Earlier this week, I revealed the upstairs floor of our San Francisco apartment remodel, including two of my favorite rooms - our master bedroom and bathroom. In this post you'll find the downstairs floor, including our new open plan kitchen/living/dining space.
Downstairs - Before
Breaking through walls to combine rooms.
Lots of excavating to get the head height we needed.
This was a big job!
The underfloor heating is being installed, but there's not much natural light in here yet.
Opening up the South wall. Hooray for light!
Downstairs - After
When you see the before photos of this space it's hard to imagine a light and airy open plan family home, but we did it. Let there be light!
THE Stairs Going Down
Staircases provide such great gallery walls. The blue paintings are by the incredibly talented artist Paul Benjamins, who was a dear friend.
This is an Australian Aboriginal artwork, and was a gift from my family to celebrate my 30th birthday a few years back.
Open Plan Living / Kitchen / Dining
Opening up the South wall of the building with huge windows and French doors totally transformed the space. On top of this, we created space for another 7 windows, to allow light to reach every corner of the apartment.
The blue rug is from Crate and Barrel.
The sofas were custom made by Restoration Hardware, in Belgian linen. Amazingly they have survived many parties and red wine stains. Go figure?!
The ceilings downstairs are 13 feet tall, and we had cabinetry installed all the way to the top. We had this rolling ladder made in walnut wood, the same wood as the kitchen cabinetry, to allow easy access.
We were originally planning on using marble for the counters in the kitchen, but it was almost impossible to find clean-looking slabs that were big enough to avoid having lots of joins. Then I discovered the most incredible material; a printed porcelain that comes in enormous sheets, and is stain and heat resistant. Bingo!
The chandelier hanging over the island is by Corbett Lighting.
For easy maintenance, and a streamlined look, we had a single piece of stainless steel installed behind the range.
Powder Room
We managed to create the space for this powder room under the stairs.
The wainscoting matches our master bathroom upstairs, and the floor is tiled in a marble basket-weave design.
Downstairs Guest Bedroom
Our families and friends are spread all over the world, so we're always excited to have visitors come and stay. These guest bedrooms get lots of use :-)
We collected the throw pillows and cow illustration from a trip to India a few years back.
This bedroom isn't huge, but we managed to find the space for built-in storage and an ensuite bathroom.
We chose patterned cement tiles for the floors and shower wall, and small Calacatta marble tiles in a herringbone design for the remaining walls. I couldn't find a vanity that was right for this space - so I bought the drawers, marble slab, and sink all separately, and had them assembled into this vanity.
Studio Apartment
We were going to end up with more space than we needed, and we wanted the apartment to be versatile, so we decided to use around 400 sqft of the downstairs for a self contained studio apartment with an independent entrance. We could imagine lots of different ways to use the studio - it would make a great in-law unit, au pair unit, office space, short-term rental, playroom, or we could simply keep it as an extension of the main apartment for when family and friends come to stay.
We had loads of storage installed along the back wall of this room. You can never have too much storage!
We added windows in the light-well to bring in as much light as possible.
We used Calacatta marble on the counter here.
I like the touch of blue in the printed cement tiles on the floor of this bathroom. Our goal was for each bathroom to be distinct, but complementary.
The Yard
I may not have lived in Sydney for many years, but I feel as Australian as ever. For most of us Aussies, being outside in the sunshine with a drink in hand, while cooking a BBQ for a group of friends, is one of life's true pleasures. Needless to say, this yard (complete with palm trees!) represents my kind of heaven.
You can see the French doors leading into the open plan living/kitchen/dining room.
We even managed to squeeze in a little patch of (real!) grass for Rosie.