Apartment Remodel
John and I have been dreaming up a kitchen and porch remodel for a long time (a project we secretly dubbed ‘Barbie Dream Kitchen’ because it felt so unattainable). And back in 2020, when we were both unemployed and with a lot of time on our hands, we gave our kitchen a little face lift, which included buying a new fridge and oven (with this larger major remodel in mind).
A collage of inspiration for our kitchen and porch remodel
Flash forward to September of 2022, and our long-time front tenants told us they were starting the home buying search process. We knew that the best opportunity to redo the kitchen and porch in our unit would be to move into the front apartment (since there is no way we could access our apartment without stairs), so we decided to pull the trigger and hired Bay Modern Build to help us with architectural plans, navigating the arcane City of Oakland permitting process, and construction.
And huge shout out to Fremont Bank, who helped us fund this project with a HELOC.
Permitting took a while (anyone remember when the City of Oakland got hacked? Yeah…), but we were finally able to start the construction process in late July of 2024, and the project finished in under three months! We were so excited to move back in this past November and begin making the space feel like home again, now with a much more functional (and beautiful) kitchen, and a massive porch!
BEFORE: A dysfunctional kitchen and dangerous porch stairs
Before photos of our very dysfunctional kitchen. Why is the fridge in the center of the room? We may never know.
The strange half-walls by the front door and oven had to go. And the porch stairs were so steep!
DURING: Our apartment remodel construction process
The full printed plan-set for our remodel, and a good luck token from our contractor.
It was so refreshing to see the full plan set printed, after such a long permitting process. The first thing our contractor did before starting demo was to put up this good luck token, which they kept up through the entire remodel process! Rough translation: “Jiang Gong started the work here and it is auspicious”
Interesting finds inside of the 100-year-old walls of our kitchen.
Our house was built in 1914, and is over 100 years old. We assumed we would find some interesting things once we opened up the walls, and we weren’t disappointed! (Though we didn’t find any messages from old owners, unfortunately). Some things we discovered after opening up the walls:
There was literally no insulation! Zero! Zilch! We absolutely had our contractor add some.
Loved seeing the different painted colors of the lathe behind the cabinets. They probably used lots of scrap wood to cover up these joists behind the cabinets for some reason.
The chimney we thought might be a fireplace was actually literally just a chimney, with no fireplace opening.
There was a California cooler in the wall near the door!
Reclaimed flooring used to replace 100-year-old Douglas Fir hardwood flooring
It was 50/50 whether the sub-floor under the linoleum would be salvageable. Luckily, most of it was! We had to patch a large portion near the door where they had to rip it up to do the work for the deck. We were able to find reclaimed doug fir from around the same time period as our original flooring from the Lumber Baron in Richmond. Then, we did some tests to match the stain as best we could to the old floor. We are thrilled with how it turned out!
Our construction crew working on the porch - they worked so hard and did such amazing quality work.
The porch was remodeled in tandem with the kitchen, and it was really exciting to see the old, dangerous stairs come down. We opted for western red cedar for the decking boards and railings, and the framing was built with PT that we had painted a dark green (Benjamin Moore 448 ‘Dakota Shadow’). Eventually, once we can afford to replace the 30+ windows in the house, we will paint the exterior a sage green (Benjamin Moore 446 ‘Pine Lands’).
Images of our porch remodel project, and our construction crew using a laser centering guide.
We loved watching our construction crew build this porch, they did such a great job and the finishings were really fantastic. We also loved seeing them use this laser guide to center the light over the sink faucet - such fancy technology!
AFTER: A safe porch entry, double french doors, and a kitchen island!
In the end, our remodel finished two weeks early! Our contractor’s projection was three months, which would have been the end of November, and they finished mid-November. We actually got to unexpectedly host that classic end of November family holiday* in our new space!
First day in our new kitchen, a view of the island looking towards the sink, and hosting a family gathering in our new space.
On the deck we were really insistent on having a built-in window on the street side, both to create some privacy and separation and also to honor the historic Oakland charm of single-sided porch windows.
Our new porch from the street, featuring windows reminiscent of other historic Oakland homes.
Our beautiful new porch, with stairs that are to code and safe to walk up!
Detail photos of our new porch, built with western red cedar.
Detail photos of our finished porch remodel, double french doors, and built-in deck windows.
The door handles are from Emtek, and the paint is Benjamin Moore 448 ‘Dakota Shadow’.
I have dubbed this pattern “Sun Pollinators” and it is now also available on Spoonflower!
Our beautiful finished kitchen, complete with a giant island!
We tried to gain (and not loose) storage in this process, so we had Bay Modern build a custom broom closet inside the fireplace wall, and open up a cabinet in our dining room for dishware.
DETAILS:
The photo on the left is a beautiful remodel by Studio McGee, and on the right is our kitchen! This photo was a huge inspiration during our design process, and we continuously referred back to it during the build.
Lighting is all reclaimed vintage from Omega Lighting in Berkeley.
Shelf brackets are Constance from Anthropologie, shelf wood is red oak.
The while tile laid in a herringbone pattern is from Sonoma Tilemakers via All Natural Stone in Berkeley.
The Farm sink is a 33” Fireclay sink from Solstice (via Wayfair), and the faucet is the Kohler Setra in Brass.
Cabinets and countertops are from Sincere Home Decor (we LOVED working with them), drawer pulls are Tob Knobs: Hillmont
We are obsessed with this double-stacking silverware drawer insert.
Trash pullout: huge life upgrade!
We love how our contractors matched the grain of the countertops in this corner. Countertops are quartz, sugar bowl with ampersand cat portrait is by my dear friend Lizzie of Mama Lark Art.
And of course, the piece-de-resistance of this entire project is our new two-drawer GE Cafe dishwasher. Having a dishwasher has been the hugest improvement to our lives.
It’s been amazing to settle into our new kitchen these past few months, and we absolutely love cooking in it. We cook and host a lot, and the flow of the space with the extra counter space of the island has made entertaining and enjoying home-cooked meals so much easier.
We still have some decor items we’d like to finish in the dining room, and maybe a little bit more wallpaper to add, but overall we are feeling so good about our upgraded space.
*I have lots of feelings about this holiday as a colonizer descendant living on stolen Indigenous land in a 99.5% diasporic nation. See this post for some context and ideas - and please contribute to the people whose land you are on in some way.
Code name: Barbie Dream Kitchen