I never shy away from a challenge. So when I was told by the owner of Smith Brothers Construction that we had a meeting for a potential Del Mar remodel project, I knew my team and I would rise to the occasion the moment I saw the home. It's a landmark home designed by Dean Meredith, who has a very strong architectural style. The home's exterior has been documented on his website. For years, I had noticed this home when I was driving up and down the coast. I was always curious about what the inside looked like. And let me tell you - it was just as interesting on the interior as it was on the exterior. I strive to honor a home's architecture, so the last thing I would want is for someone to walk into a home we designed and feel a total disconnect from its exterior. Given that this was such a landmark home in the community, I felt obligated to my client - and to the original architect - to remodel the home in a way that complemented the architecture.
Scope of Work
The scope of work included remodeling the interior kitchen, primary bedroom closet, and primary, hall, and powder bathrooms. We updated the swimming pool materials, and did a refresh of the exterior kitchenette. We also refinished the wood floors, updated all of the interior lighting, filled the main level with new furniture, among some other miscellaneous things.
Our client had some specific requests for the remodel as well. This included:
Maximizing kitchen storage, while updating the style and appliances
Replacing the mass of black countertops in the kitchen
Maintaining interest with the upper cabinets (she liked how the existing stepped upper cabinets related to other design details in the home)
Updating the lighting, while keeping the existing wood soffits
Converting the bathtub to a walk-in shower in the hallway bathroom
Updating the vanity area in the primary bathroom
Maximizing storage in the primary bedroom closet
Retaining the existing seagrass limestone flooring
I loved working with this client! She knew what she liked, was quick to make decisions, and trusted us and our process. This made it easy for us to get to work right away!
Concept Design
(Before: Kitchen / living room)
We started on the kitchen first. I knew I wanted to keep the design on the dark and moody side, given the cedar wood soffits were staying. I didn't want the cabinets to match the cedar soffits, and I wasn't fond of the existing kitchen's mahogany wood tone, but a white or painted kitchen just didn't feel quite right. The best option was to go darker than the existing cabinets, and choose a different wood species. I don't typically do renderings in the conceptual phase of design, but since the layout wasn't changing much, I felt it was necessary to convey the direction of the design. Take a look at the photos of the existing kitchen before the remodel above, and compare them to the rendering we proposed and the final result below.
(Top image: Rendering of our proposed kitchen design / Bottom image: The completed kitchen design)
Kitchen Details
Upper Cabinets
The architecture of the home is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's style, so that served as a point of inspiration for this Del Mar design. We created a myriad of boxes of different sizes, incorporating a few small niches and alternating the direction of the wood grain. It reminded me of a modern piece of stained glass. I didn't want for it to be obvious that they were cabinets at all, and I think it's safe to say that we accomplished this. The cabinet doors operate with quality push-latch mechanisms. We even managed to seamlessly incorporate a pull-out hood vent.
Countertops & Backsplash
I knew what material I wanted to use the first time I visited the home: Silver Roots marble, which I sourced from one of my go-to vendors, Unique Stone Imports. It complements the seagrass limestone nicely. It's bold, but not loud. And it has golden tones, which tied together beautifully with the cedar soffits.
Cabinetry Material
Choosing the material for the cabinetry was not so obvious, but we ultimately ended up with a quartered walnut wood in a custom dark stain. It took many trials and several rounds of samples to achieve this stain. The goal was a rich dark brown tone. I didn't want to lose the grain of the wood, but I also didn't want a lot of contrast from light to dark. It was tricky, but Design Synthesis pulled it off.
Additional Storage & Hardware
We added a bit of cabinetry and countertop space by taking out the walls that encased the refrigerator and the pantry behind it. The stepped detail of the bar countertop was repeated throughout the home, and it was so unique that we decided to keep it. The flush cabinet pulls from Richelieu have the presence of hardware, without being too heavy-looking. Their streamlined profile also prevents them from sticking out too far and causing a bruise on your hip! :) The interiors of the cabinets feature lots of functional, yet stylish, utensil organization. The hidden pantry gained space as well, with the removal of the thick walls.
Bathroom Details
Hall Bathroom
In the hall bathroom, we added a linen cabinet, replaced the tub with a walk-in shower, and basically remodeled the entire space. There are so many cool features in this bathroom now! We used a mixture of textured and honed limestone in two different thicknesses to create the horizontal pattern on the tile walls. We used the same stone and cabinet finish as the kitchen because of its close proximity. The faucets are wall-mounted. Because of some sheer wall issues, we went from a floating ledge to a step-up ledge detail, which I liked just as much. In the shower, we added a niche that spans from the floor almost to the ceiling. It features a slab of the same Silver Roots marble that we used in the kitchen, as well as a floating bench. The niche was created to elegantly incorporate a grab bar (or as I prefer to call it: a balance bar). It also doubles as a place to hang a wet washcloth. See below for the "before" and "after" photos of the space.
Primary Bathroom
The scope for the primary bathroom went from a little refresh to a full-on remodel. The bathroom lacked natural light and, although it featured a very nice onyx material, it felt dark and a bit dated. We updated this small space with Tadelakt plaster walls, a beautiful semiprecious quartzite sink, ledge walls, and a floating mahogany vanity. I wanted to add interest to the wall with the shower and toilet and once again create an elegant balance bar, so we added a half-wall that acts as a ledge and allows us to mount a balance bar inside. The half-wall continues, becoming a shower niche below the shower head.
The most notable - and, dare I say, "problem child" - aspect of this bathroom was the custom quartzite sink. To maximize storage, we added medicine cabinets. The dual sinks share a single drain located below a removable center shelf. This allows for more useful storage in the vanity drawers. It looks stunning, but -I will not lie - it took a bit of tweaking after the installation to get it just right. The slope needed to be increased to prevent slow dripping in the drain, and the removable center shelf required a larger gap in order to easily pull it out. The slab for the sinks was heavy and fragile, putting it at high risk of breaking when removed for cleaning. But my clever client found a nifty tool that allows her to jack the middle up just enough to clean it regularly!
Powder Bathroom
The powder bathroom is unique, with an angled wood soffit that already existed in the space. In the original design, the countertop followed that angle. We ultimately decided to keep the same lines, but update the material to be the same quartzite used in the primary bathroom. We also backlit it for some real powder room drama. On the back wall, we added a feature tile. It is a textured marble with gold inlay, but the photo below does not do it justice. The glass Kohler sink and John Pomp sconces are the jewelry of this tiny space off the kitchen.
It truly takes a village to pull off a Del Mar design project as complex and unique as this one! Below are some of the key players in this project's success.
Build - Smith Brothers Construction
Cabinetry - Design Synthesis Inc.
Countertops/Backsplash - Florentine Stone Fabrication
Bathroom Tile Installation - Monji Tile Company
Photography - Samantha Goh
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