Before & After: From Pegboards to Terrazzo, This Swervy Oakland Bungalow Has It All
Homeowners Rory and Ryan didn’t necessarily set out to incorporate a laundry list of hot home trends into their renovation. But you could chalk up a round of design-detail bingo in their perfectly playful Oakland bungalow. There’s the poppy Concrete Collaborative terrazzo island in the kitchen, the pegboard storage space in the entryway, the surprising Sandberg Elin wallpaper in the powder room. (Built-in cat cubby? Check. Strike-through shelving? You know it.)
All that being said: This thoroughly updated Craftsman home is anything but cookie cutter.
Architect Sky Lanigan took the fusty 1,360-square-foot stucco house with bland, closed-off rooms and turned it into something funky and fresh. He started by taking out as many walls as possible between the entryway, living room, dining room, and kitchen. "We wanted to connect all the public spaces and bring light in," he explains.
Before: Kitchen
Before: The kitchen had vintage cabinets and white tile.
After: Kitchen and Living Room
The island is covered in custom Concrete Collaborative terrazzo, and the colored flecks nod to the wall tiles.
To make the most of the budget, Lanigan encouraged Rory and Ryan (a passionate home cook and a software engineer, respectively) to leave the bedrooms, bathroom, and hallways untouched, focusing on the communal areas. Curvaceous millwork wraps the bedroom wing, hiding the private spaces behind closed doors while providing storage galore. "We mummified it in birch," says Lanigan. "It’s a big chunk that goes through the space, but it has a softness." The curving walls lead you in, creating a flow from front to back.
"I’ve done shelves in front of windows here and there throughout my life," says Lanigan, who was raised in a hippie commune in the ’70s, where plants were always hanging in the windows. "I grew up in a geodesic dome my parents built. That organic ’70s design is very much a touchstone for me." Beside nostalgia, this choice offers extra accessible shelving and screens a boring driveway view while still letting in light.
The backsplash continues into the pantry—the team used 25 feet of Zia concrete tiles in all.
That birch box isn’t the only monolith here—Lanigan also designed a kelly green cube to divide the new dining room and the kitchen. It houses pantry items and a hidden powder room. "The idea was to strip everything back and have the shell of the house interact with these new volumes," the architect says.
The exposed framing is painted a light baby blue. Floating white track lighting hangs from bent brass rods installed between the joists.
The living room furniture is from Sobu.
Before: Dining Room
Before: The original dining room separated the living room from the kitchen.
After: Pantry and Powder Room
The green box is lined with tambor strips to give it texture and interest.
But these eye-catching interventions are really just the warm-up act. Creating a big, beautiful, functional space to cook the day away was the driving force behind the whole renovation.
The pantry also serves as a spot to whip up cocktails.
"I like that you can feel the old shapes of the house," says Lanigan, who intentionally let the trim and fireplace "run into" the green box. Dark wood detailing on the floor reveals the outlines of the home’s former rooms.
"It’s a really good day if I get to spend eight hours in the kitchen," says Rory. And more often than not, he does, prepping meals on the colorful terrazzo countertop, grabbing bowls from the open fir shelves that sit in front of the window, and sautéing the night away at the oversized range. ("It’s really a kitchen with a house around it," says Lanigan with a laugh.)
The built-in cabinets at the entry include storage for Ryan and Rory’s running shoes. (They’re both long-distance runners.)
The powder room features Elin Midnight Blue wallpaper by Sandberg.
The colored backsplash of Zia concrete tiles takes inspiration from Le Corbusier, Italian modernism, and ’80s color blocking. "I was having a hard time deciding on a color," admits Rory, "but Sky told us, ‘you don’t have to pick just one.’" Now, a grid of peach, dusty rose, sage green, and baby blue runs the length of the kitchen and into the pantry.
Lanigan also played with different sheens—the backsplash has a mottled finish, while the paint on the green box is satiny, and the custom purple hood vent is matte.
Before: Living Room
Before: The homeowners decided to preserve the home’s existing fireplace.
After: Dining Room
A built-in bench provides seating for the 10-foot-long dining table, which Lanigan found at a store in Berkeley that was going out of business. "It almost feels like it grows out of the floor," says Lanigan.
It’s a home filled with so many thoughtful details and design delights that it shines even through the mess of everyday life. "When it’s a total disaster and I’ve failed to clean up for the day, it still looks so nice and open," says Rory.
Although the interior is defined by two big, bold cubes, the approach clearly involved thinking outside the box. "It’s so fun to work with people who are excited by being weird, but want to do it right," says Lanigan.
Before: Entryway
Before: Half walls sectioned off the entryway in an awkward way.
After: Entryway
A pegboard niche provides a place to drop keys and sunglasses.
The birch millwork includes a special cubby for Ryan and Rory’s cat’s litter box—you’ll spot the access hole on the far left.
After: More Photos
"For the first six months we lived here, I would force Ryan to drag a chair into the kitchen to sit with me while I cooked so I wouldn’t be lonely," says Rory. In the new layout, the kitchen and dining room are integrated seamlessly.
Both the cabinets and wall panelling are done in birch plywood.
Floor Plan of Rockridge Bungalow by Sky Lanigan Studios
More Before & After stories:
This Reinvented Monterey Bungalow Shows That Sometimes, Smaller Is Better
To Revive Their Dated Bungalow, First They Chopped It in Half
They Gave Their Dilapidated Washington D.C. Home the Renovation of a Lifetime
Project Credits:
Architect of Record: Sky Lanigan Studios / @skylaniganstudios
Builder/General Contractor: Elemental Homeworks
Structural Engineer: CRES Engineering
Landscape Design Company: B&B Horticulture
Terrazzo Slab Fabrication: Concrete Collaborative / @concretecollaborative
Architectural Metalwork Fabrication: Cjay Roughgarden
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