Hope Ranch House Reveal Part 01

This project is really special to us because these clients have been part of our lives for years - they were just waiting to find the right house to call home for their family of six! And boy, did they find a good one :) We actually had a consultation in a previous home, but they ultimately knew they wanted to move, and this Santa Barbara home came on the market years after that initial meeting. I would have snapped it up just for the ocean views alone!

They wanted to live in the house for a bit and make sure they understood how they wanted to use it, because the changes that we both agreed would make the biggest impact would be major changes that involve restructuring a majority of the house. Scroll through to see how we transformed the main entry, living, and dining room into usable spaces that can still work for them now, before we take on the big rearranging part of the project in another few years!

As you can see, they have quite a big entry and hallway to work with! The hallway wall actually backed up to the original primary bath that included a decent size walk-in closet. They also had an additional closet that we eventually flipped into their new bathroom, and the original primary bath became their new closet! Did you keep up with that?!

Since we didn't need as much space for the closet as we would have needed for a bathroom, we borrowed some depth there to create entry mudroom cabinets.

We've been having a green moment at MND :) These new built-ins are painted in Benjamin Moore Rosepine, and I love how the brass hardware pops against this color! We went with a crisp Benjamin Moore Simply White for all of the walls to give everything a refresh as well.

The four interior cabinets keep all of the kids organized and in charge of their own little space. All of their backpacks can hang in their cabinets, and they each get an additional lower cubby for shoes and what not to keep out of sight.

We don't typically like to do cabinets behind a bench, but it works in this case, because getting shoes on and off is such an ordeal, and they needed a place for all of the kids to be able to sit and do that quickly!

The two flanking doors were built to look like cabinets, but they're actually doors to more storage! The door on the left leads to a full walk in closet for coats and additional storage - this is where that extra depth borrowed from the original bathroom comes in! The door on the right is more of a regular hall closet, where they like to store their board games and miscellaneous things that need a home.

New white oak flooring went in to half of the house, but we left the entry tile floor for now until we get into phase two of the project in a few years. There are lots of potential changes, and we wanted to be cautious to not have to rework any flooring in the living or dining room down the road.

I love the cutout on the doors as a nod to the Mediterranean style of the house as well!

There's also a small vestibule right before you walk into the primary bedroom, where we used micro-reeded white oak doors and unlacquered brass hardware that will patina over time.

It's a nice little moment to display decor, and it separates their room from the rest of the house a bit, because it's still fairly close to the front entry.

We had a blank slate to start with for the dining and living areas! The main objective here was to choose furniture that could plausibly work in the house later, even if it wasn't in the same intended way, or choose less expensive pieces that wouldn't be so hard to part with later.

We used tons of texture in this coastal cozy living room, and of course went with performance fabrics for this full house!

We chose less expensive light fixtures overall because there is a high chance that they won't work later on, but pieces like this dining console, and these woven dining chairs, can be reused very easily!

I love seeing how a project can evolve over time, but still fit a family's current situation, all while still thinking long-term about the space they inhabit every day. Stay tuned next week to see what we were able to do with their entire primary suite. And if you're looking to do a renovation soon, please don't hesitate to reach out to us!