Completed client project. The owners came to us for a whole home remodel of their 1997 house on Redbud Trail in Three Rivers. It had about 4,100 square feet, two stories, a slab foundation and a mix of vertical wood siding and stone veneer across the lower facade, with stucco also listed among its construction materials. The house had five bedrooms and three bathrooms, an attached two-car garage and an upper-level covered balcony. The owners wanted the shared living spaces to feel more connected and welcoming, while keeping the house’s practical systems and its foothill setting in view.
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.
The budget-setting choice was whether to move the kitchen sink to the island. My first question was whether a new island sink was important enough to justify changing the plumbing route. We considered the convenience of water at the island against the added work of rerouting supply and waste lines in a two-story house with a slab foundation, a private well and a septic tank. On site, we found the kitchen on the upper living level and traced the existing sink drain into its service wall. Keeping the sink there let us preserve that route and avoid cutting into the slab. We kept the island for preparation and conversation, not plumbing.
The kitchen wall and the living room
We found a tiled roof over the two-story structure and a living-room fireplace that already gave the shared space a strong focal point. Rather than take out the wall between the kitchen and living room, we kept the structural separation and made the rooms feel related through coordinated finishes, lighting and furniture placement. That choice avoided turning the kitchen into a structural alteration, while still giving the island a clear view toward the living room.
We kept the cooktop on the perimeter and the sink on its existing wall. The island became a broad work surface, with seating positioned outside the main cooking path. We selected warm, restrained finishes that sat comfortably beside the existing stone and wood character, and carried a consistent floor treatment through the connected shared areas. The living-room fireplace remained the visual anchor, with seating arranged around it and the television kept from competing with it.
The house had central air, while the heating system was recorded as “Other.” We kept those existing systems in the project scope and coordinated the new lighting and room arrangement with the established supply and return locations. The kitchen remained on its original plumbing route, and the fireplace stayed in place. The completed shared rooms felt more unified without changing the underlying service layout.
The lower entry and the covered balcony
The lower level combined the main entry and garage, while the principal living spaces were upstairs. We organized the entry around that daily transition, using durable surfaces and closed storage so shoes and outerwear stayed near the door instead of travelling up to the kitchen. The glass oval in the entry door and its sidelights remained part of the house’s character. We updated the surrounding finishes to make the arrival feel lighter beside the dark exterior siding and natural stone veneer.
We also treated the upper covered balcony as an extension of the living level. Its wood railing and outlook across the front yard gave the family an outdoor place directly connected to the upstairs rooms. We added comfortable seating and lighting there, and kept the path from the interior to the balcony clear. Outside, we chose a lighter earth-tone direction for the painted wood siding, retained the stone, and softened the paved parking area with planting. Added exterior lighting improved visibility around the entry and garage.
The lot shaped those choices. Mature oaks, olive groves, granite outcroppings and the South Fork of the Kaweah River frontage made the landscape an important part of the house, not a backdrop to cover over. The property also had a long paved driveway, a detached guest cottage and multiple outbuildings. We kept the main house’s exterior palette grounded in its setting and used the entry and parking improvements to make the approach feel more settled.
The lot, the systems and the finished rooms
The house had a private well, septic tank and an existing solar energy system with battery backup. We kept those systems in mind while retaining the sink’s plumbing position and limiting changes to the kitchen service layout. The builder record described a private pool and interior laundry, as well as three main-level bedrooms and two main-level bathrooms. We kept the whole-home work organized around the existing bedroom and bathroom arrangement, rather than shifting the family’s private rooms to create a larger shared space.
The ground also informed the exterior decisions. The soil survey identified Vista-Rock outcrop complex on slopes, with well-drained group B soil, and the FEMA map showed flood zone X, an area of minimal flood hazard. We treated the oak and olive areas as part of the site’s established landscape and chose exterior work mindful of the stated fire exposure. The local Three Rivers sales data showed a range of house ages and sizes: among 40 single-family closings, the median house was built in 1992 and measured 1,718 square feet on an 85,813-square-foot lot; 9 percent dated from before 1960, 31 percent from before 1980, and the common decades were the 2000s, 1990s and 1980s, with no HOA fees reported (Redfin sold data). This house’s scale and acreage made it especially important to preserve its relationship to the land.
Before the work, we checked the lighting choices against the property’s Title 24 climate zone 13 designation and kept the project focused on the existing structure and systems. The owners ended up with a kitchen that retained its dependable plumbing route, shared rooms that felt coordinated, a more useful entry and an outdoor balcony set up for regular use.
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