Rehab Diaries: Barn Style in Marin County - Remodelista
Photography by Mark Adams. Sometimes, a few select moves are all you need to completely transform a space–that’s the easy bit. The hard part is knowing which moves, and that’s where a designer’s skill comes into play as evidenced by the key moves San Francisco-based Lisa Collins from Studio One|San Francisco Interiors & Design used to turn a standard 1,100-square-foot 1950s California post and beam house into a Modern Barn. Collins removed a partial wall that divided the kitchen from the rest of the room in order to create a great room with kitchen, living room, and dining room combined into one. “The second purpose of the siding was to add interesting architectural details to an otherwise very plain room.” The designer introduced light and contrast into the home with white ‘farmhouse’ siding, introducing an industrial aesthetic with black kitchen cabinets. Collins created a design opportunity out of an awkwardly located structural post which had been in the partial wall she removed. The kitchen cabinets are from Ikea. The designer and the client agreed that with young children and dogs, the doors could be easily and inexpensively replaced when required. Above L: For a more eclectic aesthetic, Collins made the kitchen island out of a piece of furniture rather than match the cabinets and ordered a custom-made zinc top. The countertops are a Caesarstone product from Ikea, while the farmhouse sink is from Home Depot. The small house has a linen closet right behind the hallway door, which leads to the private spaces of the house. Collins is a big proponent of barn door hardware. In keeping with a bold industrial feel, Collins had a black steel plate made for the upper beam and painted it black to match the hardware. Collins used owl holes near the top of roof pitches in barns as her inspiration for this vent cover. Collins used a high gloss white paint on the horizontal paneling to create a modern look, juxtaposed with the old barn door she found in her favorite salvage yard. The Great Room of the house looking down the doorless hallway of the blank entry wall. “This became such an opportunity to do something really fun and make it important,” Collins says.