It is happening! This hillside home in Santa Barbara is under construction, transforming a dark and dull house into a bright modern home that is designed to take advantage of the views to the ocean and the city below. See here for the future look

The first steps are the demolition of the back of the house and the start of grading, lots of noise, dust and dirt at this point and a bit hard for the owners to see how it will all come together. But as the saying goes, you have to go backwards first before we can go forwards. The contractor and the subcontractors will be working to remove a portion of the concrete slab to make room for the grading equipment to lay the soil back and start the foundations for the lower level.

The expectation is that the construction will take 10 to 11 months to complete, it should take about a month to complete the grading and demolition. Once this is done the work will start on the foundations and various water proofing required for the lower level that is partially buried in the hillside. Then finally the walls can start to be built and this home will start to take its shape.

Check back soon for updates on the construction of this project!

Our Mesa beach shack project is underway!

Demolition started and the excavator made quick work of the old garage. Next the contractor will be laying out the new foundation and the real work begins. We are excited to see this house come together over the next months, follow us on facebook and instagram to see more photos as it progresses.

View From Street

The Vaquero Residence is coming together very nicely, this project is located in the foothills of Santa Barbara. We stopped by for a visit and the walls are framed and sheathed with plywood and the roof is also framed and waiting for waterproofing. It’s starting to look more and more like the rendering we did for the project which will provide new bedrooms, a full bathroom all connected by a open room the kids can call their own. We imagine this room will transform over time, starting as a play room then becoming the kids own living room. This room will have a sliding glass door leading out to a private patio, designed based on our outdoor living principles. The client is very excited to see the progress of their addition and remodel, their three little girls have already picked out their new bedrooms and are ready to move in. We are excited to see the transformation and especially excited to see the client’s reaction. The next steps will be wrapping the exterior with water proofing then installing the windows and sliding glass doors. Before long the addition will be “dried in” as they say in the construction world which means that even if it does rain all the wood and other elements will be protected.  See our tips for making the most out of your addition and remodel here. Take a look thru the photos below and check in for future updates!

Street View

The rendering we did for the project, quite a transformation for this house

A portion of the addition

Here you can see the form really taking shape and the structure still clearly defined. Those openings just below the roof will become high windows called clerestory windows which will let in beautiful light but will be shaded by the eaves.

Future bedroom

A shot of the post and framing around the future clerestory windows with a great view of the sky and palm tree in the front yard. To the right you can see a bit of the future casement window, the beams will be exposed and stained to emphasize the materiality of the structure.

A shot of the exterior detail where the clerestory meets the sliding glass door below. This beam will also be exposed and stained, the contractor did a good job of attaching the beam to a knife plate which hides the steel connection inside the beam. A big thanks to Ashley & Vance Engineering for working with us to bring the structure to life like we imagined it. The combination of dozens of seemingly unimportant details like these is what will set this project apart from the typical house in the area. It doesn’t take much more money or time to build like this, it just takes some desire and passion to create the design and of course great clients who want to live in a house that is considered and unique.

The exposed corner post and clerestory windows for great light

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Our Vaquero Residence is underway! The building permit was issued, the builder was selected and work has begun. This project is located in Santa Barbara and is a modest addition and remodel to a single story home. We are excited to see the transformation take place and the client of course can’t wait to have it completed. We will be checking in regularly to help bring this project to a successful completion.

Before

The before shot

Street View

Completed addition and remodel

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We presented our Sierra Madre project to the Santa Barbara County Board of Architectural Review last week for the first time and they were very pleased with the project!

View from back yard

The Santa Barbara County Board of Architectural Review is tasked with ensuring the design of homes in the County area meet the criteria of good design and that the proposed design is appropriate for the neighborhood and site. They have a difficult job and must balance the desires of the property owner with what is best for the site and what is allowable by the zoning ordinance. Often they are forced to turn away projects that are too big or too tall for the neighborhood and instruct the property owner to find an alternate approach. Typically in Santa Barbara the design review process is a 3 step process; conceptual then preliminary and final review. A project may sail thru these steps if the design is of high quality and the drawings have the information and detail required. We also use colored perspective images like the one above and models to present our ideas. Not only are these useful for the design process and for client communication but the design board really appreciates the extra effort. They can look at these and immediately understand what we are trying to do.

The design board members liked the sensitive approach of placing the addition on the back of the house and using the existing topography to integrate the lower story into the site. They appreciated the low impact on the neighborhood especially that the design does not effect anyones views or privacy. They liked the glass wall opening up to the view and how we are providing shade for the glass without interrupting the view. They asked us to return for preliminary review where we will be able to present more developed drawings, details and material choices. We will be working with our structural engineer to dial in the sizes and location of structural elements. We will also lean heavily on door and window experts to find the best layout for the glass wall, multi-sliders, folding or some combination? Working closely with talented people helps us achieve the best project possible.

Model and rendering

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We are making solid design progress in our Sierra Madre residence which is an addition and remodel set in the foothills of Santa Barbara. We have made a few tweaks to improve the floor plan for the master bedroom and bath which also makes for a better experience in the great room. As you can see we are fully in the computer now, adding detail to the model like materials, furnishing and lighting fixtures.  We go back and forth between the plan views and 3d views like these to look for opportunities to improve the design. The computer model lets us get into the finer layers of design earlier in the process, you couldn’t do this with a 2 dimensional CAD program.

Interior View

These are raw views from the model so you are seeing what we see while we work. In this interior view we are looking out from the kitchen at how the materials are working together, how much the new roof floats over the wall on the right, how do the pendant lighting fixtures look at these levels… plenty of decisions to make

View of Addition from Garden

In this view we are experimenting with how the lowest level appears and how the changes to the master bedroom addition look with the roof flying over it.

We put this much energy into all of our projects to ensure we are producing unique and site specific design.

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