Renovation Inspiration

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A connected dining area and kitchen allows for an open, airy feeling.

By adding a "fifth square

Instead of focusing on reworking the street-facing front wall of the house, they turned their attention to the back wall, and found a better way to connect the interiors with the beautiful garden. This allowed them to stay true to the suburban vernacular of gabled brick walls and a terra-cotta roof, while modernizing the back section of the house quite dramatically.

Shane came to the project with a "lifetime of ideas," he says, although the prospect of taking on an entire property's renovation was daunting. He kept the kitchen simple and used drywall and oak for much of the detailing.

“The existing house was an important house in the heart of the historical district,” architect Robert Gurney said. To honor the property’s legacy, and fulfill the city’s requirements, the firm fully restored the exterior with cedar shingles.

For his own home in Mar Vista, architectural designer Mohamed Sharif retained the front portion of a 1940s bungalow and added an L-shaped, two-story volume at the rear that includes a wing for his mother-in-law. “Adapting and reusing and being sensitive to the neighborhood context was important,” he says. The structure is sheathed in fiber cement HardiePanels. The decking is by Trex.

The main house was given a contemporary look by way of a metal roof and a black exterior.