It was a dump. That was Veneer Designs principal Natalie Myers’s first impression when she saw this 1930s home in Venice Beach. The client, an entrepreneur from San Francisco, wanted a place to crash while visiting friends in the area. He envisioned “a cool little beach shack near Abbot Kinney and the Venice canals,” remarks the designer. But the property was far from that: a 550-square-foot one-bedroom that was barely holding together.

Before: Exterior

After: Exterior

“Once we started the demo, I wasn’t even sure how this thing was still up,” Myers says. The structure was built using two-by-threes (two-by-fours weren’t the construction standard until the 1960s), so the team reinforced the studs and decided to rebuild the original footprint, as city laws prohibited building anything much larger.

“When he bought it, he thought he could tear it down and build a two-story, but once he hired an architect to look into codes, it was limited what you could do,” she says.

Before: Kitchen

After: Kitchen

Navigating those complex laws delayed construction, but thanks to Dario Rodman-Alvarez and Rudi Mattheis-Brown of land use consultancy firm Pacific Urbanism, the designer was able to give the client a home he’d love.

“There’s a social perception that there is too much construction, and that we don’t need more housing,” Rodman-Alvarez says. But Venice has actually been losing housing, and according to census numbers, available housing has decreased over the last 50 years. To put it simply, many LA neighborhoods have undergone a process called downsizing, which means that only a certain number of dwelling units can exist in one area.

Before: Bathroom

After: Bathroom

In order to give the client more usable square footage, Myers planned to enclose the home’s original breezeway—but zoning codes stated that a detached building must be separated from the main structure by at least 10 feet. While the approval was granted, Myers and her team stripped the home’s interior and rearranged the layout.

After: Living Room

The living room is now where the breezeway once stood, while the bedroom is much more functional thanks to a simple swap: changing the position of the bed and the closet. This gave the team room to build a much larger closet, which serves as the home’s main storage space.

The bathroom, which is carved out behind the kitchen, once existed in an odd part of the home—a space the previous homeowners had built without permits. Sadly, that meant it had to go in the demo.

Before: Bedroom

After: Bedroom

The cramped kitchen became a galley-style space, while 20-foot bifold doors open the home to a comfortable outdoor living area. The funky detached garage is now a living space furnished with hip, beachy furniture. An economical but chic leather couch from Urban Outfitters sits by a Noguchi coffee table, and the home is filled with plenty of California-inspired paintings by Sandra Selesnick.

After: Garage

Myers redid the “little green stucco number” in white and clad the exterior in wood, giving it a much more modern appearance from the street. While the two-year design and construction project was tough, it definitely paid off. “We had to make lemonade out of lemons,” Myers remarks.

More from Veneer Designs:

An Interior Designer Rescues a California Desert Cabin From Drab Finishes

A Remodeled L.A. Home Dazzles With Fresh Materials and Color

Project Credits:

Community Planner: Pacific Urbanism / @pacificurbanism

Builder/General Contractor: Lion Builder Construction Inc. / @lion_builder_construction

Interior Design: Natalie Myers, Veneer Designs /@nataliemyers