Bungalow

Sunset Dream Remodel:Living Large in Small Space

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

IMG_6629When I think of a Sunset house, I usually picture something a bit grand, perhaps on a hillside overlooking California oaks. So when I drove by the latest Sunset Dream Remodel in Los Gatos, I almost passed it. It’s small — a 1,550 square foot Mediterranean bungalow on the corner of a somewhat busy street. But the whole idea, in these tough economic times, is to showcase the wonderful things you can do in a small space. And when you look at it that way, this house really measures up.
IMG_6655“This project shows how big a small space can live if done right,” said San Jose builder, Mark De Mattei, who marks his sixth Sunset house with the renovation of this Los Gatos bungalow.
The Sunset Dream Remodel opens to the public on July 23 through Aug. 15, 2010, only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. But here at Lookiloos, we love nothing better than to give a sneak peek, with a full slideshow, of some of the great ideas and products.

IMG_6650When De Mattei first bought the property, the house was even smaller — 1,300 square feet, and faced the busy University Avenue. To take full advantage of the corner lot, he lifted up the house, built a new foundation and turned it to face Town Terrace.
From the outside, you appreciate that this little house retains all its charm –including original arched windows at the front. But every inch, inside and out, is maximized. The front garden, designed by Tamura Designs of San Jose, with gravel pathways in a lovely geometric pattern with pea gravel and planting beds makes me want to do the same in my yard. I love the big urn as a centerpiece in the middle with herbs and vegetables growing in the beds –in the front yard no less.
IMG_6654A side yard leading to the sidewalk and busy street was also put to best use with a deck right off the dining room. A
One of the tricks to making a small space seem large, De Mattei said, is to keep spaces open. From the front entryhall, you can look right through the living room, dining and kitchen to see the lovely back courtyard. Wide wooden floors run the length of the house, fooling your eye to think the floorplan goes on and on.
Instead of dividing living spaces with walls, different ceiling treatments do the trick, from a flat 8-foot-ceiling in the living room, to a higher, beamed-ceiling in the dining room.
And you can always count on Sunset to have beautiful decor, from handmade tiles in the kitchen to my favorite thing: the gray trefoil tiles in the masterbath. (Those might be lovely in my pending bath renovation!) Julia Looking Left - LookiloosRoom and Board supplied most of the furnishings, and Anteo Home in Los Gatos brought in the dining room chairs and special pieces.
If you want to see the house for yourself, it’s well worth it. Here’s the skinny:

Friday, Saturday and Sunday
July 23 – August 15, 2010 Time:10:00 am – 5:00 pm Tickets (purchase on-site):$15 adults
$12 seniors 65+ Fridays only
$5 children 12 and under Location:100 Towne Terrace
Los Gatos, California 95032

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

English Garden Gets Gussied Up

Friday, June 11th, 2010

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It wasn’t until Suzanne Comaroto’s sister came down from Washington that she got serious about improving her backyard. The old oak tree had died. The roses weren’t doing well. The dirt was so hard, the plants were choking.

“My sister made a honey-do list for my gardner,” said Suzanne, owner of Move It Elsewhere, a warehouse filled with estate sale furnishings in San Jose. (It’s only open one weekend a month, and it’s open this weekend, June 11-13.) She rented her 1920s craftsman bungalow for 14 years before convincing the landlord to sell it to her three years ago.

4654093013_2859d3bc21_bTop on the list was replacing the brick on the curving path that was caked with old mortar, probably from a demolished fireplace. They handed the list to Suzanne’s longtime gardner, Carlos Arrioja, who owns the  Los Gatos landscape business, “A Touch of Quality.”

He prepared the soil, lifted and replaced the brick, widened the path and mounded soil into berms to give the plantings some visual interest. He built a trellis at the back of the property to mirror the trellis attached to the back of the house.

“When I moved here, they touted, “Oh, you have an English garden,” Suzanne said. “Everyone said it was pretty. But it wasn’t interesting. There were no gates, no benches, no hand.”

4654711840_a33a4754a4_bThe hand is a sculpture Carlos came across. He had to re-attach the broken thumb. And it has become the signature piece in the garden, adding a bit of whimsy.

“I really like that hand,” she said. “I had to have it.”

As owner of Move It Elsewhere, Suzanne  has access to an endless parade of home and garden furnishings. And true to form, she bought her patio set from a client and painted it black. She also bought a broken two-tiered fountain that was cracked and didn’t hold water, and turned it into a planter.

The work was completed last September. This is the first spring to enjoy the blooms on her new flowers, including roses and bearded iris.

The only problem, she said, is that she’s so busy, she doesn’t get to spend much time relaxing in it.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, “ from my bedroom window.”Julia Looking Left - Lookiloos

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Willow Glen Home Tour May 1-2; Ticket Giveaway!

