Completed client project. The owners came to us for a whole-home remodel of their 2026 house in Reserve at The Ranch, Rancho Cordova. The two-story, approximately 3,383-square-foot home sat on a 7,009-square-foot lot and had four bedrooms and three and a half baths, stucco exterior walls, stone veneer accents, and a Spanish-style clay tile roof. The vaulted kitchen, great room, and dining area formed the central living space, with a formal dining room near the foyer, a first-floor office, a primary suite, a private guest suite, two upstairs bedrooms, and a loft. The owners wanted the transitions and storage to work better without losing the rooms and finishes they already valued. We kept the vaulted kitchen and great room, the grey kitchen cabinetry with Calacatta Monaco quartz, and the 12-foot multi-slide doors to the covered patio untouched. Those three features already gave the house its character and made the central rooms feel connected.
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 to the owners was what they most wanted the remodel to protect. They pointed to the open central space, its existing materials, and the connection to the patio. On site, we found that the two-story layout already separated the first-floor private rooms from the upper bedrooms and loft, while the garage entered through the laundry and hall area. That arrangement shaped the work: we improved the transitions at the existing entry points rather than shifting rooms or changing the house’s circulation. The house’s recorded public water and sewer, electric heating, multi-zone cooling, and 220-volt service in the kitchen and laundry also let us keep the cooking and laundry functions where they were.
The local context helped us avoid treating a new house as though it needed the same corrections as an older one. In the recorded 12-month set of 587 single-family home closings in Rancho Cordova, the median build year was 2008; 11% were built before 1960 and 31% before 1980. The median home measured 1,772 square feet on a 6,098-square-foot lot, 35% had an HOA fee, and the most common recorded build periods were 2020, 2000, and the 1960s (Rancho Cordova recorded home sales). Against that context, this house’s 2026 construction and generous vaulted rooms made preservation, storage, and finish transitions more useful than replacing sound systems or reworking its footprint.
The garage entry and laundry passage
The attached three-car tandem garage had interior access through the laundry and hall area, but the entry lacked a defined place for everyday items. We measured the passage and added closed storage, hooks, and a bench within the existing route, keeping the ground-floor laundry room accessible and its 220-volt service unchanged. The new drop zone gave the garage entrance a clear function without borrowing space from the kitchen or guest suite. We kept the laundry equipment in place and retained the direct path between the garage and the first-floor rooms.
The office, loft, and dining rooms
The separate office sat beside the foyer, away from the open kitchen and great room. We installed pocket doors there to give the room a more contained working feel while preserving its existing footprint and window light. Upstairs, we added built-in storage along one wall of the loft, so the flexible room gained a place for belongings without losing its open area. The two upper bedrooms, their walk-in closets, and the shared hall bath stayed as they were.
We left the kitchen’s island with sink, pantry cabinets, appliances, and grey cabinetry in place. The Calacatta Monaco quartz remained the working surface, and the kitchen’s vaulted ceiling continued into the great room. In the dining area beside the kitchen, we used a flooring change to distinguish the eating zone within the open layout. In the formal dining room near the foyer, we installed layered lighting that gave the room its own identity without closing it off from the rest of the first floor. The formal room and kitchen dining area could then serve different purposes while still belonging to one connected home.
The patio, front entry, and house systems
The great room’s multi-slide glass doors already opened onto a covered patio, so we kept that indoor-outdoor connection intact. At the front, we added restrained entry landscaping alongside the existing porch, concrete driveway, and low-maintenance frontage. The house’s tile roof, stucco, and stone accents remained unchanged. We also kept the electric appliances and the existing heating and cooling arrangement, rather than adding new loads or moving kitchen and laundry equipment. The public water and sewer connections stayed in service, and the garage’s EV-charging provision remained available.
Before completing the work, we checked the home’s recorded Title 24 building climate zone, 12, as the local energy-code context for the lighting and efficiency choices. The project kept the existing structure, plumbing locations, and major building systems, while the lighting and finish work followed that energy context. The two-story layout, covered patio, and existing vaulted central rooms continued to define how the house functioned after the remodel.
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