- Welcome back to "Houzz TV Live."
I'm Rick Spence and with me today is Carmit Oron
with Carmit Oron Interior Design
out of beautiful San Francisco.
And we've got a special treat.
This is a complete gut remodel down in South San Jose.
So Carmit, thanks for joining us.
Give me a little background on this home
and who this was for.
- Thank you for having me, first of all.
So it's a 4,000 square foot home
that we completely remodeled from scratch.
Changed the entire materials of the house.
We changed the windows, the roof, the floors,
the wall treatment, tiling, custom cabinets, you name it.
In this particular project,
I had to do a unique combination
between a Western feel, which is more masculine, more rough,
to a feminine feel,
which is what his wife was asking me to create.
- So why don't we start in the room everyone likes
to spend time in, the kitchen.
I really love the juxtaposition
of some of the materials here.
So tell me about what you were going for
and what the homeowners wanted from this kitchen.
- The main thing she wanted is a very spacious kitchen,
and she asked for a lot of storage solutions.
In terms of materials,
this kitchen actually started from the countertop.
It's a unique marble that looks like a soapstone
when you first look at it, but it's not.
It's a marble that has beautiful gray and white veins.
And it's very rich and deep.
When I first saw this,
that was the start
of the entire remodel materials selection.
This marble repeats itself in the kitchen,
in the home bar, master bathroom,
and a lot of other spaces.
The style of the house, you could say,
is a modern traditional farmhouse.
The reason I'm saying traditional
is because I wanted to keep it classic and timeless.
That's why I went with lots of natural materials
with a lot of traditional finishes,
such as the Ogee finish of the countertops,
plumbing fixtures, they will all be in polished nickel,
which is very timeless,
combined with brass element in the light fixtures,
in the hardware.
The perimeter is painted white.
The island is white oak in its natural finish.
These two materials repeat themself
throughout the house as well
to tie everything together.
- [Rick] Tell me more about the floor.
- [Carmit] So the floor's an engineered wood floor.
I went with the widest plank that I could find,
which is 9 1/2-inch.
I wanted to have a deeper, richer feeling
because in this particular remodel,
I wanted to preserve the traditional look.
- [Rick] Yeah, really nice.
So you've got the kitchen,
which sorta combines that,
and you have these two living spaces
where they each sort of got their own living room.
Why don't you tell me a little bit about how you tackled
these two different living spaces?
- (laughing) Yes, so when I first met my lovely client,
she said, "My living room is my space
and the family room is his space."
The living room is more feminine.
It has lots of round shapes.
The arches in the focal wall
that has lots of storage in it,
the textures that we have all around,
the pillows, the throws, the curtains,
welcoming and homey in a very comfortable way.
Still, even this room
has lots of leather, lots of natural stone
in the coffee table, for example,
and the finish of the coffee table itself,
which is reclaimed wood,
add this Western feel to add this roughness
but in a very soft way.
The family room, on the other hand,
had to work with his personality
but not in a man cave kinda way.
And once we started to remodel, he said,
"You know what, let's do the fireplace,
but you have to keep the insert,
the wood fire burning insert,
because it's a very strong one."
And it determined the entire design.
I found the perfect limestone.
So it's like a sculpture.
We built a hearth from the same stone
and covered the existing fireplace.
I created an extra storage
and used mesh wire cabinets
in oil-rubbed bronze finish.
All the fixtures in this room,
all the finish fixtures in this room,
is oil-rubbed bronze.
You won't see brass there, unlike other rooms.
My client in particular rode horses
and worked cattle on his family farm
for more than 60 years.
So, he's quite the cowboy you could say.
One thing that I really love about this room
in the family room
is we added his original saddle to the space
to show his personality in a way
that you can see the real saddle that he rode
for all those years.
- Really awesome.
I mean, what a great space.
And I think the other thing is,
they're both super livable spaces.
You're giving a nod,
you're like weighting them feminine
and weighting them masculine,
but anyone would be happy to have (laughing)
either one of these spaces, let alone both of them.
I wanna jump to the master bathroom
because you had mentioned the material repeating.
That's that same marble, right?
- [Carmit] Yeah actually, we started the selection
of the entire house with this beautiful marble slabs.
When I saw them,
I knew that I'm going to use them
and tie them with Calacatta flooring
that adds lots of brass and taupe hues.
The shower walls are ceramic handmade tiles
with broken glass inside
in a taupe color.
So all this materials, the taupe,
the white Calacatta with brassy hues,
and the beautiful gray slab,
works seamlessly together.
Another material you can see throughout the house
is lots of shiplap to give an extra texture
and to tie in with the rest of the house materials.
- Really beautiful.
Do they have family that visits
and how did you account for that?
'Cause I see some beautiful guest rooms here.
- [Carmit] Yes, they are empty nesters
and it was very important for them
to have one guest room for her parents
to come and visit and the other guest room
will be for the grandchildren when they come and visit,
which has two twin bed, upholstered twin bed.
What I love about this room is,
you can look around and you see interesting items.
It's just one of the best rooms
that I love in this project.
- Do you wanna tell me a little bit about the exterior
and how you treated it to update it?
I love the limestone.
You see that immediately.
The backyard space is really cool too.
- [Carmit] Their backyard is just amazing.
It's endless.
It was very important to give them the best experience
to be outside.
I built an extension,
covered the top, the vaulted ceiling, with shiplap
to ties in with the rest of the materials inside.
And I added an outdoor kitchenette and bar.
- [Rick] So they can pass, open that window up,
pass food outside.
You've got that really cool bar.
And that's just party ready out there right now.
- [Carmit] That's exactly what I wanted to do.
I wanted to create a fun, inviting space
for all their friends and their family to be in
through the years.
- Apparently this job came through Houzz, right?
Why don't you tell me a little bit that?
Did they just find your profile and loved your work?
- Yeah, yeah, actually,
my client, she reached out through Houzz.
She said she browsed around and look for interior designer
and she really liked what she saw.
Her husband, he said,
"If my wife choose you and my wife trusts you,
then I'm onboard, I'm good."
So, they were amazing.
- That's awesome.
And I think the joy comes through in the design.
When you - Definitely.
- Have a happy relationship
and you do all this collaboration,
you can see the love in the design.
Because you felt the confidence
that you could really get into it and do your best work,
and then it comes through, right?
That's like the payoff. - You said that.
You said it perfectly. (laughing)
I couldn't say it better than you.
It's just that.
It's the fact that when you feel that you've been trusted,
that you feel like people understand what you're doing,
people hire you to do your thing,
you know what you're doing,
then you feel that you can really
be stress-free, you can really trust your gut,
and pour all the love in.
- Maybe just tell me a little bit about how Houzz Pro,
how you use Houzz Pro and how it helps you with your work.
- I use Houzz Pro for my leads.
I use them for my room boards,
for my proposals, invoice and purchase orders.
It's the best way to communicate with my clients.
There's a lot of work involved
in buying furniture and buying materials and accessories,
lots of work, lots of behind-the-scenes work.
So you have to be very organized.
You need to know what you bought, where you buy it,
did you charge your client, did you reimburse.
That's all the things that Houzz Pro does,
and they made my life slightly easier
in terms of running my business.
- Well, this has been a real treat.
Thank you for walking us through this beautiful home.
I can't wait to see more of your work
and many more years of success to you.
And we'll do it again sometime.
- Thank you, thank you for having me.