Dining

Food blogger and commercial director Claire Thomas honors this Brentwood home’s heartwarming history. Jack and Marilyn Zuber lived in the Brentwood home for 65 years without altering anything but the wallpaper. Thomas even has photos of them digging on the site when construction first began. Out of respect for the home, Thomas tread carefully with her updates, even keeping the old drapes and using the original paint colors as a jumping-off point in researching color palettes of the era. Her approach was to "celebrate and preserve, rather than rip out and change."

"The low floor with the outside makes moving equipment into the house easy, says Momono. “We often do television shoots at home, and the crew that comes thought the kitchen would be prefect for filming. We decided to do a cooking shoot in our house and ended up filming an overnight stay at a farmhouse!”

Brian pulled out the wall-to-wall carpeting that was installed throughout much of the home to reveal the original concrete floors underneath, which had rampant cracks. He grinded the floors down and sealed them as matte as possible.

Avid gardener Graham and his partner, Steve, approached Amos Goldreich Architecture to expand their Victorian mid-terrace house in the Stroud Green Conservation Area of Haringey, North London. “The design revolves around the garden Graham has lovingly labored over for decades,” says the founder of the eponymous firm. The rear extension includes a bright and spacious kitchen with a terrazzo island and beams clad in oak. Glazed sliding doors and a bay window connect the interior to the yard.

The team kept one wall of paneling to accent the new space.

The new kitchen is also a galley layout, but has more room to spread out lengthwise.

The client’s own Herman Miller chairs were placed with a Knoll tulip table and Hay pendant.

The fireplace was cleaned and painted. An original wall of wood paneling was preserved and extended through the home. “We wanted one full wall of the paneling to connect front of the house to the back,” say the designers. In the dining room, the Log table by Hem is surrounded by Cover chairs by Muuto. The chandelier is Brendan Ravenhill.

The white paint color used throughout is Benjamin Moore "Simply White."

Decorotation added a partial wall that “mimics an original Eichler feature,” says the firm, in order to create separation between the entry and kitchen, as well as provide the couple with a landing zone for keys and phones.

A built-in bench provides seating for the 10-foot-long dining table, which Lanigan found at a store in Berkley that was going out of business. “It almost feels like it grows out of the floor,” says Lanigan. (The fireplace tile here is original.)

The built-in cabinets at the entry include special storage for Ryan and Rory's running shoes. (They're both long-distance runners.)

“I like that you can feel the old shapes of the house,” says Lanigan, who intentionally let the trim and fireplace “run into” the green box. Dark wood detailing on the floor reveals the outlines of the former rooms of the home.

The pantry also operates as a spot to whip up cocktails.

The green box is lined with tambor strips to give it texture and interest.