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Our philosophy for the interior design of the Carroll Street house is to preserve some elements of the original house while still making things feel new and modern. Certain elements that are representative of the original style are being incorporated to maintain the history of the home. We have done some research into the bungalow homes in California from the time period when the house was built and selected a few elements that we could approximate while still making things look modern. One example is the opening between the Great Room and the kitchen. There is a very slight arch that is being used to define the opening that is similar to an arched opening that used to exist between the old dining room and the living room. However, the arch we are creating is very slight and is only suggestive of the original which was much more prominent. We are also recreating this style of arch in the opening between the great room and the hall to the bedrooms and bathrooms. We add our touch of modern style by selecting a brushed nickel finish on the hardware for doors and drawers as well as the fixtures for the bathrooms and kitchen. We also selected stainless steel for appliances. Kitchen and Bathroom The cabinets in the kitchen and the vanities in the bathrooms are going to have a simple shaker style that is common in both modern and found in pictures from the original time period of the home. The cabinets for both the kitchen and the bathrooms are being hand built from good quality material so that we can have more control over the sizes and also the functionality of the cabinets. In the kitchen, the cabinets will have some pullouts in the lower cabinets for convenience of storage. In the master bathroom, the cabinet will be a double sink vanity with 3 drawers in the middle and ample storage under the sinks behind 2 hand crafted cabinet doors. In the second bathroom, the vanity will have 3 drawers and storage under the single sink. The counters in the bathrooms are a simple cultured marble in white on top of a darker stained cabinet. In the kitchen we are using a darker granite countertop on top of painted cabinetry. Windows and Doors The new double pane windows are not only energy efficient, but they also have elements of style from the original home. We selected windows that have light grids in the top half of the window, similar to the window styles we found in our research. The doors in the home will also be slightly reminiscent of the period with two single panels which also complements the cabinetry doors.
Plenty of Practical Storage
Another important design element for the house is storage. We spent a lot of time working good storage space into the house. In addition to the bedroom closets, we added a linen closet to the hallway. Since the kitchen is quite large, there is plenty of cabinet storage to be utilized, as well as quite a bit of counter space. In back of the kitchen, we have created a mudroom at the rear entrance from the backyard and garage which can be hidden from view when you have guests over behind the sliding kitchen pocket door. Its a great place to keep your coats, shoes and anything else that you need for going outside. It also acts as a buffer for keeping the dirt from the outside, out of the kitchen and the rest of the house. Off of the mudroom is a large pantry closet for the kitchen which provides quite a bit of food storage or anything else for that matter. We even created storage over the area above the stairs leading to the downstairs laundry room. Its an area that is often left as wasted space in home design, but with a couple shelves, it becomes a very good sized storage area.
Feel free to use the comments below to ask any question you may have on the design choices we have made.
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