This project is a good example of what can be done with a little refresh. Sometimes parts of your space work well and parts don’t, so a full gut and replace might not make sense. That was the case here. After living with it for a decade or so realized they would really prefer two sinks in the vanity. Since there were two windows in the bathroom, we decided to eliminate the window to the left of the current vanity and replace with it with a longer run of cabinets. The other window is to the right of the vanity let’s in beautiful morning light. The window we removed was a northern exposure and its location under an eave didn’t allow for much light, so it was the perfect solution! In addition to the new vanity, we also changed out the countertop, added new mirrors and lighting, and changed out the tile floor to a larger hex with fewer grout lines. This adds a brighter more modern look while still maintaining the vintage feel of the room. The shower was in great shape, so we left that as is except for swapping out the shower floor tile to match the main floor and adding a more updated decorative mosaic tile. We added a new toilet and for a bit of luxury a heated towel bar. Designed by: Susan Klimala, CKD, CBD Photography by: LOMA Studios For more information on kitchen and bath design ideas go to: www.kitchenstudio-ge.com Project Year: 2020

Somewhere in the northeast Shorewood neighborhood of Milwaukee near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a kitchen was ready for a fresh start. The owners wanted something clean, modern, and white—a space that would actually work with how they cook and live, not against it. They weren't just swapping out cabinets and calling it done. This was a full transformation: tearing down walls, rewiring the electrical, rerouting plumbing, updating the HVAC. New insulation, fresh drywall, better lighting. The kind of work that happens behind the scenes but changes everything about how a room feels. Then came the visible magic: crisp white cabinetry that maximized storage, countertops chosen for both beauty and durability, new flooring that tied it all together, and appliances that could keep up with real life. Every permit filed, every material selected with intention, every phase carefully managed. The result? A kitchen that flows. A space where white isn't boring—it's a backdrop for life, meals, and the kind of everyday moments that make a house feel like home.

From bland beige to versatile taupe/gray, we created a more sophisticated backdrop with the flexibility to swap out duvets and accessories.
Bedroom - craftsman master medium tone wood floor bedroom idea in San Francisco with gray walls and no fireplace

1960s bathroom photo in Calgary

The only full bathroom in this 1906 craftsman home needs to function well for a family of four. We swapped out a claw foot tub for a large walk-in shower with a recessed shower curtain track. Two wall-mounted faucets pour into a wide trough sink. A custom-made medicine cabinet with an arched mirror is flanked by two opaque globe sconce lights.

These clients win the award for ‘Most Jarrett Design Projects in One Home’! We consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have been able to work with these kind folks so consistently over the years. The most recent project features their master bath, a room they have been wanting to tackle for many years. We think it was well worth the wait! It started off as an outdated space with an enormous platform tub open to the bedroom featuring a large round column. The open concept was inspired by island homes long ago, but it was time for some privacy. The water closet, shower and linen closet served the clients well, but the tub and vanities had to be updated with storage improvements desired. The clients also wanted to add organized spaces for clothing, shoes and handbags. Swapping the large tub for a dainty freestanding tub centered on the new window, cleared space for gorgeous his and hers vanities and armoires flanking the tub. The area where the old double vanity existed was transformed into personalized storage closets boasting beautiful custom mirrored doors. The bathroom floors and shower surround were replaced with classic white and grey materials. Handmade vessel sinks and faucets add a rich touch. Soft brass wire doors are the highlight of a freestanding custom armoire created to house handbags adding more convenient storage and beauty to the bedroom. Star sconces, bell jar fixture, wallpaper and window treatments selected by the homeowner with the help of the talented Lisa Abdalla Interiors provide the finishing traditional touches for this sanctuary. Jacqueline Powell Photography

After
Elegant staircase photo in Los Angeles

Shaker White Kitchen Cabinets- Special Order
Example of a mid-sized transitional l-shaped dark wood floor eat-in kitchen design in Orlando with an undermount sink, shaker cabinets, white cabinets, granite countertops, brown backsplash, stone tile backsplash and stainless steel appliances

We got to start with the most spacious master suite, essentially the full second floor of a classic Chicago Bungalow. We gutted the bathroom, swapping the huge dated tub for more storage, upgraded the dual pedestal sinks to a custom double vanity, and gave the double shower a makeover, adding a rain head. The renovations continued into the bedroom, office and window seat space with new flooring, lighting, window treatments, furniture and accessories throughout. Photography Ryan McDonald

Somewhere in the northeast Shorewood neighborhood of Milwaukee near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a kitchen was ready for a fresh start. The owners wanted something clean, modern, and white—a space that would actually work with how they cook and live, not against it. They weren't just swapping out cabinets and calling it done. This was a full transformation: tearing down walls, rewiring the electrical, rerouting plumbing, updating the HVAC. New insulation, fresh drywall, better lighting. The kind of work that happens behind the scenes but changes everything about how a room feels. Then came the visible magic: crisp white cabinetry that maximized storage, countertops chosen for both beauty and durability, new flooring that tied it all together, and appliances that could keep up with real life. Every permit filed, every material selected with intention, every phase carefully managed. The result? A kitchen that flows. A space where white isn't boring—it's a backdrop for life, meals, and the kind of everyday moments that make a house feel like home.

