Trabulsi: There’s no wasted space. We give credit to Rick and Cindy for that. Their own house—–which they designed—–is only 980 square feet.

Orr: They’re good role models for us.

Trabulsi: And it helps that we spent a year in the design phase, all of us thinking about the house and refining it.

Orr: It feels open when you walk in; you can see all the way through to the backyard. Yet as you proceed further, the volume changes and things reveal themselves. There are a lot of little spaces where you can have conversations. The house really encourages—–and I know this may sound cheesy—–connections between people.

Trabulsi: The living room was relatively narrow, and when we set up the space, I knew that everyone would be facing the wall with the TV and audio equipment. One of my clients has a home design shop, where I noticed the tree wallpaper. I thought it would be a perfect graphic element for that wall—–the tree design would add depth to the space. And it would continue the forest theme, picking up on the woodwork that we used in the addition.

Orr: The new rooms are modern—–the bathroom is practically a spa—–but they never feel stark or impersonal.

Trabulsi: One interesting thing is that you walk through the shower to get to the bathtub. It was something Rick and Cindy proposed as a way of dealing with the fact that we wanted a shower and a tub, but we didn’t have a lot of space to play with. We resisted—–we thought it wouldn’t be convenient—–but in fact it worked out perfectly: We have one contained wet area.

Orr: We weren’t trying to do an authentic restoration. It was more about respecting the house’s basic elements.

Trabulsi: The kitchen countertop is Fireslate. I like its color [black] and texture [matte]. I like that it’s durable and not too precious. We chose white appliances, instead of stainless steel, which we felt worked better with the bright, open feeling that we were going for. But even with all the openness, there’s also quiet.

Before we built the addition, I kept my drums in an enclosed back porch, which didn’t even have a door on it. When I played, you heard it everywhere. So in the renovation, we made sure the back room where I play has soundproofing in the walls.

Orr: I wake up and lie in bed and look at the woodwork around the doors and windows, and how light bounces off things, and I think about how beautiful it is. I never did that in the old house.

The couple was determined to make the most of a fairly narrow living room. Because the sofa would be facing the wall with the TV and stereo, Trabulsi covered that surface in wallpaper, choosing a forest pattern that would create an illusion of depth. The wallpaper (the Woods pattern by Cole & Son) also referred back to the tongue-and-groove oak boards that form a canopy over the room’s “media wall.”
cole-and-son.com
The couple wanted to retain the bungalow’s humble 1930s facade, but couldn’t resist adding some color. Cutting down on the guess (and grunt) work, they lit upon the yellow–and–sage green motif using Benjamin Moore’s Personal Color Viewer software (available for $10), which lets you “paint” digital photos of your house on your computer.
benjaminmoore.com
Trabulsi needed a place to play his drums at night. But drums waste a lot of floor space when they aren’t being used. So in the large room in the back of the house, the architects created a platform for him to play on. When there are overnight guests, he simply stores his DW drum set inside the platform, and, with the addition of an inflatable mattress, turns the bandstand into a bed.
dwdrums.com
After 70 years, the cedar posts holding up the house had begun to rot. Saving the literally sinking house required replacing the posts with concrete piers and raising it so the exterior woodwork would no longer touch the ground. But the couple, who have several friends in wheelchairs, kept it accessible and added a little architectural drama by creating a ramp that leads to the new side entrance.