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Charming cottage on Willow Glen Home Tour

Charming cottage on Willow Glen Home Tour

The annual Willow Glen Home Tour on May 1st and 2nd promises six  beautiful homes this year — and UPDATE — we just gave away two pairs of tickets — one to Jackee and one to Beth. Still, it is a not-to-be-missed tour and proceeds go to a good cause.  Grab a few girlfriends and enjoy a day meandering through a remodeled craftsman with a fabulous outside living area, a storybook cottage of stone and wood, a chic bungalow and a traditional Willow Glen home filled with antiques and collectibles. 

Thanks fof leaving comments explaining why you should win a pair (are you a lookiloo extraordinaire?).

The tour supports the San Jose Day Nursery that provides subsidized early care and education to low-income families.sjdnht2010_Roycott_way[1]

Tickets, at the pre-tour price of $30, are available at the following San Jose businesses: 

  • Domus, 1395 Lincoln Avenue, on the corner with Minnesota Avenue;
  • Eclectic Touch, 1171 Lincoln Avenue;
  • Willow Glen Home and Garden, 1123 Lincoln Avenue; and
  • Able Printing, 1595 Meridian Avenue at Hamilton Avenue. 

 Tickets, the dates of the tour, may be purchased for $35 on the corner of Lincoln and Minnesota Avenues, in front of Chase Bank. Julia Looking Left - Lookiloos

Naglee Park Offers A Historic Home Tour

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

sjwcSan Jose Women’s Club is hosting a home tour of historic Naglee Park.  This is a wonderful neighbor filled with amazing architecture.  There are five homes ready for their close-up this year. On the tour you will enjoy Neoclassical, Arts and Crafts and an eclectic Shingle Style.  All of the homes are walking distance from the Women’s Club and there is free street parking for the event. Architect George Espinola will speak at 1:30 pm.  Refreshments will be available.

All proceeds from the tour are dedicated towards renovating the original electrical elements of the clubhouse and expanding its capacity to meet the needs of the 21st century. The group’s goal is to make the San Jose Woman’s Club a performing arts venue for the city by upgrading the stage lighting and heating system, and adding air conditioning and wiring for modern technology. You can buy tickets here or  Lookiloos is happy to offer two pairs of tickets to see these spectacular homes.  So, if you’d love to see these wonderful homes all you need to do is leave a comment.  Tell us why you are a “Lookiloo”.  The tour is Saturday, April 24th from 10 am to 4:30 pm. We will announce the winner Friday April 23rd at 5:00pm.

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Desiree Looking Left - Lookiloos

Just Listed: Modern Bungalow in Willow Glen

Friday, April 16th, 2010

FrontThis place is so cute! I love the angle of the flat roof line. It has been completely remodeled and has all the modern conveniences.  Plus it has a good size yard.  Larger than some brand new homes in the area.  It’s open this weekend–stop by to check out this adorable home and you can get all the details here.

2 Bedrooms

2 Bathrooms

Asking  $459,000

Living RoomKitchen

Desiree Looking Left - Lookiloos

Just Listed: Willow Glen Charmer

Friday, April 16th, 2010

FrontCute curb appeal–that’s what I first noticed.  This home is super cute but needs some updating.  The location is amazing–just a short walk to downtown Willow Glen. Oh the shopping and dining and no worries about parking. That’s a dream! The other thing I love about this little place is the pie shaped lot and all the way in the back was an artist studio. Cute little space that I could spend time working on my latest project–oh I’m just a little green with envy. Check out the virtual tour here.

2 Bedrooms + Den

1 Bath

Asking $719,000

Artist StudioKitchen

Desiree Looking Left - Lookiloos

Growing Family Downsizing with Style

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
Desk in Breakfast nook

Desk in Breakfast nook

Meg Picanco has quite a home decor pedigree. For years, she and her  late mother, Nancy Biagini, owned and ran the highly-regarded Casa Casa store on San Jose’s Lincoln Avenue. And until last fall, she was a  partner in Willow Glen Home and Garden just down the street.

