It was the combination of a location in a great school district, a charming town, and “the least awful of the houses we were looking at in our price point” that led lighting designer Kille Knobel to purchase her 1,500-square-foot ranch-style house in 2009 in Glendale, Los Angeles. And since the home had been recently renovated by an investor, it was move-in ready—even if the finishes weren’t her favorite.

Fast forward nearly 15 years, and Kille was ready for an update. The house was built in 1950, and its detached two-car garage had been constructed at the same time, painted to match the main house. Kille, who is a single mother of three teenage boys (plus a dog!) and works as a lighting designer for live concerts and special events, was initially looking for a way to renovate her main home so that guests wouldn’t need to go out a rear door and re-enter the house in order to use the bathroom. After some initial investigation, Kille realized the potential of her garage, and the possibilities of expanding and converting it.

To carry out that idea, Kille hired the L.A.-based firm of MR Studio, a growing architecture practice led by Emily Mohr and Jonathan Rieke. With a construction target of about $230,000, they sought to “maximize space and effect on an efficient budget,” says Mohr.

One of the primary ways MR Studio did this was to site all of the proposed plumbing in a new, 170-square-foot addition to the roughly 365-square-foot garage, which avoided costly trenching into the existing concrete slab of the garage. This then dictated the location of the “wet” spaces like the bathroom and kitchen, which in turn helped to organize the rest of the spatial layout.

$5,000 Site work	$55,000 Structural	$26,000 Wall finishes
$4,100 Flooring	$12,400 Roofing	$4,500 Hardware
$13,600 Electrical	$9,000 Plumbing	$11,400 HVAC
$5,000 Landscaping	$1,300 Kitchen & bath fixtures	$3,250 Lighting
$5,600 Cabinetry	$7,200 Countertops	$3,250 Appliances
$15,000 Windows & glazing	$17,600 Millwork	$4,500 Tilework
$2,000 Permitting	$5,600 Demolition	$8,200 Sewer connection
$8,900 Exterior deck
Grand Total:$228,400

Although Kille had initially hoped for a true one-bedroom layout, the established budget only allowed for a studio unit. While that was hard for her to give up—she refers to it as “the biggest compromise financially”— MR Studio was intent on creating distinct zones within the single space. They started with a sleeping niche at one end of the unit where the bed could be closed off from the rest of the space with integrated curtains. “The bed becomes its own room within the ADU, it’s a bed/room,” says Mohr.

At the other end of the unit in the new addition are the full bath with a tiled shower, and a galley-style kitchen with bar seating, which uses a prefab assembly from Ikea with Caesarstone countertops. Sitting in between the kitchen/bath area and the sleeping niche is a small living area that receives daylight from an opening filled with glass block.

The ceilings, one of the few “splurges” on the project, helps to physically and visually define these three zones: the “bed/room,” which has a lower flat ceiling; the living area, which takes advantage of the height of the hipped roof of the garage and is vaulted at the center; and the kitchen and bathroom in the new addition, which also have flat ceilings. The lower, flat ceilings are typically drywall and painted a solid color, while the vaulted ceiling is clad in veneered plywood and brings a sense of warmth and emphasizes the height of the space.

Throughout the unit, “We tried to maintain a neutral palette with most of the colors coming from natural materials like the concrete floor and the maple accents on the ceiling and millwork,” notes Mohr. In areas where they couldn’t deploy more expensive finishes—like veneered maple plywood—they selected a paint tone that worked with the wood ceiling and warmed up the space.

Other than the plywood ceiling, the other main splurge in the fixtures and finishes was in the light fixtures—Kille’s area of expertise. MR Studio’s initial rendering of the living area showed the Herman Melville Nelson Triple Bubble fixture, but Kille was soon searching for less expensive alternates once she saw the price tag. “It was impossible to find anything that had the same visual impact for me,” explains Kille. But thanks to Mohr’s internet sleuthing, she found the fixture on sale at a Design Within Reach outlet, with Kille soon racing to scoop it up. “Even at outlet prices it was a big splurge, but worth every penny,” she acknowledges.

And while more neutral colors and finishes dominate in the main part of the ADU, the bathroom “was always intended to be a surprise,” says Mohr, with “fully saturated bold colors and expressive materials. It’s its own little world.” Terrazzo floor tiles enliven the floor, and a rusticated thin rectangular tile in a yellow tone was used for the walls, creating a bright and tactile space.

MR Studio's favorite aspect is the way the plan works with the linear kitchen and circulation space stretching across the south side of the project, and the double-height living space occupying the center of the plan between the more private sleeping and bathing areas." layout="bleed" credit="Photo by Jamie Barron" photoUserId=""/>

Although Kille initially envisioned the ADU as a private, peaceful place for family to stay when they came to visit—and perhaps as a space to rent out further down the line—it’s now being used by her oldest son, age 19. “My goal was to create a space so lovely I would want to live in it,” says Kille. She imagines her sons continuing to use the ADU and its carefully designed, warm but impactful spaces as they make their way through college and into the workforce.

ADU by MR Studio" layout="wide" credit="Illustration by Tim Lohnes" photoUserId=""/>

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Project Credits:

Architect: MR Studio Architecture / mrstudio.us

Engineer: HD Structural

General Contractor: Delta Development

Construction Project Manager: Uriel Rosales

Interior Photography: Jamie Barron

Exterior Photography: Brian Outland

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Budget Breakdown: An L.A. Garage Is Transformed Into a Vaulted ADU for $230K