting studio, an alien invasion bathroom and a brightly stacked shoe closet.

But before it came into its current existence, the house was in foreclosure with a crumbling foundation. Nevertheless, after years spent searching for a mountain home, Paul and Roberta were thrilled with their find. They lived in the house for two years before hiring their friend and local architect, Ian Wagner, to design a garage apartment for them. While he was at it, he drew up plans for a house renovation, too.

When the garage apartment was finished, Paul and Roberta spent every other weekend driving up from Denver and staying in the apartment while the main house was rented out. But when Paul’s job relocatedt o Houston and he decided not to go with it, he and Roberta moved to Steamboat full time. That was when they tore the house down and lived in the 650-square-foot apartment. “Much to the chagrin of our contractor,” Paul points out.

With the opportunity for a clean slate, Paul and Roberta worked with Ian to design a house that would fit seamlessly into their lifestyle. “Ian knew what we valued in our day-to-day living,” Roberta says. “I think taking those aspects and really designing a space that worked with the lot and what we do on a daily basis was really important to us.”

 Photo courtesy of Wagner Design Studio.

For example, the couple didn’t want a master bedroom with a gorgeous view because, as Roberta points out, "we’re not the type of people who just hang out in the bedroom. We wanted to share that view with everyone else.”

Laurie Buelow-Wolfe at Interiors with Altitude helped. “She was the voice of reason,” Roberta says. “Sometimes she would tell us when we went a little overboard.”

The interior inspiration began at Flavor Paper, where Roberta found wallpaper that now hangs on a wall between the kitchen and living room. “It was really the piece of color that I brought around with me to everything,” she says. “It was my whole inspiration.” Based on that, Laurie helped with things like the turquoise backsplash in the kitchen, tile around the fireplace and window coverings.

No matter what they picked – from alien wallpaper in the powder room, to brightly colored rugs and blue glass chandeliers – color played an important role.

“I remember one time someone told me that I should do all black and white because that’s what sells,” Roberta recalls. “And I was like, ‘but we’re not designing to sell our house ... we want to live in it and be happy! We’re designing it for us!”

With that in mind, the main level got a shoe closet for Roberta’s collection of John Fluevog shoes. “His motto is ‘Unique Soles for Unique Souls,’” Roberta says. “I like things that are useful. With the shoes, I collect them, but I can also use them or wear them.”

 Photo by Paula Jo Jaconetta.

Paul got a Lego loft in a bonus 10x10 space that fit his hobby perfectly. “It also keeps them out of Roberta’s knitting studio,” he points out. Paul’s is the classic Lego story: As a young boy, he and his two brothers loved Legos and spent hours creating. “Probably until I was about 16 and discovered cars and girls,” he says. While the hobby dropped off for a while, he got back into it when his nephews developed the same love that he had found years previously. Now he buys large lots of Legos online. “Half the fun is going through it to see what’s in there,” he says. “It’s like a treasure hunt.”

His favorite creation is a nearly 10,000-piece model of the Titanic, which resides in a prime living room spot above the fireplace.

Roberta’s hobby space is her knitting studio on the second floor. It’s a light-filled room with a view of Mount Werner where she not only knits, but also enjoys coffee in the morning with Paul. Sitting in the center of the room is the emotional support chicken that she knit last year, which won grand champion at the Routt County Fair.

Outside of the house is the cycling studio where Paul works on bikes for Routt County Riders and where the couple’s 24 bikes are stored. (“Yeahhhh,” says Paul, when asked how many bikes they actually have). They keep six cruiser bikes to ride downtown for dinner when friends come to stay. Roberta is a competitive cyclist in road, mountain and gravel biking. And together, they do a lot of tandem riding.

“We chose a location where we could park a car and not have to use it,” Roberta says. “I bike to work, bike to the gym ... when we were looking for homes, that was really important to us.”

The bikes at their house are not just their own, though. Paul – who is also the mountain biking coach for the Steamboat Springs Winter Sport Club – designed a pump track in his front yard with Peter Casavecchia of Nature’s Design. The only rules? No e-bikes and wear a helmet.

 Photo courtesy of Wagner Design Studio.

“All the neighborhood kids come and ride it,” Paul says. “It’s fun to share it.”

As much as possible, Paul and Roberta spend time outside on the deck, watching the kids bike the pump track, chatting with neighbors and enjoying life in Steamboat.

“We feel like we hit the Steamboat lottery with the neighborhood,” Paul says. “We are surrounded by great people. In the summertime, when people are walking by with their dogs and we’re out on the deck, they come up and share a beverage with us or just hang out.”

“I think our house is a full expression of who we are,” Roberta says. “I feel very fortunate to have been able to build a house that’s unique to our personalities.”