Unpacked boxes were everywhere. Only the living room and kitchen looked presentable. And she needed a privacy curtain for the front bathroom or her guests would be flashing the neighbors. She had already raced around Indian shops in Sunnyvale looking for fabric that would work in the iridescent blue bathroom and found nothing. As she was unpacking a box full of old clothes she hadn’t seen in a year, she pulled out a sari-like dress.

Hmm, she thought. “Dress or curtain? Dress or curtain?”

She took out the shears, cut it, and began the whirr of the sewing machine.

The entire remodel, which has been a year in construction and chronicled by Lookiloos and the Mercury News, has been a hands-on, nail-biting project from the start. Murray is an artist and wanted the home to reflect her avant-garde style as well as their international roots. Like many Silicon Valley families, they have traveled a circuitous route to get here. Murray’s husband, Craig Hinkley, is an Australia native. She grew up in Canada. With their two children, now 14 and 12, they have traveled the world and the United States, moving every two years or so following Hinkley’s jobs in high tech.

Unlike other homes Murray has transformed to suit their needs and prepare for resale over the years, she designed this one with creative abandon. She isn’t worried about pleasing a potential buyer anymore. After more than two years enjoying the life and climate of Silicon Valley and the town tucked into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, they plan to settle down this time.

So when they moved their family, plus their rambunctious boxer Millie, back into the house just in time for Christmas, they began to feel a whole new sense of home. And with a giant angel on their shoulder — or tucked under the bed until the towering stained-glass window was safely installed in the living room — they have survived rainstorms and mud bogs, accidents and injuries, cramped quarters and a leaking storage unit that left many family keepsakes in ruins.

And now, after all that, Murray said, “We finally stopped moving, stopped renovating, stopped the dirt, stopped the noise and just put on the music.”

They can finally sit back and enjoy the home they built for no one but themselves. The peacock-blue backsplash in the kitchen. The quatrefoil ironwork on the banister. The colorful Moroccan lanterns above the dining table and the industrial pendants over the kitchen island.

And across the room from the stained-glass angel that casts colorful light across the floor is a sensuous portrait of Proserpina, the Roman goddess of spring, that Murray painted on the sliding pocket door.

“By saying to yourself, ‘I am not going to move; this is the house I would like my grandchildren to come to,’ you make it in a way that is incredibly personal,” she said. “You don’t need to answer to neutrality. You can take who you are and run with it.”

All along the way, her contractor, Vinnie Tran of VT Construction, put up with her brainstorms and second-guesses and finished the project within the year he promised.

Murray even changed the size and scale of the house early on, giving up a formal dining room and more interior space when they reined in their budget and decided to better enjoy what the Bay Area has to offer that their former residences of Charlotte, N.C., and Seattle didn’t — great weather. Instead of a formal living room, they now have a covered terrace.

The landscaping will have to wait. Inside, boxes remained unpacked and rooms undecorated. But after a full year of the parents sleeping in the cottage and the kids in bunk beds in the garage, they are all sleeping under the same roof.

Even now, they look back fondly on the past year. Son Cal says his best Christmas was in the cottage when they decorated the Charlie Brown Christmas tree in about 20 minutes and the smell of ham filled every square inch of the 360-square-foot dwelling.

In the new house the other night, Murray lit the outdoor fireplace and called the family to join her.

“I said to everyone, put down the homework, stop the texting, get off the phone. Let’s sit and listen to the crackling fire and the music and the frogs from the creek,” she said. “Everyone stop and be thankful for this moment and where we are.”

And then, for a memorable moment, the four of them sat together and talked.
Contact Julia Prodis Sulek at jsulek@mercurynews.com. Read the previous stories in “This Darned House” saga at www.lookiloos.com.

LESSONS LEARNED

Have a renovation in your future? Here is Lisa Murray’s advice to other homeowners:

Know your style. If you are not confident in your design abilities, hire a designer who can communicate your style to your architect, contractor, stonemason, tiler, painter, etc.

Building green is relatively easy thanks to new state energy efficiency standards. It’s the demolition of the old home that is difficult.

Find a contractor that you like, respect and trust. This choice will affect your experience more than any other one. A good contractor will have good subcontractors and good subs collectively create well-built homes.

Never compromise on your finishes as this is what you will touch and feel every day.

The renovation will seem like it is taking forever. But, upon reflection, it will seem like it went at light speed.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Lisa Murray thought opening the storage containers that sat idle for a year would be like crossing the finish line of their house remodel. She had looked forward to sifting through family photos and baby quilts made for her two children by her late mother, and uncrating the art books she had built a library for. Murray and her husband, Craig Hinkley, built this house to settle down their vagabond family that had moved every two-and-a-half years for the past 16. The family momentos would help make this house a home.

Cottage shared by family of four---plus dog.

Woman on Sliding Door---Truly Stunning!

Still, she had a reality check when her son, Cal, was attacked by a dog last summer that tore a gash into his face that threatened to leave lasting scars. This is a woman who understands what’s important in life — Los Gatos remodel or not.

