This Sonoma family home was artfully created by Kara, of Along Came Lennox, who brought her whole family into the fold while designing their future home. While tackling a complete gut job to bring a run-down home back to life they were guided by the concept of a modern traditional home infused with a little funk to reflect their family’s personality and meet the needs of an ever changing family. Margaret Austin captured the essence of this home beautifully, which you can tour below.

From the designer… This project was a personal one for me, purchasing a run-down home in Sonoma only a mile from our grandparents, that we lovingly built back up to raise our young daughters in. We had been debating leaving San Francisco in the midst of the pandemic and when this dilapidated house in Sonoma’s downtown district popped up on Redfin, my husband and I drove up immediately. Entering into leaking windows and roof, stained shag carpet, multiple (moldy) wallpapers, purple cabinetry, and shell sinks… we saw the potential, and we could see our young girls growing up in this house! We needed to take the house down to the studs due to deferred maintenance and renovate both the exterior and interior of the home. We kept asking ourselves, what is our design compass for this house? With not a single design aspect left to ground the home, we came up with the phrase ‘Modern Traditional with a dose of funk’ as our motto!

The most challenging aspect of the project was not necessarily the painfully long COVID supply delays but finding the time to work on my personal home while balancing client work, and finding the time to convince my husband to get on board with some of the design decisions! We wanted to redesign this home to feel in line with the more historic homes that surround us, while also dialing up the fun with more contemporary design decisions (bring on the wallpaper and moody green paint!).

From a structural perspective, we raised the dropped ceiling in the kitchen, knocked down the wall between the living room and kitchen, and significantly enlarged the windows across the house. When we came across the price for a wood beam to cover the new structural beam required between our now open concept kitchen and living space, I wanted to try a cost-savings hack in my own house – we wrapped it in our extra wood flooring, and it turned out great! I also wanted to play around with different looks of natural stone while staying relatively neutral, my favorites being the slate tile floor and wainscot in the powder room and the mix of both soapstone and quartzite slabs in the kitchen.

While renovating we lived in town and having our young daughters visit the job site every few days was a beautiful moment for our family. They got to watch their mom in action, give feedback on paint to stucco colors, and our two-year-old at the time learned everything from drywall to rough-in plumbing valves! Every step of progress was being celebrated by them!

The project was truly a family affair, and a new designer’s dream to rebuild a personal home for my family. The husband picked the powder room wallpaper as it reminded him of San Francisco’s iconic Karl the Fog, my daughters picked the wallpaper in their bedroom as they loved the ‘secret fairies’ hidden within the florals, and every room was designed in detail for our existing furniture and life stage – a loud and chaotic lifestyle with two young kids and a rescue doggie!

Like what you see? Take a peek at the talent behind the story… Interior Design: Along Came Lennox · Photography: Margaret Austin · General Contractor: Peter Rooney