My Houzz: Sunny Charm for a Hilltop Cottage
A California couple searched for years to find a sunny refuge from their chilly, fog-shrouded home on the Santa Cruz coast. Eventually they discovered a dilapidated cottage set on a 1-acre lot overlooking Monterey Bay, and showed it to general contractor Harry Smeenk. "The bones are good; the price is right," Smeenk said, "but it will take a lot of work."
The homeowners already had a nice place to live but wanted a weekend getaway with not much house but a lot of room for entertaining. They asked Smeenk to help reimagine and enliven the cottage's rundown interior and exterior, and tapped Martin Ballesteros of Ballesteros Landscape to transform the 2,000-square-foot yard. After three years of renovating and landscaping, the couple now never wants to leave the charming hilltop hideaway.
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple in the property management business
Location: Santa Cruz mountains, California
Size: 932 square feet; 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
The exterior was inspired by the bright yellow cottages with red metal roofs and gingerbread trim that the owners saw on a vacation to St. Barts in the Caribbean.
The 1930s house originally belonged to a family that also used it as a weekend cabin. In 1950 they expanded the structure into the two-bedroom, one-bathroom house shown here.
When the current owners bought the property, the house was sitting precariously on a post-and-pier foundation and was sagging noticeably in back.
AFTER: Smeenk lifted the house, poured a concrete perimeter foundation and set the house back down on it. The walls, doors, windows and mismatched moldings are all original. A new wraparound pergola covers the wooden deck.
The owners worked with Ballesteros to transform the barren yard into a beautifully landscaped space for entertaining. "There was nothing there before we started the project," says Ballesteros. "There were only weeds, tall bushes and concrete."
Now a bocce ball court skirts one side of the sunny paved patio.
Toss some popular games into your yard plans
The owners kept many of the home's original features, trying to honor and enhance them as much as possible. They kept the Dutch doors, wood paneling and single-pane windows, as well as the exterior siding where it was still in decent condition.
The living room has three different styles of original trim and window molding. "We rebuilt some of the wood windows to keep them in style," says Smeenk.
The owners chose to preserve and restore the original wood paneling. Painter and artist Bill Mackin applied a fresh layer of clear coat and painted the molding in a crisp, white semigloss.
Interior designer Jan Pfaff helped the couple furnish and decorate the space in a relaxed-meets-eclectic style.
The old kitchen was dingy and dated, with lackluster cabinets, flooring and countertops.
AFTER: The "new" electric cooktop and oven were castoffs from a friend's remodel. The homeowners saw them as an opportunity to reuse and save money, so they gave the appliances new life in their kitchen.
The rounded storage at the end of the kitchen island was an original feature; the couple decided to keep and improve it.
Dishwasher: DishDrawer, Fisher & Paykel, Sears
Smeenk replaced the old carpet and vinyl flooring with tile; the dining room chairs were a lucky find from Craigslist.
Bill Mackin painted the master bedroom's wood paneling a crisp white. While it's large, the room lacks closet space, so the couple got creative about where to store things — tucking many items underneath the bed.
From their patio the owners enjoy looking at wildlife and stunning views of the Salinas Valley, Carmel Highlands and south end of Monterey Bay. Ballesteros helped them select plants suitable for their environment. "The plants had to be colorful, deer resistant and drought tolerant — those were my three requirements," the landscape designer says.
Ballesteros also designed and installed the irrigation system. "That was the most critical challenge we faced," he says. "We had to bring in new topsoil and rototiller the entire space, because water would not drain through the original clay soil."
The couple worked with Smeenk to convert an old redwood water tank behind the house into a full outdoor bathroom.
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