When 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.
A 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!) Room 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:

There were so many features I absolutely fell in love with. To start with the light fixtures over the casual dining table.  The homeowner told me she got them from flea market sale and that they had come from a See’s candy factory.  The shape is perfect, but the price was spectacular– $15 each!

Now of course another favorite was the artist studio.  My family might never see me again!  The rustic stone walls and the skylights just make you want to stop, stay and create.

The master suite was truly an escape with a large window seat and views of the city.  The master bath had all the bells and whistles from the marble counters to the elaborate dual sinks–nothing was left behind.

And, lastly one of my favorites had to be the guest bath The mirror over the vanity matched the plaster cut-out over the shower and toilet.  This remodeled home had so much thought put into the details. And,  I’m so glad they did!

This home is currently for sale. You can check out the Realtor’s virtual tour here. And if you’re in the neighborhood you should see it in person because it is one fabulous home.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Lisa Poses in the framed window of her house remodel

A big “thank-you” to all of you who made suggestions to me about kitchen appliances for our well-under-way house remodel. I loved reading your comments and have now purchased the appliances. (But I’m going to keep that a secret for a bit longer.) We’re in the exciting stage of framing our Los Gatos house that is finally taking shape. But for our family of four that is now living in our tiny guest cottage and garage — along with Milly our dog — everything is an adventure, for better or worse.

Madison chastizes the family dog for leading her into poison oak!

For starters, we had a rather itchy incident involving my daughter Madison, poison oak, and plumbing issues. I must mention that my daughter has allergies: to poison oak, poison ivy and doing the dishes. As soon as I realized they had run straight into a mass of poison oak from a hike we were on, I marched all three of us back to the cottage for a good scrub with poison oak-removing soap. I ordered my daughter in the shower while I tried and deal with the dog. A few minutes later Madison yells, “There’s no water MOM!”

In all the panic to remove the offending plant from her already reddening skin, I completely forgot that my contractor, Vinnie, had turned off the water earlier that day and was going to re-turn it on the next morning.

I load the daughter, the dog and myself into the car, and call my husband and ask him to take the dog to Pet Express for a good wash as I head to the gym to use the showers there. All the mad racing around did not stop the rashes from developing. Madison suffered terribly for the next three weeks. Now if anyone has any advice on how to deal with poison oak, boy, would I be grateful.

The house remodel is still going along one step forward two steps back because of the rain. But we are seeing progress and that is very exciting. When I designed the house I had to make a few decisions regarding the floor plan. I could have attached the garage onto the house and used the space over the garage for a formal living room and dining room with a small deck ( this would have reduced the back yard/garden space and increased the driveway/pavement). The option that I decided upon was to detach the garage by approximately 65 feet from the house but connect it via a path that meanders thru a courtyard garden. I re-configured the three existing rooms into a great-room kitchen,dining,and living-room opening up to a giant covered patio. I hope we will not miss the formal, always -perfect, never used rooms (well maybe at Thanksgiving). I look forward to enjoying a morning coffee in my garden or an evening glass of wine on my deck. Ah, a girl can still dream can’t she? Stay dry until next time we chat again.
Lisa

It has been a long time since my last blog and I thought I would give everyone a quick update. 

The cottage / garage living arrangements seem to be working out really well. We have learned to cohabitate in a very small environment. A key issue for us was keeping the mud at bay with all the wet days we had. Millie the dog would tramp through our swamp of a backyard and then come racing into the garage or cottage spreading wonderful muddy paw prints everywhere. One minute of running through the house equaled 40 minutes of cleaning. Very quickly we learned to catch her and wipe down her paws BEFORE she came inside.

The weather has really played havoc with the work schedule as we haven’t been able to lay the footings for the new foundation. We have to wait for the ground to dry out some more. With the dryer weather I am optimistic that this week we will see a burst of energy around the house.

The relative sound of silence around the construction site has made me re-think some of my decisions  on the interior of house. I would love to hear from viewers if they have had any experience – good or bad – with the following products I am contemplating using in the home. The choices I am pondering are:

·       Hood: Vent-a-Hood

·       Range: Lacanche-Cluny versus La Cornue – CornuFe

·       Dish washer: Miele versus Bosch

·       Fridge: Liebherr versus Sub-Zero

·       Cabinets: Kraftmaid

·       Radiant Heat: Nuheat (Radiant electric floor heating system)

Please weigh in!–Lisa Murray

(Lookiloos is following Lisa Murray and her family as they remodel their Los Gatos home.)