Through the heavy winter rains, as she was choosing tile and light fixtures, ninety percent of the art books she had collected in her travels were turned into muck. All the Nancy Drew books that she and her daughter, Madison, read together in bed each night were ruined.

Cherished Childhood Memories

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.)

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. )

This little cottage is so stylish and daring, it’s almost too hard to imagine a rabble rousing family of four with a dog moving into it.   But that’s what Lisa Murray says her family is still planning to do while they are remodeling the front house.

The 360-square-foot cottage is out back and was the first to get attention after they purchased the Los Gatos property a year ago. Lisa is nothing if not whimsical and avante garde. And the cottage reflects that.

The “trophy” over the tiny fireplace is a Lucite deer head illuminated by a string of blue LEDs. The wall above the master bed has a lit arrow that looks like a midway sign at a fair. Even she admits getting a kick out of the “creepy” side of a circus (and has a few framed pictures of circus rides on the wall, too.) But those things are the extras.

And it’s amazing how she pulled the fundamentals together for a beautiful, cohesive mix of modern and vintage, traditional and “circus-y.” Blue and white tiles from Portugal frame the fireplace and the kitchen backsplash. A floral love seat (a hide-a-bed) sits across from small red Ikea barrel-back chairs (with Pierre Deux throw pillows.)

She’s made great use of a very small space, with a tiny dining table in the main room and a Queen size bed with a watermelon-color frame from Anthropology in the bedroom.

Now let’s see how good it looks after the hubby and kids and dog move in. Stay tuned to the family adventures to come. (I can only imagine what the main house will look like! This woman’s got it going on!)

Lookiloos is following the adventures of the Murray-Hinkley family remodel.  Scroll down for a list of Lisa’s splurges, bargains and resources on her cottage remodel. Or click below for  the most recent stories:
Lisa Explains Los Gatos Remodel
Los Gatos Family Takes on Major Remodel

Update:
This post is featured in the San Jose Mercury News Home and Garden section here.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

It’s been a while and I thought I would give you a quick update on the progress of the cottage / family.

First let me update you on the family. On the last day of school my son received an A on his math test – the first one of the year!!! So to celebrate I said a few fateful words “Let’s go to the skateboard park for fun.” Six hours later in the ER we discovered how much fun his summer was really going to be with a broken wrist. For those wondering out there – yes he was wearing wrist guards and helmet when this happened. Honestly the cast has not slowed him down at all because he had a gortex / waterproof cast. Arguably that was the best $35 investment I made this year!!!

The next week, me in my naturally clumsy state while rushing to finish the cottage, tripped on some plywood and fell headfirst onto our flagstone path. Back to the ER – this time via ambulance – with my forehead split like a watermelon to the bone, scrapped up knee and hairline fracture of the elbow.

Thirteen stitches later and my charming husband calling me Harry Potter I lay wondering whether all the chaos and the frantic lifestyle that goes with renovating is really worth it all. Now two weeks later I am back to my old self with the added character of a scar on my forehead and sore elbow, putting the finishing decorative touches on the cottage. As I walk through the cottage and see how my vision and sketches have come to life I realize that the answer to my earlier question is “yes”. The chaos and hectic lifestyle is worth it. It’s true what they say about renovation and childbirth being the same – you forget the pain and do it again.

Stay tuned for the grand unveiling of the cottage in the next blog post ……

~ Lisa

(Lisa Hinkley, her husband, two kids and dog are embarking on a major remodel of their Los Gatos home. They plan to move into a small cottage they just remodeled on the property while the main house is under way. She is sharing her story with Lookiloos.)

Here are the most recent This Darned House installments:
Lisa Explains Los Gatos Remodel
Los Gatos Family Takes on Major Remodel

There are many reasons why people renovate. The list generally includes: more space, better functionality or even a longing for beauty. My name is Lisa Murray and this is the story of my family’s renovation. In this challenging economic time I have decided to do two completely crazy things. The first is to start my own interior design and custom art business, and the second is to undertake a massive renovation of our house, cottage and future garage.

After a 12-year cycle of moving every 2-½ years my family and I had finally found our own slice of nirvana in Los Gatos, Ca. The house is 3,850 square feet with an adjoining cottage that is 360 square feet. Both the house and cottage are in need of major renovation, remodel and cosmetic work. And in case you’re wondering – yes we knew this when we signed the offer letter on the house and went into escrow.

My husband, Craig, volunteered to deal with the moving-in day, since in all our previous moves I had been bestowed this great honor. I welcomed this knowing how much fun it is to deal with moving men, hundreds of boxes along with hot, bored and grouchy children. I kissed him goodbye and took the kids up to Vancouver, Canada to see my mother who had been battling cancer and wasn’t feeling well.

You know the old saying, “that things happen for a reason”, well I feel a sort of destiny in finding our little fixer-upper in Los Gatos. House hunting was a long and stressful journey with many offers falling through. About a year later we finally found a home that “spoke” to us.

