San Francisco Classic
We recently finished a remodel in San Francisco and wanted to share the final product with you. The clients have two young girls who were outgrowing a shared bedroom while the whole family was sharing one bathroom. Yikes, I’d hate to be the last one showering (“No one ever leaves enough HOT WATER!!) or the first one for that matter (“What time do I have to set the alarm???). Well, those days are over as each of the girls has their own bedroom and they share a new bathroom. Their parents have a more relaxing time getting ready to go out the door in the morning, if that’s possible with two girls below the age of nine. Less stressful might be the more apt phrase.
One other troublesome aspect of their existing home was no interior staircase linking the bottom floor to the second floor. I suppose this is is fine if you live in the equatorial tropics but not if you endure San Francisco’s summers. For all those non-San Franciscans reading this, Mark Twain wrote that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer he spent in San Francisco. Suffice to say they needed a way to move from ground floor and back without donning a hoodie.
While this wasn’t a hard core energy retrofit to the tune of a net zero energy home, we did add some nice features that will make the home more comfortable and durable. Designing and building a home with durability in mind is the first benchmark for building green. They say if you double the life of your structure you halve its impact on the environment. We insulated with blown in insulation, sealed the building up well and added a rain screen to protect the exterior siding and interior walls from the moisture laden air associated with living in a marine climate.
Part of the focus was to bring more natural light into the existing Dining Room and the new Kitchen. We achieved this by adding tall wrap around double hung windows with simple, classic trim details at the new Breakfast Room. The Dining Room also received new expansive windows to bring light into it and open the view to a new rear yard patio and garden. The clients also wanted a spruced up exterior deck off the Breakfast Room to entertain during warm evenings (Mr Twain, you’re invited!) Below this deck at ground level is what was dubbed The Garden Room. The idea is to plant a wall of climbing foliage on the neighbor’s wall to the South and eventually update the landscaping in the yard as well. Below are some photos of the renovation.
Stay tuned for more as we move towards blog posts that dial into Net Zero Energy Homes, something we’re increasingly excited about.
Here is the Before shot (Scroll down for the finished product):
And the finished home:
Rear Deck:
Breakfast Room:
Remodeled Kitchen:
Glenn Murcutt, Australia
