Simple Living In Santa Barbara

Their bungalow isn’t big, even with an upstairs rear addition. But with a pleasing plan and period details, it has been a charming family home.

- Brian D. Coleman

THESE TWO WERE LOOKING for a house with potential, and they didn’t mind if it needed work. Brenda Mc- Donald actually grew up in a family of renovators— her parents bought and rehabbed homes for a living. Her husband, Rick, is handy and has an artist’s eye. This early 20th-century bungalow fit the bill: The price was right (yes, it needed work), the floor plan open and welcoming. The backyard was big enough to house a nursery for Rick’s house-plant business. The neighborhood was safe and pretty, and the house—given some TLC—would have curb appeal.

It was hardly pristine back in 1994. A car was parked on the lawn surrounded by weeds. The house, then a discordant tan with blue trim, hadn’t been painted in decades. Wiring, plumbing (all the way out to the sewer line), and roofing needed replacement. Previous owners had painted the fireplace bricks a murky green, and they’d installed Plexiglas panels over the windows in the airless kitchen. The walls and original fir woodwork throughout the house had been “freshened for market” with a thick coat of glossy white paint.