Completed client project. The owners came to us wanting the whole home to feel more connected and current, especially the kitchen, dining area, and vaulted living room. Their two-story, split-level house in Gustine was built in 2004, with about 2,319 square feet, four bedrooms, three baths, stucco walls, a tiled gable roof, a covered columned porch, and an attached three-car garage. Inside, we found a tiled entry, a sunken carpeted living area, a vaulted living room beside a U-shaped kitchen, and a dining area reached through an arch. The kitchen had tile counters, light purple cabinetry, a gas range, and an island. The home also had central heating and cooling, a whole-house fan, public water and sewer, and a documented 220-volt laundry circuit. The foundation type and electrical service capacity were not stated in the record, so those facts did not become assumptions in our design.
The photographs on this page are from the Designed & Curated portfolio and show finishes we have used on other projects. They are not photographs of this house.
My first question was whether the owners wanted the dining area to feel more directly connected, or whether they wanted the arch to remain part of the house. They wanted better flow without losing the character of the entry and vaulted rooms, so we kept the arch and focused the work on the kitchen, finishes, lighting, and circulation. On site, the split-level construction was immediately clear: the entry floor and sunken living room sat at different heights, and the stairs and wood handrails were part of the route between them. We mapped those changes before choosing flooring. We also found the laundry circuit where the record placed it, but it did not establish the range circuit or the capacity of the service.
The kitchen island and arched dining opening
We kept the sink in its existing kitchen position and retained the U-shaped work area around it. That choice respected the known public sewer connection without committing the owners to a drain move when the foundation type was not documented. The island stayed central to the kitchen, but we treated it as a work surface and not as a replacement for the dining area. We refined the cabinet finish to a quiet, warm neutral, replaced the tiled counters with a pale solid surface, and kept the gas range rather than introducing an electrical appliance change that the service record could not support.
The arched opening stayed, but we refreshed its trim and coordinated the finishes on both sides so the dining area felt connected to the kitchen rather than visually separate. The dining space remained accessible through the opening, while the route between the island, range, and living room stayed clear. We chose updated fixtures that suited the vaulted volume and put the kitchen work lighting where it served the counters. The large shuttered window remained an important source of daylight, and the dual-pane windows stayed in place.
Redfin's recorded Gustine single-family closings showed a median build year of 1968, with 41% built before 1960 and 62% before 1980. The median home measured 1,360 square feet on a 7,696-square-foot lot, and no closings in that set carried an HOA fee. The most common build decades were the 2000s, 1940s, and 1980s. That context helped us keep the design tied to this house's own 2004 construction and rooms, rather than borrowing details from older homes (Redfin's Gustine closing data).
The sunken living room and continuous floor
We kept the tiled entry as a durable landing and replaced the carpet in the connected living spaces with a warm wood-look finish that related to the kitchen floor. The sunken living room remained sunken. We coordinated the floor edges and transitions at the entry and stairs so the new surface followed the split-level layout instead of disguising it. The wood handrails stayed, and we matched the nearby finishes to make the change in level feel intentional.
The vaulted ceiling, large window with plantation shutters, and gas fireplace gave the living room its existing focus. We kept the fireplace and added closed storage along a suitable wall, so everyday items had a place without crowding the room. Updated lighting used separate layers for general illumination and the kitchen work surface, rather than making every fixture serve the whole open area. The three-car garage and inside laundry also stayed in their existing roles. Because the laundry had gas hookups and a 220-volt circuit, we left that service dedicated to the laundry instead of treating it as evidence that the kitchen could support a new high-load appliance.
The roof, cooling systems, and project checks
The tiled gable roof, stucco exterior, and two-story construction remained unchanged. Inside, we kept the central heating and cooling system and the whole-house fan, and coordinated the new lighting with their existing ceiling locations. The house also had ceiling fans, so we kept the lighting layout from competing with them. Public water and public sewer remained the service connections. We made no foundation-dependent plumbing move, and we did not specify an induction range based only on the laundry circuit. Those decisions kept the finished kitchen within the systems the house record actually described.
The record placed the house in Title 24 climate zone 12, but the supplied project information did not include a permit decision or a link to a local permit rule. We checked the scope against the systems and construction facts available, and we did not describe the retained arch or the finish work as a permitted structural alteration. The Gustine closing data linked above provided local housing context, not a permit approval.
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