Orinda Tudor Cottage

by ADEENI DESIGN GROUP

After a young San Francisco real estate investor surprised his fiancé with a house in Orinda, CA as an engagement present they called on Adeeni Design Group to update the dark and outdated home and to fill it with warmth and history.

Built in the 30’s, the English Tudor revival cottage is located in a very desirable neighborhood next to the Orinda country club. The simplified version of a traditional half-timber structure had fallen victim to several “renovations” by previous owners. First Claudia and her created a more realistic half-timber look on the exterior by filling in the walls covered in black wood siding with color-integrated stucco and by painting the timbers dark brown, as well as designing the foundations for an English cottage garden surrounded by stone walls. Then they added architectural details to the interior cohesive with the English Tudor style. All base boards and crown moldings were replaced with larger ones, the beams in the sun room were widened, hand-hewn beams were added to the ceiling in the master bedroom suite addition, and wainscot was installed in the family room and bathrooms.

Claudia chose vintage light fixtures throughout, designed a custom mahogany library for the family room and remodeled the bathrooms to be more in keeping with the style and the time period of the home. She designed many custom furnishings and traveled all over the country to find vintage and antique pieces to give the home a lived-in look. When the clients sold the home it was bitter sweet since they had a difficult time moving from their first home they came to love so much, but they were also excited about the fact that it sold in a single day, and that the new owners wanted to buy it with all the furnishings in it.