Design by Jill Davis
Photo of a large traditional full sun backyard stone landscaping in Chicago for summer.

Transitional staircase photo in Milwaukee

Though undecided about selling or staying in this house, these homeowners had no doubts about one thing: the outdated forest green powder room had to go, whether for them to enjoy, or for some future owner. Just swapping out the green toilet was a good start, but they were prepared to go all the way with wainscoting, wallpaper, fixtures and vanity top. The only things that remain from before are the wood floor and the vanity base - but the latter got a fresh coat of paint and fun new knobs. Now the little space is fresh and bright - a great little welcome for guests.

These clients saw a clogged shower as an opportunity for a full primary bath re-design. We were thrilled to collaborate on their vision of a sage green color scheme and their need for more storage while still maintaining the original floor plan. Extending a ¾ wall in the shower meant we could run the vertically stacked sage green tile all the way to the ceiling. Chrome shower fixtures were taken out and pipes relocated; an oversize niche was added in tile to match the shower floor. Swapping out the shower door for a modern sliding one saved on space and allows one to focus on the whimsical new acoustic tile we installed on the floor; our clients loved this tile so much they used it again in the kids bathroom! Painting the existing vanity a darker green and replacing the hardware in a subdued brushed nickel balanced out the playful tile. Additional wall storage was added in the form of a glass front arched cabinet, and pill topped robe hooks complete the overall look of this primary en suite bath.

Our homeowner had worked with us in the past and asked us to design and renovate their 1980’s style master bathroom and closet into a modern oasis with a more functional layout. The original layout was chopped up and an inefficient use of space. Keeping the windows where they were, we simply swapped the vanity and the tub, and created an enclosed stool room. The shower was redesigned utilizing a gorgeous tile accent wall which was also utilized on the tub wall of the bathroom. A beautiful free-standing tub with modern tub filler were used to modernize the space and added a stunning focal point in the room. Two custom tall medicine cabinets were built to match the vanity and the closet cabinets for additional storage in the space with glass doors. The closet space was designed to match the bathroom cabinetry and provide closed storage without feeling narrow or enclosed. The outcome is a striking modern master suite that is not only functional but captures our homeowners’ great style.

