Floors

The team created an open floor plan for the interior, where the kitchen opens to the dining and the living areas. Concrete flooring lends a soothing quality to the rooms, where there's a built-in concrete bench that also acts as a plinth for the fireplace.

The outdoor dining area is connected to the new kitchen through a fine frame double glazed sliding door by Sieger Systems. This was one of the more expensive features of the renovation—the doors and triple-glazed windows throughout cost just over $27K in total—but was essential to achieve the connection the client was looking for. The slatted screen was another important feature. “It creates a backdrop for the dining area that makes the terrace feel more like an outdoor room that is separate from the rest of the garden,” explains architect Julia Hamson.

Exposed beams stretch across the vaulted wooden ceilings in the main living areas.

The top of the staircase is three feet wide, to accommodate the built-in shelving, and becomes wider towards the base, to four feet, making the storage underneath very useful for bigger and boxier items.

Spiegel and the SAW team leaned on a comprehensive wood palette from Madera to strengthen the architectural vision–wrapping floors, walls and ceilings with wood to draw attention to the geometry of the voids. “It’s a material that has natural resonance between interior and exterior spaces,” shares Spiegel. “It holds sharp geometric forms, but produces visual and tactile softness.”

“Dan and SAW came up with a brilliant way of opening up the kitchen, family, and dining rooms by creating a diagonal kitchen and island,” shares Tamara. “It took me several looks at the design to be convinced of going with something that seemed so unconventional, but I’m thrilled,” she says of the unorthodox design solution.

Surrounded by mature trees, the original windows and doors were expanded to maximize the potential of the wooded lot. “We just knew we could make those doors and windows bigger, and bring the beautiful outside in,” recalls Tamara.

Although the original layout largely made sense, the low ceilings and choppy spatial divisions inhibited cohesion and flow, according to homeowner Tamara Murray. “The biggest areas of the home that were not working were the segmented family, kitchen, and dining rooms,” she says. “We really wanted to be able to move seamlessly between the rooms.”