After spending more than a decade together and sharing 10 apartments, Los Angeles couple RJ Guillermo and Francis Aquino were ready to settle into a home and start a family. They adopted their son, Jordan, in July 2021, and as they made plans to adopt Jordan’s infant sister, all their household needed was a house.

The couple began their search in the fall of 2019, when the market was competitive to say the least: They attended more than 50 open houses before being outbid on their dream home, a 1,200-square-foot, 1954 ranch house on a 6,550-square-foot lot in the San Fernando Valley. Luckily enough, it landed on the market again a year later—and they pounced on the opportunity to purchase it, closing the deal in August 2021.

$11,000 Paint	$5,000 Wood Cladding	$10,000 Accordion Door
$6,000 Dining Pergola	$10,000 Office Space	$4,000 HVAC
$5,000 Landscaping	$5,000 Miscellaneous
Grand Total: $56,000

Before: Exterior

Its farmhouse blue-and-white board-and-batten siding “wasn’t really us,” RJ recalls—but with its three bedrooms and ample backyard, “It had the potential to be the perfect home to raise our family.”

After: Exterior

Francis and RJ sought to create an open plan with plenty of indoor/outdoor connections. These are hallmarks of many midcentury homes—and houses in the Philippines, which was important to the Filipino couple. As an avid collector of tropical flora with 350 potted plants, Francis also wanted to open the interior to more natural light. “I knew my indoor plants wouldn’t survive the darkness of the house otherwise,” he says.

Before: Kitchen

The couple have industry experience—RJ is an architectural photographer and Francis is a workspace designer and manager—so they set a budget of $60,000 and took on the roles of contractor and designer themselves.

After: Kitchen

In the kitchen, they splurged on knocking down a pony wall and part of the exterior wall, but they saved by keeping the existing cabinetry and sourcing an accordion glass slider directly from Teza Doors. “They were able to give us the manufacturer’s price,” Francis says, “which was 40% of what we would’ve paid at Home Depot.”

Before: Living Area

After: Living Area

Before: Backyard

The enormous backyard now has a small playground and a Tipsy Tank pool for the kids, plus an ample pergola the couple designed themselves. “We affectionately call it a greenhouse because it’s full of Francis’s plants,” RJ says.

After: Backyard

They painted the blue-and-white exterior peppercorn black and dark gray, added wooden siding for warmth, and completed the project for a total of $57,000 in December 2021—just in time to host Christmas for RJ’s family.

Their newly light-filled interior is outfitted with furnishings by Filipino designers like Rhea Carlisle and Jun Tan, and traditional household items—like a walis tambo broom and the quintessential wooden spoon and fork sculpture—hang on the walls. “We’re bringing in a little bit of our heritage,” Francis says.

More Before & After stories:

With a Crisp Addition, a Cookie-Cutter Eichler Breaks Out of Its Shell

In Austin, a New Life Out West Starts With a First Remodel for $176K

This Reinvented Monterey Bungalow Shows That Sometimes, Smaller Is Better

Project Credits:

Designers: RJ Guillermo and Francis Aquino

Builder/General Contractor: Sam Khoram, Condev Construction Corp.

Landscape Design: Mike Olmos, Olmos Landscape Company

Drafter: Joelle Drury, Re-Haus

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