Historic Saltbox Restoration

A Major Restoration, Under Time, and Under Budget

Marin County, CA

In 2022 we took on the restoration of this 1980s replica of a New England “saltbox” style house. The house had seen 40 years of deferred maintenance and was in dire need of a total gut. We acted as our own general contractor on the project and strove to strike the delicate balance between creating a modern, light filled interior while maintaining and in some cases enhancing, the warm, historic “DNA” of the home.

With significant rot and mold, the first order of business was to scrub the home of toxins repair all of the deteriorated framing. With the “bones” of the house exposed we rewired and replummed the entire house, bringing it up do modern standards. The home was originally built with no heating system so we took the opportunity to install a hydronic radiant floor system, powered by a two-part heat pump.

The layout was revised to include an open kitchen and two full bathrooms. Reclaiming as much wood as we could, all finishes inside and out were replaces: doors, windows, skylights, drywall, wood and tile floors. The house was reroofed and resided, this time using White Cedar shingles in lieu of the original Red Cedar shakes.