Kitchen - kitchen idea in Chicago

This proposal is for a new two-story home on the vacant heavily wooded lot with an existing 150-foot-long driveway lined by several beautiful oak trees culminating in a behemoth 43-inch oak tree where the driveway meets the main lot. The far end of the driveway terminates in a grove of three 43/40/43-inch redwoods and at the very center of the vacant lot stands a gargantuan V-twin 59-inch redwood tree paired with a “small” 29-inch redwood tree. The owners want to build a beautiful contemporary-styled home for their family that fully enjoys and embraces the mature trees on their cozy 65-foot by 100-foot lot. As with all small, constrained lots, this project’s site design started first with meeting the relatively large parking and car maneuvering requirements. Menlo Park’s Department of Transportation typically requires side-facing garages to have 24-feet of backup space. So that they could give the largest feature redwood tree on site an added four feet (50%) of clearance outside of its critical root zone, the owners agreed to install a vehicle turntable at the end of their driveway to eliminate the extra four feet of space needed to back up and turnaround. This allowed them to pull their garage forward an additional four feet towards the front property line on the panhandle side, drastically reducing the rest of the home’s impact on the gargantuan V-Twin paired redwood tree at the center of the lot. One of the owners has mobility issues, and accordingly, they first sought to design a one-story floor plan that incorporated all their family’s needs including plenty of covered patio and deck space to enjoy our fantastic California weather. But that single-story footprint spread too far into the critical root zones of several of the redwood trees on site, even despite the use of the vehicle turntable. During my interview process with the owners, they made it clear to me that one of their primary concerns is ensuring that the largest trees on site would thrive and become features of their new home after construction is complete. The single-story designs that removed the grove of three huge redwood trees were non-starters, as was the skimpy 5x10 master bath I designed when trying to squeeze the whole house program into an overly compromised single-story design. It was therefore deemed necessary to go with a two-story design despite the owner’s mobility issues. This two-story design has a much more compact ground floor footprint and has no bedrooms downstairs, other than the detached ADU. The owners must give up the floor area and incur the costs to install a residential elevator to access their upstairs master suite. Our ground floor footprint is smaller due to the two-story design decision, and our foundation is pulled away from the trees thanks to the vehicle turntable. Yet, a tiny portion of the home’s ground floor footprint still encroaches into the critical root zones of the largest 59” redwood tree. Therefore, as outlined in the Arborist Report prepared by Aesculus Arboricultural Consulting, the structural engineers are incorporating an array of drilled piers and shallow-grade beams for the main home’s foundation and deck area nearest the redwood’s critical root zone. This drilled piers and grade beam foundation is a type of “bridging” foundation as outlined in Aesculus’ report to preserve the health of these trees that the property was designed around. The rest of the foundation will be constructed as an insulated slab-on-grade foundation to minimize the number of steps and ramps needed for the owners to enjoy their home and patio areas. Despite the owner’s desire to keep as many trees as possible on site, and despite the smaller ground floor footprint and the advantage of the vehicle turntable, the need for a 20x20-foot garage and 20x20/25-foot guest parking space on our panhandle lot requires the removal of two heritage trees in the required driveway, a 16” coast redwood, and a 17” coast redwood. An alternate design, such as swapping the garage and guest parking locations north-to-south, still requires the removal of these two trees for vehicle maneuvering but has the added disadvantage of cutting off the home’s sightlines to the behemoth 43” oak tree just outside the currently proposed front patio space and living room. Jim Redman of Elements Landscape is proposing 13 new trees be planted on site to replace the lost value of these two heritage coast redwood trees. This contemporary architectural design features clean lines, and an abundance of full-height windows and large skylights to best take in the immense trees on site. To blend in with the forest-like setting, the home boasts a mix of rich textures and features a color palette of natural wood tones contrasted with dark blue and black. Once through the new steel gate at the street and down the 150-foot tree-lined driveway, a large covered front patio becomes visible past the neighbor’s detached accessory structure. The covered patio is just across the driveway from the beautiful 43” behemoth coast live oak. The single plane of the covered patio roof is delicately supported by a pair of steel posts in a “V-twin” configuration much like the largest redwood trees that tower over the center of the lot and will still be visible above the new two-story home, even from the front yard. The patio is covered in a dark-colored standing seam roof, with steel C-channel fascias, and tongue-and-groove wood ceiling planks on the underside. Generously sized skylights on the patio roof and inside the living area allow for impressive views of the amazing oak canopy as well as precious natural light. Supporting the sloped covered patio on the other side is the two-car garage with a secondary bedroom suite stacked above the garage. This two-story volume is to be clad in vertical clear-coated redwood siding, to tie in with the grove of three 43-inch redwood trees just beyond. The garage door, and the bank of windows for Bedroom#2 above feature a steel fascia eyebrow header feature to provide shade and overhang protection, as we are not proposing a large overhang at this “redwood trunk”. The garage and bedroom volume are pulled 16 feet away from the side property line, instead of the minimum required setback of 6’-6”, thus leaving plenty of room for the redwood grove and existing mature pear tree to continue to thrive. This existing mature green screen in this 16-foot-wide side yard is a feature worth soaking in, which is why tall windows with low sill heights are proposed for both the stairs and the upstairs hallway. Though it may be infrequent to approve side-facing 2nd floor windows with sill heights as low as what we’re proposing, we are confident that the mature green screen and the over 16-foot-wide side yard are sufficient to provide for the continued privacy of our neighbor’s rear yard space, especially considering theses