Bringing Daylight to a Cave
Cole
Berkeley, California | 2018
Light makes all the difference in a home. This house originally had a very dark ambience—a traditional Spanish/Mediterranean look that felt more SoCal than NorCal. The homeowner wanted to brighten up the space and make it feel more welcoming and livable.
Architect: Gary Earl Parsons
The original kitchen was dark wood in a farmhouse style. We brightened it up with marble and light colors. We also created a custom plaster hood for the huge range, and painted tiles for the backsplash.
A wall separated the living room and kitchen; we opened it up with beams that match those in the living room. We also created built-in bookshelves.
The area beneath the huge skylight used to be an outdoor courtyard that wasn’t very useable. We enclosed it to make it part of the living space—the custom-built skylight was assembled in place. We also added an electric warm floor for extra comfort.
“To get the massive 5’-wide stove into the house, we had to come up a neighbor’s driveway, remove a section of fence and carry the stove through two backyards. It was just too big to fit through the front door—plus, the house has 75 steps to climb! It was worth it in the end, because of the amazing stove and also because the owner asked us to come back in 2021 and renovate his downstairs guest suite.”
The stairs that lead up to the bedrooms were light oak with white risers. We darkened the wood and added handcrafted Spanish tiles.
As was the theme for this house, both bathrooms were very dark. In the master bath we added a huge skylight and kept all the colors and marble very light.
In the second bath, we installed hand-painted floor tiles, a custom oak vanity, and a large mirror to brighten the space.
