Marsh Street Commons-Chuck’s Urban Condo Cabinet Project

Now that our house is almost done, I thought I’d devote some attention to Chuck’s other projects. Through his C W Quinn Home design center, Chuck is the supplier and managed the installation of all the cabinets and vanities at the Marsh Street Commons, a 12-unit luxury condo project in downtown San Luis Obispo. He used Bertch cabinets, the same US-made line that’s in our house. Here’s the artist’s rendering, done before the condos were even built or the developer had met Chuck:

And here’s what Chuck delivered. Pretty spiffy.

Here’s the white cabinet option:And the bathrooms.

Chuck Is a Licensed Contractor!

Chuck just completed the State of California licensing process, and he now has a contractor’s license (#986398). Yay! He had to take a detailed licensing exam and get a lot of insurance and bonds. He’s been renovating houses since the 90s, has an architecture degree, and went to one of the country’s top woodworking schools, so he knows his stuff. Now he has the license to prove it.

Exterior Painting Done!

We’ve finally finished painting the outside. Chuck did most of the work, especially getting up on the roof to do the eaves and trim, but I helped here and there. Now on to the front yard landscaping and a few interior touches.

Sometimes Stains Are A Good Thing

We just applied a stain to the redwood fence that screens the view from the kitchen into the neighbor’s house. It’s beautiful. Chuck specifically chose the silvery gray to coordinate with the interior color scheme. It’s a semi-transparent stain that still lets the beauty of the wood grain shine through.

As a reminder, this is what the fence looked like unstained. Redwood is a handsome material, but when really new there can be wide color gradations that look garish. Eventually the fence would have naturally faded to a grayish color, but in our mild California weather with no rain for months at a time, the process would have taken years.

And here’s what the view looked like without a fence. Clearly we needed a privacy screen!

We love this new entrance to the backyard, and can’t wait to finish the landscaping and hardscaping.

 

Design Research at the Post Ranch Inn

I haven’t posted for a few days because we were on vacation. We traveled the Big Sur coast about 3 hours north to the Post Ranch Inn, our favorite hotel in the world. The Post Ranch was designed by Mickey Muennig, an architect who has built many stunning modernist structures in Big Sur. It’s also a source of design inspiration for our home. We love how the rooms blend into the landscape, use wood to warm up the dramatic geometry of the interiors and take maximum advantage of the fantastic scenery by not competing with the views. Chuck has used many of these ideas in our own house.

We Live in an Atomic Ranch

Chuck is really great at sourcing the most beautiful things. We’ve talked about how much we love our beautiful Crestview front door, and look! Crestview picked us up on their blog. Crestview is a company that makes doors and millwork designed to coordinate with homes from the 1940s-1960s, and they have a gorgeous product line. It’s interesting to see the images of our house that they chose to use from the blog, and the tags they selected. One of the tags is “atomic ranch,” which happens to be one of our favorite magazines and websites, all about mid-century domestic architecture and design.