So you would expect the home she shares with her husband and two young children to be well appointed. But several life-changing events over the past few years have forced her to rethink the importance of belongings and what it truly means to make a house a home.
The top of a bookcase serves as a spot for special things

The top of a bookcase serves as a spot for special things

Like many families in these tough economic times, the growing Picanco family has downsized to half the space they were used to. And leave it to 41-year-old Picanco to do it with style.
She has turned the 1,400 square-foot cottage she rents in Willow Glen into a charming oasis filled — sparingly — with carefully chosen, quality furnishings from her retail days as well as the family heirlooms she cherishes most.
From her grandmother’s spice cabinet with a needlepoint inset to her mother’s glass-topped coffee table, the house has a feeling of warmth and deep roots no matter how temporary the rental may be.
“Bringing things into your home that have history give it a special aura,” Picanco said.
4414854286_145d8f0942_bHer journey to the rental house has taken a circuitous path. Picanco, her husband, Mario, and their two young children, Gabrielle and Giancarlo, were living in a 2,800 square-foot home in Boise, Idaho — “in search of a calmer life where we could live on one income.” But less than a year into their lives there, she was confronted at the same time with two frightening realities: her mother was diagnosed with colon cancer and her 19-month-old son was confirmed deaf.
Not only did she want to be close to her mother in San Jose as she fought the disease, but Picanco and her husband discovered that a top preschool for the deaf was located just up the peninsula in Redwood City.
“We knew we had to return to California,” she said. San Jose is where she studied interior design from San Jose State University and when she was 23, opened Casa Casa with her mother. Her sister joined later. When children came along for the sisters, the trio decided to sell the business. Picanco stayed on as a buyer for the new owners for a year before moving to Idaho in 2006.
They had been homeowners in San Jose before they moved and her husband holds a solid job in high tech, “but we could not afford to buy back into the market when we returned.”
So what did she do? She did what any woman would do: she held a garage sale. And she was compelled to sell “all the things that were wonderful, beautiful things I loved.”
But she kept a painted chest that her grandmother had left to her (and had tucked a note addressed to her inside for posterity,) a pair of her mother’s table lamps, a set of nesting tables her aunt brought back from Florence, and a delicate, bamboo-style chandelier that has stayed with the family through their moves and is decorated with holly berries at Christmas and streamers for birthdays.
4414024163_5f71b43c5d_oAfter a stint in one Willow Glen rental distinguished by a pink tile kitchen with a butterfly motif, she found the house her family now calls home, a place she hopes to stay in for at least the next several years.
It is the simplest of floorplans: small living and dining rooms, a newly-remodeled kitchen with a tiny breakfast nook, and three small bedrooms and one bath off the back hallway. No family room. No walk-in closets. The only extra is a quarter-basement that is just big enough for the washer and dryer and Picanco’s hanging clothes, folded sweaters, and neatly stacked shoes.
She maximizes every inch with function and style. She has turned the breakfast nook, that was practically too small for a table and chairs, into an office with one elegant, oversized desk topped with a computer. When the kids come home with backbacks and school papers, “everything gets filed immediately,” she said.
clock collection

clock collection

Perhaps the most surprising personal touch is her decision to invest in shutters for the dining room and bathroom. “I knew when we rented it , we would be here for at least several years, so why not make it our own home?” she said, “and I couldn’t live with metal mini blinds.”

She painted every room a separate color — coating the master bedroom with the same heathery hue she has used for her bedroom in every house. She filled her dining room hutch with her sterling silver and blue and white china as well as a pair of rhinestone-studded starfish. One had been her mother’s, and when she died in 2008, Picanco nestled it in a bowl with her own.
The Picanco family has lived in this house for just a year and in that time, their daughter has adjusted beautifully to her new school and their son has excelled at his. With cochlear implants, he can carry on conversations. “Every five minutes is a miracle,” Picanco said.
Their neighbors have become some of their best friends.
“I can’t deny I wouldn’t love to own my own house,” she said, “but we’re so happy here.”Julia Looking Left - Lookiloos

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Just Listed: Cute Los Gatos Cottage Bungalow

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

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This 1930’s  bungalow is so adorable.  The living room is simply beautiful. I love everything about it–the bay window, the wall color and the fireplace.  When it was remodeled in 2008 the homeowners worked with the Los Gatos Historic Preservation Committee. I’m so glad they did!

Bedrooms: 3

Baths: 2

Square Footage: 1525

Check out the virtual tour here.

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Desiree Looking Left - Lookiloos

Ticket Give-away for Los Gatos Historic Home Tour

Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Los Gatos Historic Homes Tour
Like this house? Wanna see inside? Lookiloos has a pair of tickets to get you in! This house is one of seven on the Los Gatos Historic Homes Tour on Saturday  and Sunday (Nov. 7-8). The tour promises to show off great examples of Victorian architecture, as well as an unusual Hawaiian-inspired house, an old hunting lodge and, as a bonus, a new Provence-inspired farmhouse.
The tour benefits the Museums of Los Gatos, providing the operating revenue to keep their doors open for the next year. So if you don’t win this pair, buy a pair for yourself and a friend. (See below for contest rules.)
Here are a few sketches of the tour highlights:
The Queen Ann Cottage

Queen Anne Cottage

Queen Anne Cottage

charming Queen Anne Cottage, built in 1893, and fully restored by the current owners. Once the home of a Los Gatos grocer, the home features an unusual five-sided wrap-around front porch. Inside, you’ll see original windows, wainscoting, transoms and chandeliers.

Victorian Hunting Lodge

Victorian Hunting Lodge

Victorian Hunting Lodge

This home was built in 1884 as a Victorian hunting lodge and summer home. The current owners restored the home, and with antique treasures from their travels in Botswana, embraced the hunting theme.

A Hawaiian Plantation Home

Hawaiian Plantation Home

Hawaiian Plantation Home

This house was designed in 1912 after a Hawaiian plantation home to reflect the original owners’ fascination with Hawaii. The new owners kept the facade, but updated the rest of the home inside.

To win two tickets to the tour — worth $35 a piece — please leave a comment here or at the Lookiloos Facebook page and we will draw a name randomly on Thursday, Nov. 5.  Please leave a valid email address so we can contact you with details on where to pick up tickets.

If you don’t win, but still want to support the Museums of Los Gatos and see these homes, tickets may be purchased at the Art Museum, 4 Tait Avenue in Los Gatos. You may also purchase tickets on line at www.museumsoflosgatos.org or call 408 375-7386.

UPDATE:  The winner of the tickets is Michelle Bogdan!  Congratulations.  We know you will have a great time and hope to see you there.

Julia Looking Left - Lookiloos(Photographs by Mert Carpenter)

Dreaming of this Carmel Cottage Compound

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Dreaming of this Carmel Cottage Compound

Whenever I visit my parents at their home in Carmel, I often go out of my way to walk past this extraordinary Carmel cottage compound. I’ve been doing it for years, walking, lingering, dreaming. If I could choose the quintessential Carmel cottage lifestyle, this would be it.

Patio - Dreaming of this Carmel Cottage Compound

Sitting on more than a half acre, the property is lined by Monterey Cypress. Roses tumble over grapestake fences and arbors. Crunchy pebble pathways wind through fountains and fireplaces. Green shutters. Carmel stone walls. A peek of bay. Fairytales.

For years I have peeked through the fences and looked up the drive, fantasizing what may lay within. Last week, on another of a countless walk-bys, I couldn’t believe what I saw: a For Sale sign.

As a “professional” Lookiloo, I’ve talked to a number of people who have told me their stories of home — of how they had always walked by a favorite property, dreamed that if it ever went on the market they would buy it, and indeed, they did. Ah, dreams fulfilled.

Aerial View - Dreaming of this Carmel Cottage Compound

But with this Carmel compound — and a pricetag over more than $5 million — I had to keep walking by. But being a “professional” Lookiloo also has its privileges. I called Sotheby’s Realtor Steve LaVaute, and asked for a private tour.

“See you in 10 minutes,” he said.

And so, after years of just imagining what lay inside, I walked through the door of the main house — a 2,100 square-foot structure that was actually the caretaker’s house on a much larger property that was subdivided years ago.

Kitchen - Dreaming of this Carmel Cottage Compound

What struck me was how authentic this cottage — that looked to have been built in the 1920s — had remained. The footprint appeared to have been unchanged. The living room was small with French doors to a courtyard. A charming limestone fireplace remained as the focal point. The kitchen was as small as a butler’s pantry and the eating area not much bigger. A narrow, steep staircase led to two small bedrooms upstairs with a separate bath. It’s amazing that the house hasn’t suffered a massive addition. There is no gigantic master suite with a walk-in closet or expanded kitchen with double ovens.

It is, in every way, a classic Carmel cottage. It is surrounded by beautiful gardens — that take $1,500 a month to maintain, LaVaute told me — and seven separate sitting areas tucked in here and there. A separate, smaller cottage on the property is a studio guest suite, also with a stone fireplace.

Living Room - Dreaming of this Carmel Cottage Compound

And, hidden behind the wall of the guest house is what LaVaute calls a “secret dining room.” It’s a complete surprise, separated from the main house as it is. An open door revealed the space to be dark as a wine cellar, with stained concrete floors and a crystal chandelier, dimmed. A long, wooden refectory table is set for ten with candelabras fit for Liberace’s piano. “It’s for catered affairs,” LaVaute said.

In some ways, the whole place made me think of Marie Antoinette, and though she lived in splendor at Versaille, she had a peasant’s cottage built for her on the grounds. I wonder if it felt a little like this.

Julia - lookiloos.com

If you have $5 million to spend, email Steve at slavaute@gmail.com.

Here’s another fantasy house of mine:
Manderley Revisited in LaSelva Beach

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer