When Bhargavi contacted me last week about consulting on some design decisions for her home in Lafayette, the last line of her email was: "Our house is not a Eichler. I am sure when you see it you'll have a better idea what it is." … After "Hello", my first words upon meeting she and her husband, Devin, were… "This is fantastic". And it is.
It's also the start of a new type of service for us: Consulting (Design-consulting? Pre-build-consulting? … name forthcoming, obviously) — which we hope will be fantastic for MCM homeowners. Typically, folks contact me for design-build services because they have a specific project in mind. However, if you've just bought something and you don't even know where to start, who do you turn to? It turns out that cracking open a dozen MCM homes in the design-build process also give me some insight on that very topic. What-goes-where, what-should-be-there? or where-to-start? are elusive questions that I can help to answer.
In Bhargavi's case, her house was built in 1964 by Ralph Carlson. Whether or not Carlson was the builder or architect is still unknown, but the house definitely takes inspiration from the modernists of the era. Not much in the house has changed since 1964. Bhargavi and Devin replaced all of the single pane windows with perfectly finished dual-pane inserts (unlike mass-market retrofits, these are block fit as the originals for a seamless look); they refinished the wood flooring; solved an exterior drainage problem and have done a few spruce-up projects like painting… but otherwise, it is as the original owners left it. It seems that a wood stove and wallpaper were installed in the 80s, but otherwise, it's almost a time capsule with wonderful built-ins, paneling and laminate-counter kitchen.
Take a look.
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