Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

It’s a tricky feat to increase functionality, organization, and storage in a series of small spaces without altering existing floor plans or adding furnishings that diminish usable space. But when renovating a century-old townhouse in San Francisco, Regan Baker Design (RBD) succeeded in such an undertaking with just a little rearranging and a lot of creative custom millwork. The clients, a young professional couple, had been living in the home for 10 years and watched their day-to-day change as their small children grew into teens. “As your kids age, you realize you not only need more privacy but rooms for different activities,” says Baker. “So, the idea was to create spaces for everyone with storage for the functions that live there.”

This line of thought led to a revamp of the basement space, from a combined home office and children’s playroom to a full-on kids’ hangout zone. Using an awkward central support column as an endpoint, RBD fashioned a playroom along one wall where the office workstation once stood with new white oak built-ins, wrapping the space’s corners and walling off the area to one side of the column.

As ownership of the basement transferred to the kids, the father, a portfolio manager, needed a quieter space for working from home. A spare bedroom on the second floor, offering considerably more natural light than the basement, seemed the ideal spot for his new home office, but the clients still wanted a guest room for the occasional visitor. Yet, at roughly 10 feet (at its widest point) by 17 feet, the room would’ve felt crowded with both bedroom and office furnishings. That’s where RBD’s penchant for custom millwork design came in.

How they pulled it off: A home office that transitions into guest room (and back)

RBD built a line of continuous walnut casework along one wall incorporating a built-in desk, cabinet, Murphy bed, and bedside shelf.
The entire casework wall spans (from window side to the existing closet) just over 18 feet wide, including the small “nightstand” shelf.
The Murphy bed opening is five-and-a-half feet wide, leaving just two-and-a-half inches at each side of a queen-size bed base and mattress, which was installed using a wall-bed fitting and hardware.
The desk is a curved two-foot-deep L-shape that wraps around the inside corner to provide a generous usable surface area.
A custom two-and-a-half-foot-wide printer cabinet spans floor to ceiling to maximize storage space for other home office necessities and camouflage in with the Murphy bed panel.
With the Murphy bed in its closed position, the casework looks like a seamless walnut wall and affords plenty of walking space in an otherwise narrow and long bedroom.

While the guest room’s transformation is by far the most impressive, the custom built-in most used—by everyone including the family dogs—is the kitchen’s dining nook cabinet.

“They found themselves needing an extra place for a TV to catch the morning news, but they wanted it to feel elevated,” says Baker. Directly facing the dining nook, a floor-to-ceiling cabinet painted a sophisticated blue-gray hue tucks away the TV screen when it’s not in use and, hidden behind grille-fronted doors, conceals a dog bed. (Baker explains that as the clients used to keep a dog crate here, this feature now frees up space.) Along with the grille, the dog zone has an integrated fan ensuring air circulation and comfort: originally designed for the one dog the family had at the time, the space is now shared—and fought over—by two pooches.

Project Credits:

Design: Regan Baker Design

Millwork: Upscale Construction

Photography: Jennifer Hughes

Related Reading:

How They Pulled It Off: A Door Disguised as a Life-Size Lite-Brite

How They Pulled It Off: Custom-Built Record Storage