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.

Lisa Murray logged onto Craigslist for the first time looking for a small stained glass window for the master bathroom part of her renovation. As with all things about the remodel of her Los Gatos home, she wasn’t looking for something ordinary. She was looking for something “that makes my heart beat faster.”

Then she saw it, an eight foot angel with golden wings, a long white robe and bursts of cobalt blue. Translucent. Brilliant. Mesmerizing. Once the adornment for a San Francisco mortuary, it was now stored in a Richmond warehouse. Lisa quickly realized it was too big for the bathroom, and, quite frankly, almost too beautiful for it.

Despite its mortuary provenance, “it’s not creepy to me,” Lisa said. “The angel represents a hope of something.”

But where could she put it and could she get it home in one piece? What followed would become a lesson in flexiblity, creativity, and nail-biting drama for Lisa and her husband, Craig Hinkley. The couple, along with their two children and dog Millie are living in the tiny backyard cottage they just restored as well as the newly built garage while undergoing a full renovation of their circa-1940 Los Gatos home. Lookiloos and the Mercury News are chronicling their design decisions and family adventures in the “This Darned House” series.

After 15 years of marriage, Craig has learned to trust the fantastical vision of his artist wife. As usual, however, the vision would come with a price. The new home for the angel would be the south-facing bay window in the great room — and that would not only mean a new design concept for the room, but a major re-engineering of the bay window to hold its weight.
“I’m sure Vinnie can make it all work,” Craig told his wife of their contractor, Vinnie Tran, who had already completed the garage under budget.

But first, could they get the angel home safely?

After renting a U-Haul and wrapping the stained glass in blankets, the precious cargo bumped and lurched in the back of a truck all the way from Richmond to Los Gatos. When Craig rolled up the back door of the truck to inspect it, his heart skipped a beat. The window had dropped out of its wooden frame. But he couldn’t tell whether it landed intact or had shattered.

“Lisa, go inside,” he said. “You don’t want to see this.”

When he peeled back the blankets, he was amazed to see it had survived, thanks to the extra cushioning they had put down first. The window had been mounted in three sections. They stored each under their iron bedframe in the cottage until the house was ready for it.

In the meantime, though, Lisa went back to the drawing board — again. She had already undergone a major redesign when she and Craig realized they wanted less interior square footage and more outdoor living. This couple had lived through the hot buggie summers of North Carolina and the rainy winters of Seattle following Craig’s finance jobs and had spent most of their time inside. Only after living in California for six months did they realize that for nearly every beautiful weekend, another one followed. The first major change was to swap out the formal dining room for a vast outdoor terrace off the great room.

But Lisa had originally designed the great room that opens to the kitchen to have a retro David Hicks style with a geometric circle motif. And that would no longer work with the leaded glass window. So she has ditched the idea of using Kraftmaid kitchen cabinets that had a circular overlay as well as the splashes of hot pink she was planning in the family room furnishings.

Instead, to complement the dramatic angel, she is opening up to a new style, with “a tinge of Gothic.”

And that means tufted, deep blue velvet sofas in the living room, for instance, and finding new seeded glass pendant lamps over the kitchen island she plans to paint herself. She is also reconsidering making her backsplash more linear and adding blue glass inserts.

She’s looking forward to the colored light that will splay across her great room. Now she’s just crossing her fingers that the installation of the giant window will go smoothly.

As Lisa puts it, “the drama is half the fun.”

“

We were trenching gas and electricity lines and starting to frame the garage when the storm struck. Our backyard resembled Venice with the canals. Actually minus the incredible architecture, charming gondolas, priceless art and, well,  you get the picture.  We were left with just mud.  A lot of mud!

When given lemons you make lemonade; when given mud you make mud-ball fights! The kids and Craig had a blast playing in the mud. I am sure this is just the start of it all.

Stay-tuned.

Lisa.

(To follow the rest of the Hinkley Family remodel, go to This Darned House at Lookiloos. )