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Lynn and Joe Felter didn’t really mind that the midcentury modern home they rented in 2010 was what she called “quite a dump.” They were only planning to stay in the home with their three sons for less than a year.
But while Joe was deployed to Afghanistan, the Midtown Palo Alto house suddenly came on the market. Lynn jumped to buy it.
“Joe hated this house. We didn’t think we had the money to remodel, so we did cheap remodels,” Lynn said.
Eight years later, they were settled in the community and decided to make that “dump” into a real home.
Living room & primary suite: Taller, brighter
Palo Alto architect Helena Barrios Vincent helped the Felters zero in on what was working and what was not.
“Before, we had gigantic furniture (collected in Asia) that filled a small space,” Lynn said. “She (Vincent) designed a space that profoundly changed the way our family interacts with one another. … We never used to sit in the living room because it was not comfortable. Now we sit and talk to each other, which is lovely with three teenagers.”
Vincent began by raising the ceiling in the living room to 12 feet, then added Fleetwood stacking sliding glass doors leading outside, where all can enjoy the view of a giant redwood.
Then she designed a primary-bedroom suite, with angled 10-foot ceilings and large windows overlooking the backyard.
Today, one enters the suite through a wide walkway lined with an interior-lit closet. To the left is the primary bath with a modern, freestanding tub next to windows overlooking their landscape. (The first tub arrived cracked, but it was quickly reinvented as an outdoor planter with streaming succulents.) An accent wall behind the tub was created from recycled wood; a second wall has a niche for shampoo and soap.
A square vessel sink sits atop a white Caesarstone counter, all over a zebrawood vanity.
The square shower has two glass walls, frosted about two-thirds of the way up for privacy.
The bedroom itself is awash in light from windows facing the roomy backyard. The hot tub was moved over to be close to the primary bedroom. A large sofa, made from recycled teak flooring that used to be inside, now sits outdoors.
Throughout the house the floors were upgraded to multi-toned acacia wood and baseboard radiant heating was added.
Kitchen: Fewers walls, larger footprint
With a high-ceiling living room and new primary-bedroom suite, the old kitchen became the next target for remodeling.
“We went a little over budget,” Lynn said. “We added one more bathroom. Then we added the kitchen and heating halfway through.”
The costs for the kitchen were kept in check by not moving any of the plumbing, Vincent said.
“The old cabinets didn’t open and close,” Lynn said, so they changed them out for white melamine-coated cabinets from IKEA. “The price difference is phenomenal. IKEA’s come a long way (in terms of quality),” Vincent said.
To take advantage of the view and light, she minimized the walls separating the kitchen from the living/dining room areas. One wall was kept near the stove, leaving plenty of space for a large Asian cabinet in the living room.
Midtown Dump| Embarcadero Media | designed by Linda TaaffeVincent pushed out the exterior wall 2 feet, just under the eaves. “It made a huge difference (in how the space worked),” she said.
Complementing the white Caesarstone counter along one wall is a walnut butcher-block counter on another. In the middle is an IKEA freestanding island, topped by white-stained bamboo, “so it wouldn’t compete with our beautiful walnut,” Vincent said.
The backsplash, what Vincent called “a little splurge,” is Heath tile. “I tell my clients to focus on one thing, like windows or doors (or tile), that’s worth spending more on.”
Even with the tile, the kitchen remodel only added about $15,000.
By switching to a tankless water heater, the Felters captured the space where the tank water heater previously lived and use it as a linen closet.
Exterior: New driveway, cedar accents
The outside was impacted as well.
“It was pretty bleak, boring, with no windows (to break up the walls),” Vincent said. “We redid the driveway and added little accents with stained black cedar.”
While her husband was away for much of the construction (he works in Washington, D.C., coming home every three weeks), Lynn made all the construction decisions. She’s very pleased with the end result.
“The joy I feel walking from the new bedroom to my office: so much light, high ceilings,” she said.
