This was a full remodel of a modest 1800 sq. ft. single story mid-century house on the island of Alameda in the San Francisco Bay. The owners are an active family of four. Rob Costabile is a highly-rated luxury real estate agent, lover of design, surfer and pickleball aficionado, and Lori is an Integral Life Coach and a passionate cook, passed on from her large Italian family. They have a daughter and son aged 12 and 8. While developing the project scope and budget, the owners decided it was more important to focus on the open kitchen and living area of their dreams than to blow their budget on an addition that would leave limited resources for well-crafted finishes.
At the intersection of the public and private areas, we opened up a faceted and curved lightwell, with a wood cabinet appearing to slide through the ceiling to the skylight above. This allowed us to create dramatic height and bring in daylight to the center of the house without building upward or the major structural work of a fully-vaulted ceiling. The vented skylight also acts as a heat chimney for natural ventilation.
The centerpiece of the house is the kitchen, which we opened up to the dining and living area with a continuous smooth ceiling plane running the length of the house. The horizontal and vertical cabinet volumes become the main articulating elements that shape the large open space. The White Oak cabinets were beautifully crafted by Field Millworks of Oakland, who worked closely with us on prototyping the intricate recessed circular pulls and the complementary large sculptural circular knob for the panelized refrigerator. A combination of solid wood drawers and veneered cabinet panels creates a subtle pattern of shifting grain and color, containing multiple specialty elements including a hidden coffee station with retracting doors, an integral vent hood, two counter seating areas and record jacket display shelves by the dining room turntable.
The wood is offset by pops of color - the long backsplash wrapping the kitchen window, a light blue composition of corrugated dimensional and flat tile by Wow Tile, and a striking perforated metal screen, powder coated Golden Gate orange, which separates the dining room from the kitchen sink area, and contains an integral light in its tiled base at the dining side.
Team:
Architects: Sky Lanigan Studios
General Contractor - Robert Kennedy Construction
Structural Engineer - St. Onge Engineering
Photographer: Jonathan Bloom
Materials Used:
Kitchen Cabinets & appliances
Rift White Oak cabinets by Field MillWorks with custom recessed circular pulls.
powder-coated perforated metal screen shelving
Panel: front Jennair refrigerator
Range: Fulgor Sofia 36" Gas Range
Miele Dishwasher
Kitchen Counters and Tile
Counters: 3 cm Carrara Marble
Tile Backsplash & Shelf - Wow tile Stripes collection - a mix of corrugated dimensional and flat tiles creates low-contrast variation
Bathroom Counters, Tile, Plumbing
Vanity counter, walls, and floor - Mutina Pico Tile by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec - a mix of large tiles with irregular raised and recessed dots creates a wonderful handcrafted texture.
Plumbing fixtures: Brizio
Toilet: Toto wall mounted
Lighting
Dining Room Pendant: vintage mid-century milk-glass pendant made by Napako in Czechoslovakia in the "Brussels Style" of the 1958 Brussels World Fair.
Kitchen ceiling: Cedar & Moss Terra Surface-Mounts in Bone.
Lounge ceiling: custom brass semi-flush mount by Sky Lanigan Studios.
Bathroom sconces: Cedar & Moss Annie sconce in Persimmon
Flooring
White Oak prefinished wide plank engineered wood
