The Stockdale Residence

The Stockdale Residence came to us as a 1978 ranch that had been added onto twice without much thought to how the spaces flowed together. The owners — a young family relocating from the Bay Area — wanted a contemporary home that didn't feel like a teardown. They asked us to keep the bones, open up the heart of the house, and modernize everything you couldn't see.

We removed two load-bearing walls between the kitchen, dining, and family rooms, replacing them with a steel beam concealed inside a soffit. The original galley kitchen became a 510 sq ft cook's kitchen with a 12-foot island, full-height pantry, and direct sight lines to the back yard. Every plumbing and electrical line was replaced from the panel out.

Outside, we re-stuccoed the entire envelope, replaced the original aluminum windows with black-framed insulated units, and rebuilt the front entry to align with the new interior layout. The roofline got a low-slope addition over the new primary suite that reads like it was always there.

Mid-demo we found knob-and-tube wiring in two walls that wasn't on the original plans — we documented, brought the client a written change order, and they approved replacement of the full circuit run before we closed up. The bigger surprise was a foundation crack we found when prepping the addition pad; we coordinated with a structural engineer and added a footing tie-in that kept the timeline on track without compromising the work.