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Eva designed new, curved stairs with a smooth plaster surface that contrasts with the roughness of some of the exposed stones. A few of her ceramics fill the niche under them, and skylights bring in sunshine from above. The table, bought locally for about 20 euros at a garage sale, is made of olive wood.

“They were the lightest possible way to support the roof,” says Anton of the raw steel rafter ties in the newly vaulted living room. It’s a detail they’d first used in their ADU several years before.

Soon after moving in, Kate and Anton removed upper cabinets over the bar in the kitchen, but they retained the original red oak floors, to which they later added a whitewash stain.

Lee Buchanan of Lee Build created a screen of white ash slats beside the kitchen as well as the entry. "The stairs are beautifully integrated into the kitchen so the kids and I are always talking and someone is always sitting on the bottom steps,

Before moving in, the couple made necessary changes, like redoing the roof and the foundation. Other renovations were made after they moved in. Says Kate, "Each time we changed something, we made sure that basic changes were also design moves.

Architect Laura Boutelle designed an addition that extended into the unused driveway to accommodate a new stair to the second floor.

The house, painted in "Poppyseed

The 1916 bungalow had undergone two separate additions at the back of the house when the couple purchased it. "When we started the renovation, the house was long and skinny—12 feet wide for much of the house—and quite cramped,

Renovated in stages over the course of a decade, a home in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood proves the power of thoughtful design using humble materials.

Local craftsmen made-to- measure bench and banquette in oak, with matching shelves and built-in drawers to maximize storage.

The focus of the renovation was the kitchen, where the textures of tiles and brickwork play backdrop to considered, bespoke carpentry.