BOLD COLORS AND VINTAGE MID-CENTURY FURNISHINGS BRING JOY TO THIS FORMERLY GLOOMY BASEMENT

I’d already been working with my client, Josie, at this property for months before we finally kicked off this garage to ADU conversion. Like so many of my clients, Josie and her husband found themselves in the “empty nester” phase of life and started thinking about how they wanted their home to best function for them in retirement. Bedrooms in the main house were being converted into lounge and craft spaces, so what they really needed was a place to comfortably host guests from out of town.

What Josie envisioned was a bright, colorful, and whimsical space that would feel luxurious despite a smaller footprint. Their basement was truly unfinished and needed a lot of work, so a big part of the planning phase was spent figuring out how to make use of existing beams and retaining walls. On the kitchen and bathroom side, we made the decision to build out a pony wall so all the cabinetry could be flush with the wall. On the living and bedroom side, we wrapped and drywalled the retaining wall so it could be used as open shelving. Luckily, Josie already had acquired a lot of furniture she wasn’t using in the main house, so we were able to direct our energy to identifying the right finishing materials. We splurged on the most jaw-dropping handmade tile from Fireclay Tile for the kitchen backsplash, shower walls, and Jotul stove surround. Semihandmade delivered pre-fab cabinets and we opted for a dramatic black quartz stone for the countertop. Green and blue are Josie’s two favorite colors, so we paid homage to that in the bathroom and added some playful wallpaper and classic Carrara marble tile and countertops for a timeless look. Bright red in spaces has proven to have negative effects on the brain, so I make a point to rarely use red in my designs, unless it’s a deep burgundy or pastel pink. I 100% broke that rule in the bedroom because I fell so in love with this Schoolhouse quilt.

Sometimes, you just gotta break the rules! Especially when Josie’s artwork looked so perfect combined with this bedding. Perhaps my favorite area of the ADU, and potentially the design I’m proudest of, is the Jotul stove nook that almost looks like an art installation. The H-shaped carbon tiles beautifully frame out the stove. Josie already had these black iron bird sculptures, so I recommended we hang them on the wall next to the stove instead of distractive from the stove with too much wall art. The space is such a mish mosh of colors, textures, and materials–bold touches that you normally don’t see in my designs, but that I couldn’t be happier with.