I know that if we did not have a close of escrow on July 1^st, 2008 I would not have seen my mother alive again. My mother, Elizabeth Murray, who had battled cancer for 2 years took a drastic downturn and within 5 days of the children and I arriving in Vancouver unexpectedly passed away. I was devastated.

The overwhelming prospect of organizing and designing such a huge renovation helped me cope through my grief by making me focus on something other than my sorrow. The loss of my mother also made me wake up to my own mortality and become proactive in turning my dream of opening up my own art and interior design business into a reality.

This is not just a blog about our renovation. It is the journal of a family and how we cope under stressful times. Please meet my family and take this journey with us.

~ Lisa

Related stories:
This Darned House Intro: Los Gatos Family Takes on Big Remodel

Lisa Murray and husband Craig Hinkley thought the low point of their Los Gatos home remodeling project had come and gone. In the span of one week, Murray tripped over broken flagstone, wrenching her knee and forcing her to use a cane to walk; Millie the family boxer took a nail to the paw; 13-year-old daughter Madison encountered some poison oak; and 11-year-old son Cal ended up in the emergency room when, in a rush to diving practice, he spilled a hot cup of noodles in his lap.

What they realize now is that their mayhem has just begun. This family of four — an artistic, perfectionist mother; a “Tasmanian devil” son; a bookish daughter; and a workaholic father who snores — plan to move into a tiny cottage less than one-tenth the size of their 3,800-square-foot house during construction. Their hyperactive dog who makes everyone insane is moving in, too, of course.

And the family has agreed to let Lookiloos and the Mercury News chronicle every turn — from the choices Murray makes for kitchen counters to the emotional outbursts over construction delays — with photos, stories, videos and blogging.

Construction so far has only spiffed up the 360-square-foot cottage they plan to move into on the back of their Los Gatos property. (The cottage project was supposed to take four to six weeks but is barely finished after nearly four months.) Work has yet to begin on the main house on the property they purchased almost a year ago.

The house is supposed to take at least a year to complete.

“My brother and I don’t get along in that house,” Madison said looking over at the main house. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage in that one,” she said of the cottage.

“From here,” Hinkley added, “it only gets crazier.”

The fact that Murray refers to it as the “Fairy Tale Cottage” or the “Honeymoon Cottage” is tempting fate. “It’s a train wreck,” she admitted.

Not that this family story doesn’t include romance. Murray, from Vancouver, met her husband while studying in Australia. She was artsy. He was brainy.

“Craig sat behind me in philosophy class and wiggled his eyebrows at me,” she said. “He thought I was a foreign, exotic beauty,” she laughed. “Right! From Canada, so exotic!”

He proposed within a month of their first date. They married and began hopscotching the United States following Hinkley’s career in computers, from Walnut Creek, to Seattle, to Charlotte, N.C., then back to Seattle before settling in Los Gatos a year ago.

Moving every two or three years, Murray took on the task of remodeling and decorating their homes. Each was more stylish, trendy and experimental than the last, from a painted aviary mural in the master bedroom with Moroccan lanterns in one house, to a huge, purple silk Indonesian umbrella in her daughter’s room in another. (While some of her decor may be considered fanciful and wild, she still gravitates to the classics. In her current outdated kitchen — cream-colored tile counters with brown grout and all — breakfast is served around a white oval Saarinen table and bright orange Asian-style chairs from West Elm with fretwork backs.)

When Hinkley was offered an executive position at Cisco Systems last year, they made what they hope will be their last move for a least a decade while the children get through their school years. They started the search for a fixer-upper and found one on a tree-covered acre in Los Gatos, with a seasonal creek running at the back of the lot. The two-story house that sloped down the hillside had a large footprint, but didn’t function well. With the clapboard cottage on the property for visiting in-laws and an art studio for Murray, the property was exactly what they were looking for.

“We loved the potential,” Murray said.

And so began the design process, with work on the cottage starting March 1. Murray is nothing if not adventurous, and while she designed the exterior as a French cottage with blue shutters and geranium-filled window boxes, the inside is “modern French provincial with a retro element.” Glossy red cabinets for the kitchen are from Ikea. Glass bathroom tiles that feature 1940s sailor tattoo designs, including pinup girls, were found on a Web site, www.modwalls.com. A Lucite deer head sits in a crate waiting to be mounted.

“I’m going eclectic,” she said, “with a light circus feel.”

For Mother’s Day, she asked her husband and children to help sand and pickle beams for the vaulted ceiling in the cottage’s living room. Their boxer, Millie, barked through the entire project.

“She didn’t understand what was going on,” daughter Madison said.

“Trust me, neither did I,” Hinkley said. “But I wasn’t barking.”

The family may make the move, with Millie, to the cottage as early as August, but already Murray is bracing for more delays. And Hinkley, who snores each night and gets up before dawn each day, is anticipating spending a few nights in the toolshed.

Join Lookiloos and the Mercury News as we follow the family of Lisa Murray and Craig Hinkley on their remodeling adventure — providing practical tips and local resources along the way — and find out whether this project will be a “train wreck” or have a “fairy tale” ending.