A Peek Inside the Pink House from “13 Going On 30”

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, this past weekend, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I actually got to GO INSIDE the pink house featured at the end of fave romantic comedy 13 Going On 30.  Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I absolutely LOVE 13 Going On 30 and that Jenna’s pink Craftsman style home is one of my very favorite filming locations of all time!   Mike actually found this location for me back in May of 2008, after what seemed like MONTHS of me begging him to track it down.  LOL  But even though Mike was the one who actually located the house, he had yet to stalk it himself.  So, I just HAD to take him there on Saturday while the two of us were in the area. 

 As fate would have it, when I first blogged about Jenna’s pink house back in May of 2008, the real life homeowner, an AMAZINGLY NICE woman named Mimi, happened to stumble upon my site and was amazed to see a post dedicated to her residence.  LOL  Mimi ended up leaving me a comment where she mentioned that after the filming of 13 Going On 30  had been completed, she and her husband asked the production crew who were repainting the house back to its original color to leave one brick pink in memory of the movie.  HOW COOL IS THAT????  So, when I took Mike to stalk the place on Saturday, the two of us stood there on the sidewalk for quite some time, scrutinizing every square inch of the house looking for that brick.  LOL  Well, Mimi happened to see us through her front window and came outside to say hello.  She recognized me from my site and said “Do you want to see the pink brick?”  Well, as you can imagine, I just about DIED.  I had been itching to see that brick ever since I first read her comment over a year ago!   🙂

The brick is actually located on the rear side of a post in the driveway area of the home and I could NOT have been more excited to be seeing it in person!!!!!  I can’t tell you how cool it is that Mimi and her husband left that one brick pink!  I SO SO SO LOVE IT!  Mimi is truly a woman after my own heart!  🙂  Except, knowing me, I probably would have left the whole house pink!  LOL  🙂

Then, just as I was about to die of excitement over seeing that brick, Mimi asked us if we wanted to come inside to see the living room area where they had also filmed!!!!  DID WE WANT TO COME INSIDE?????  DID WE WANT TO COME INSIDE??????  LOL  OF COURSE WE DID!  Well, it turns out that the mantle area shown in the movie was a fake that was built solely for the filming in what is really Mimi’s dining room.  The production crew covered over the large window pictured above with a fake wall, a fake fireplace, and a fake mantle.  Mimi said that the crew spent about a week building one fireplace, only to have the producers not like it.  So, they ended up having to rip it out and build a new one entirely from scratch.  She said it was an amazingly intricate fireplace made out of tile, but, ironically enough, after what amounted to two weeks of construction on two different fireplaces, neither one was ever seen in the movie. LOL LOL LOL  In the scene when Jenna is unpacking photographs, the camera never shows anything below the top right corner of the mantle area.   So, all of that fireplace construction was pretty much for naught.  Only in Hollywood, I swear!     

Adding to the irony is the fact that there is already a fireplace and a mantle in the house that  could have been used in the scene!  LOL   Too funny! 

I can’t tell you how exciting it was to be able to see the interiors of the home in person and to hear all of the behind-the-scenes info!  Truly a once in a lifetime!   All in all,  filming at the house took two weeks to complete, including the painting and construction time.  The actual filming of the scene between Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo took less than one day to shoot.  LOL  And, amazingly enough, the pink house scene wasn’t the movie’s original ending, but a re-shoot that was filmed after the first ending didn’t fare well with test audiences.

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Mimi’s house has also been featured in a commercial and the Season 2 episode of Cold Case entitled “Who’s Your Daddy”.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The pink house from 13 Going On 30  is located at 1965 Fletcher Avenue in South Pasadena, just a few doors down from the Step by Step  house, which is located at 2011 Fletcher.  The house from Kelly Clarkson’s Because Of You video is located across the street at 2006 Fletcher Ave.  Please respect the owner’s privacy and don’t trepass, knock on the door, or ask to be let inside.   Mike and I were extremely lucky to be invited inside the house, but as this is not common practice, please don’t bother the owner about doing it yourself.