When Gretchen and Dominic Kotab first saw this 1930 Spanish-style home in San Jose, they thought it would be perfect for their growing family. The living room with its 15-foot ceilings and exposed rustic wood beams was ideal for their piano — along with all the lessons for their children to come.

“It just had a lot of charm,” Gretchen said, including original hardwood floors throughout.

 The kitchen faced the back of the house, so Gretchen could keep an eye on the kids in the backyard. The house was already graciously proportioned, with four bedrooms and three baths. But the kitchen and bathrooms hadn’t been touched in decades. The family lived in the house for five years before moving out for a substantial remodel when their oldest entered kindergarten at St. Martin’s.

“It was chaos,” Gretchen said.

Her favorite part of the project was a trip to Los Angeles to Mission Tile West, where she chose gorgeous, vintage-inspired tile for the kitchen and baths. The kitchen backsplash is especially fabulous, with a cream and green interlocking pattern. Their master bath is small, but Gretchen wanted to make it elegant, choosing Carrera marble. They expanded the front and back patios, covering the front with Spanish tile and the back with slate. With the children ages 3, 5 and 7 now, the house is just right.

They opened their doors this fall for the Rose Garden Homes Tour. Floral Designer Jose Ibarra worked his magic in nearly every room, from the dining room table and sideboard, to the branches on the living room mantle, to the front courtyard. A master at work!

Here’s the complete slideshow:

This house has been ahead of its time since it was built in 1950. Unlike most ranch houses of its era, it had a family room connected to the kitchen and walls of glass looking out to the back garden. For the past 34 years, it has been carefully maintained, updated and adorned by the current homeowners. The house had great bones to start, including gracious formal living and dining rooms and a burgundy and pink tiled central bathroom that remains in mint condition. (Take a look at the antiqued mirror-fronted bathroom cabinets. Original and glamorous!)

The homeowners opened their doors to the Rose Garden Homes Tour this fall.

One of the homeowners, a retired schoolteacher, is the artisan of the duo and took his talents to add color, texture and craftsmanship to the kitchen and bathrooms especially. An expert is paint finishes and detailed woodworking, he has transformed walls and cabinets. Peek at his detail work, including the Venetian plaster ceiling in the bathroom off the laundry room. Ask a docent to open the secret spice racks he built into the stove hood and the curved drawers for silverware in the island. The rear bathroom is another masterpiece, where he engineered a swinging bedroom door that doubles as a bathroom closet door. (When the bedroom door is open, the door then closes the bathroom closet. And notice the woodwork on the door he matched with the cabinetry.) He also fashioned a medicine cabinet using an oil painting, instead of a mirror, on the facade. The couple have collected antiques at shops and auction houses around the Bay Area, and also cherish their two Lalique statues, one of fish in the living room, and another of cats in the dining room.

This house, built for the Zolezzi family more than a half century ago, remains in pristine condition today.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Don’t you just want to get into this charming English tudor? You can just imagine it’s as lovely on the inside. But hey, why imagine? It is one of five houses, plus a garden, that is being featured in the 2011 Willow Glen Home Tour. And Lookiloos has a pair of tickets — worth $60! — to give away.

Here’s a little advance info about the other homes and garden you will see:

* A remodeled ranch with a wall of windows in the family room leading to a gorgeous pool and yard;

* A southwestern-style bachelor pad with a new kitchen;

* A recently renovated contemporary home filled with a collection of local artwork — and another window wall overlooking a koi pond

* A lovely garden, tended by the homeowner who is a master gardener, features drought resistant plants.  This will also be the setting for a boutique featuring local artist and plants for sale, as well as box lunches.

If you’d like to win a pair of tickets , leave comment below otherwise, please go to sjdn.org to buy tickets that benefit the San Jose Day Nursery.  Tickets are $30 each and box lunches are $13.  Tickets may also be purchased on Lincoln Ave. at Willow Glen Home and Garden, Domus or Grace on the Ave. Tickets are also being sold at Able Printing on Meridian at Hamilton Ave.

Thierry Buisson’s parents met in a French military hospital in Marrakech, Morocco. She was a local nurse born and raised there. He was a doctor from a farming village in the south of France.Growing up in Paris, Buisson spent time in both places, from his grandparents’ rustic farmhouse to the colorful marketplaces of Marrakech.Buisson, who came to the United States two decades ago, is a personal shopper at Neiman Marcus in San Francisco and does interior design work on the side. A dining room he decorated with zebra skin and a custom-made topiary of his dog Winston, of all things, was featured in the Summit League’s “Homes for the Holidays” tour last Christmas.

His love of collecting started with his father.

When Buisson was a boy, he and his father would spend weekends at Paris flea markets and antique shops, searching for

“just that magical piece that turns you on.”

It was there he learned “the patience of finding something that makes your heart beat.”

His father would often collect small things, silver and china.

“The biggest piece he ever bought was an 18th-century Aubusson tapestry. My mom just freaked out,” Buisson said. “My dad had to justify every purchase, either hide it or bring it out for a birthday.”

In summers, they would often visit his grandparents in the village of Le Breuil. He remembers two things about the farmhouse in particular:a huge fireplace in the kitchen along with a “gigantic dining room table,” as well as the handmade, white linen sheets in the bedroom that were so cold “it would take us hours to get in bed.”