windows are in walkway zones. The covered patio at the front entry is also bound by the 10-foot-tall living room. The great room is clad in a dark blue brick veneer, which wraps around all three sides of the living room. Upon entering the home from the covered patio, you are immediately greeted with one of the most impressive features of the home’s design: a 10-foot-tall by 24-foot-wide set of sliding glass doors. From the entry, this huge opening gives merely an initial glimpse of the massive trunks of the gargantuan V-twin redwoods sitting at the center of the lot. All three sliding glass panels open directly out into the smaller partially covered deck in the rear. This roof overhang element matches the design of the front patio with a steel C-channel fascia and a large skylight. But the rear deck’s roof element is set flat at a ten-foot ceiling height so that the living room’s ceiling seems to float above and out beyond the expanse of full-height sliding doors, thus creating an indoor-outdoor living space that will feel much larger than the home’s actual footprint. This rear covered deck is smaller than the patio in the front and also has a mix of solid and open-slatted roofing to allow for more solar access for the relatively small amount of open sky available. The downstairs living room is open to the dining and kitchen areas, as well as the stair-and-elevator tower beyond. The stair tower is very open and glassy, and the stairs wind up and around the redwood-clad elevator tower. From certain perspectives in the 16-foot-wide side yard, it will almost seem as if the grove of three redwoods has a fourth tree that the house and the stairs were carefully built around. Other than the 3-foot-wide windows, the exterior walls of the stair tower, downstairs utility spaces, and Bedroom#3 above are finished in cement plaster, painted dark blue and black. The sloped roof over the stair-and-elevator tower continues cleanly over the area of upstairs Bedroom#3. This roof level is set by the side daylight plane and only yields an inside wall height of just under 6 feet in height. The owners are satisfied that the rest of this upstairs room has a nice vaulted ceiling to make up for the one short wall under the daylight plane. The rest of the ground floor adjacent to the stair tower consists of a small utility wing containing a half-bath, laundry, storage area, and an exterior alcove for the electric heat pump HVAC unit. This short wing also gives more accessible access to the rear yard deck, as well as a backdrop for an outdoor kitchen. The bright white stone backsplash for the outdoor kitchen provides contrast to the otherwise consistent use of cement plaster painted dark blue and black for the two-story wing closest to the detached ADU. Though Bedroom#3 is stacked directly above this small wing, it is relatively short to comply with the side daylight plane of this narrow lot. Still, to further help break up the scale of this wall, another steel fascia eyebrow element is set about 8 feet above the rear deck. The master suite sits centered above the ten-foot-tall great room. The master bedroom and its balcony, as well as the master bathtub area, have a commanding view of the central redwood trees and their impressive canopy, though the balcony is mostly recessed and should pose no privacy concerns to the neighbor’s rear yards. The master balcony parapet is clad in the same brick veneer continuing up from the living room below. A dark-painted metal rail makes up the rest of the open guardrail height. The entire length of the master balcony is comprised of 9-foot-tall sliding glass doors, but the area above the doors, as well as the area below the master bathroom windows, is accented with more redwood siding. The remainder of the master suite bathroom and walk-in closet is finished in cement plaster painted dark blue. The master bathroom has one side yard-facing window but will be frosted glass for both the owner’s and the neighbor’s privacy. The 2nd floor is capped under a simple gable roof design with one roof ridge and varying eave and rake overhangs depending on the 2nd-floor layout and solar orientation. Since these roof planes are quite difficult to see in the middle of the heavily wooded panhandle lot, we are proposing a white TPO roofing for these two upper roof planes as a more sustainable choice compared to more dark-colored roofing like the covered patios and detached ADU. The owners also wish to build a detached 292-square-foot Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) as an office and guest suite. For the ADU foundation to be situated outside the central redwood tree’s critical root zone, this relatively tiny structure takes advantage of the narrower 4-foot side and rear setbacks allowed for ADUs smaller than 800 square feet. The small L-shaped detached ADU frames a wonderful quasi-courtyard around the gargantuan V-twin redwoods at the center of the lot. The ADU shares a matching material palette consisting of cement plaster painted blue and black, vertical redwood siding and soffits, and thin brick veneer. The ADU also features large full-height windows. The only difference between the main home and the ADU material palette is that the roofing will be a dark composition shingle roofing since it will be quite visible from the master balcony.

For the remodel of the Blackburn’s Houston residence, we removed the typical wooden balusters and installed our PC4/1 single twist balusters, our PC4/4 double twist balusters, our PC6/1 single basket balusters, and our PC6/4 double basket balusters all in Classic Black. This baluster pattern adds the single and double twists to spread out the single and double baskets, for a simple but not overpowering basket presence. If you are looking for a simple but elegant patter, this is an excellent option.

Our client had been using the same kitchen for 20 years and was ready for a fresh, modern update. Along with a desire for aesthetic change, they also wanted a more functional and efficient space. To bring their vision to life, we replaced their outdated wooden-style, low cabinets with sleek, contemporary designs. The dark and uninviting countertops and flooring were swapped for lighter, more refreshing tones, instantly brightening up the space. At the client's special request, we designed a sophisticated European-style kitchen featuring elegant gray cabinets, creating a refined and modern ambiance. To enhance the luxurious feel, we incorporated bold black fixtures, including a stylish sink, faucet, and handles, adding a striking contrast to the space. The flooring was upgraded with high-quality LVT, carefully selected to complement the new cabinetry and overall design. The result? A stunning, functional, and inviting kitchen that exceeded our client’s expectations. They were absolutely thrilled with the transformation and delighted with our exceptional service.