And every Christmas, the family would travel to his mother’s homeland of Marrakech, where he absorbed the spicy aromas and the colorful textiles. “It’s the most phenomenal, magical place I’ve ever been to,” he said.

And now the home he shares with his partner is filled with the influences of his youth, inside and out.

The front walkway is lined with potted citrus trees, giving you the feeling of approaching a French “orangerie.” Inside, a 19th-century, hand-painted French vaisselier for storing and displaying china sits in the living room — a find from friend Darin Geise who owns the Coup d’Etat showroom across from the Design Center in San Francisco. Atop a leather ottoman is a bright green tray and a Moroccan lantern. Louis XVI chairs are covered in charcoal grey Pierre Frey toile. French doors lead you to a deck that looks like the courtyard of a boutique hotel, with topiaries and Moroccan-tiled wrought-iron tables. On an end table in a guest room is a collection of miniature porcelain busts he collected from the Alameda Point Antiques Faire. In his room, he keeps a collection of antique boxes. His sister, who owns an antique shop in the seventh arrondissement of Paris called “Fauve,” sends him a tiny box for every birthday.

And in an ode to his grandparents, on his bed he keeps French linen sheets. But unlike the farmhouse in France, in his masterbedroom, he has a fireplace to keep them warm.

(Thierry Buisson can be reached at thierryinteriors@gmail.com or 408-828-1685.)

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Here’s the complete slideshow:

# 1

We have a special Valentine Give-away! Instead of spending $75.00 on a couple dozen of roses that will die in a few days, these prints will last as long as your love. Sorry, I got a little corny there. These are photos taken by myself, at the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden.

# 2

The finished product is an 8″ x 10″ print on a wrapped canvas, (a $40.00 value). This means you can hang these directly on the wall–no frame needed. The winner may choose one rose print—there are three different roses to choose from.

# 3

All you need to do is leave a comment saying which rose you would choose. Personally, my favorite is the purple rose—I just love the soft edges. Contest ends on February 5th at 5:00 pm PST to allow time for shipping.

What started as a simple ranch house built in 1954 has been transformed over the past 20 years by the Kenny family into a French Chateuu in the country manor style. And Linda Floyd of Linda L. Floyd Interior Design has been with the  homeowners every step of the way.  The home decor is French inspired with trims and tassels and elegance.  Linda also decorated the living room for the holidays and the Summit League Homes for the Holidays tour.

The dining room was spectacular for the tour, as Sharon Watts of Peony created an astonishing table display.

David Stonesifer of David Stonesifer Interior Design and Decoration appointed the family room, including a couple of oil paintings he created himself.

Debi Campbell of Cover Story on Main Street in Los Altos added sparked to the kitchen and bath.

Upstairs, the daughter’s bedroom was decorated by Wahlberg Designs, The Duke & The Duchess of Morgan Hill. Saffron and Genevieve in Santa Cruz created the boy’s room with wonderful linen bed spreads and the master bedroom and bath received the special touch of Warmth Company from Aptos. Tiffany and Co. created a special display in the upper hallway.

Lulu Pom of Los Gatos appointed the study; La Jardiniere brought whiteness and light to the backyard and Color in the Garden from San Jose created an inviting front entrance.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Inside, you will see vintage decor, from wrought iron garden chairs to sparkling chandeliers; sterling silver pieces to crystal compotes. (Not Too Shabby is where my Lookiloos partner, Desiree, and I fought over a set of ultra-cool Asian fretwork iron chairs and where I found a mirror that is going to be the centerpiece of my remodeled bathroom.)

Not only can customers rent the charming new space for parties — the interior setting with vintage tables, chairs and china is perfect for showers, bridesmaid’s luncheons, mother-daughter teas — but some of the garden arches and benches can be rented out for special occasions as well.

An open house is set for this weekend, 11-4 on both Saturday and Sunday. Mention Lookiloos and enjoy 10 percent off of items in the new store!  In the short term, Not Too Shabby-ette will only be open on weekends, but once Vikki is up and running, expect full hours.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

The garden of the Kenney Home was green and pastoral, but somewhat shady and dark. It needed some “pop.”  So, after planting white cyclamen in the beds, she turned to the  major focal points — the fireplace patio and the French doors at the back of the study. Bringing in two graceful urns filled with white hydrangeas, azaleas and wispy maidenhair ferns– plus a piece of garden statuary from her friend Laura Ziffer at Lulu Pom in Los Gatos — Dhelia created a graceful vignette flanking the French doors.

“Having the statuary and urns accentuate the architecture of the French doors — to me, it looked like something you’d see in Europe,” Dhelia said.

Making her way around the patio to the fireplace area, she planted more white flowers and bright green cypress in the homeowner’s pots.  “I wanted the chartreuse all over to pull your eye,” she said.

On the table in front of the outdoor fireplace, she planted a white cement pot with succulents and surrounded the base with the kind of ornamentation that might be seen on a mantel – layers of moss, lichen, bleeched pinecones and antlers. Small birch containers showcased miniature Christmas tree cypress and amaryllis.

Instead of using traditional red poinsiettas to create a Christmas feel, she wanted the setting to appear “organic.  A winter wonderland.”

Indeed it was.

To see other work by La Jardiniere, click on these stories:

Before and After:Spanish Courtyard Makeover

From Beige to Bright: Backyard Makeover Gets Colorful

Here’s the complete slideshow: