KIM RONEMUS INTERIORS

This 1830’s farm house had been neglected for decades, but fortunately for the owners, most of the original features had been left intact to be uncovered, dusted off, and brought back to life. With the help of a very talented architect who integrated our design aesthetic in the bones and flow of the house, we were able to realize a finished project that incorporates the beauty and integrity of the house with modern design elements that make it feel appropriately new.

Photos by: Khalil Robinson Photography

We took this 1940’s beach cottage and gutted it, getting rid of an 80’s terracotta tile floor and a too-big-for-its-own-good kitchen covered in cabinets and outsized appliances. As the client wanted to rent the cottage on Airbnb most of the year, we filled the spaces with flea market finds and upholstery that would stand up to lots of indoor/outdoor use and lots of sandy feet. We strove to strike a balance between comfy, homey, for the owners, while keeping it low maintenance … and, for the most part, pretty bullet proof.

The design of this house is to give the experience of cushy camping on the beach. Located just yards away from the surf, the house makes use of 24/7 air circulation … off the sea during the day, and off the mountains behind the house at night. Because of the wind, the house stays essentially bug-free despite there being essentially no doors and very few walls. The constant exposure to the elements makes it mandatory that furnishings be kept to a minimum and that they be either cement or hewn out of local fruit wood. The front door came from an abandoned centuries-old church; the two pendant lights came from a garage in France; we designed the coconut chandelier and then had it made locally; and all hardware was sourced from a metalsmith who lives in the mountains and works from molds for hinges and handles passed down to him from his grandfather.

This house was owned by a single professional man with a lot of family-inherited furniture that didn’t suit him or the house. With extremely high ceilings that called attention to the overly treated stucco walls, the challenge was to make this space warm and inviting and still keep it masculine and easy to manage. We took up the wall to wall carpet and manufactured wood flooring and put down a warm and weathered reclaimed wood taken from a barn in Brazil slated for destruction. Between the well-worn wood floors, artwork, greenery and great lighting, the house began to take on the casual, lived-in feeling of a home.

Our client purchased this Walnut Creek home, their first, after having lived as newlyweds in an apartment in the Haight in San Francisco. Now this couple not only has two children, but an actual living room and dining room … in addition to many other rooms that needed furnishing. We decided that their old apartment furnishings were just too dark and heavy for the new house and set about finding great pieces in all the right places…. flea markets, consignment stores, boutique furniture stores; and vintage designer sources. The result — a wonderful mix of chic and charming.. with objects that have a story to tell.

Spectacular views of Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge are only part of the story of this beautifully appointed prewar San Francisco apartment. Since this apartment is a rental, and a transitional one at that, the aim was to keep furniture at a minimum and pared down to things that would work well in wherever happened to be the next place she landed.

This was such a fun project (actually still in the works)… The two that make up this adorable couple were clients of mine when they had separate apartments in San Francisco. So combining their furniture and things and adding new has been an interesting exercise in “coming together” and creating a very chic home.

This project involved taking a 600 square foot 1920’s bungalow that had been used as a weekend getaway and thankfully minimally “updated” ; and making it livable, every day space. There were no existing closets and no washer/dryer… so the challenge was to find space for everything especially given the fact that the new owners of the house were both clothes horses and one had a rather large collection of California reds (wines).

This 1920’s Oakland Bungalow has a very small and narrow living room which was made smaller by a very imposing brick clad mantel and fireplace surround. By removing this, we added an extra foot to the depth of the room.

We added a credenza at the end of the room to square the space off a bit and painted the space Farrow & Ball’s Lichen to make the room warm and inviting.

This project involved creating a cozy living room with all new furniture, light fixtures, rug and paint.

The fab green leather Thayer Coggin extra long couch was the first piece purchased and became pivotal for the room’s evolution. The next piece was the marble and carved stone console table purchased at auction. The choice of Farrow & Ball’s Oval Room Blue really brought the room together and created the “cozy” that my client was looking for.

These are clients who hold a very special place in my heart. I first really got to know them while designing and decorating their individual apartments in San Francisco. A few years later we reconnected when they called me to say they were moving in together. Fortunately they stored the overflow of belongings during that move, because a few years later, I got another call saying they were married, pregnant and buying a house in the East Bay (Orinda).

This wonderful home turned out to be the perfect foil for all of their furnishings plus some. We’ve had so much fun as we embark on yet another design journey with them. We started with the living room… It still has a ways to go, but we’ve grounded the space with a fabulous Chinese deco rug and a 70’s sofa reupholstered in blue mohair. Then we moved on to the baby’s room and the outside patio space.

We started by creating a master bedroom in what was originally attic space. The realtor had staged the house to show a bedroom here but you had to duck to get into the room. We tore down the sheet rock which revealed lots of rotted ceiling boards which we replaced with reclaimed wood. And then stained the ceiling to lighten it up and hide the different wood. We then pulled up the wall to wall carpet which also revealed rotten wood and replaced sections with large pieces of plywood. That we took a knive to and gauged lines in the plywood to look like the existing planks and then painted the floors …. no one would ever know. There were no closets in this space which we added to look like they were always there.

What made the bedroom even more appealing was to create a half bath from a little storage closet… a closet you couldn’t even stand up in. We raised the roof with a sky light that covered the whole bathroom and took down all the sheet rock to make the bathroom wider as well as taller and grab lots of storage space under the rafters for towels and supplies.

On the first floor, we gutted the existing bathroom that was dark …dark green tile and 80’s vanity. We tiled the floor and the shower surround with the same tile to keep the space simple and feel more open. We used old enamel door knobs for the towel “hooks”. And put in some fun vintage industrial lighting, keeping the palette white, off white and silver/chrome.

The budget didn’t allow for a new kitchen so we salvaged all the cabinets… gave them a coat of paint and new hardware… added great vintage lights from Amsterdam and painted the floor a Farrow & Ball blue.

We were tasked on this really fun project to help the home owners come up with a palette for the exterior of their 1920’s home on a very prominent corner of Pacific Grove. We gave the client three suggested directions … they chose this one, and we ran with it. In addition to giving this house new life with Farrow & Ball hues, we replaced the mismatched front steps and took away an unattractive handrail. Please see the “Befores” below.

“After” photos @krobinsonphotos

This sweet home nestled in the Valley and over Rosie’s Bridge, is slowly being transformed from a long-forgotten house with broken appliances; not much light; and rusted fixtures, to a lovingly renovated bright jewel of the neighborhood. Phase 1 of this project involved the redesigning of their kitchen and bathroom; and a refresh for the baby’s room.

This “Game” Room is what evolved from an empty 20’ high ceiling white stucco-walled room with cheap slider doors. My client works in the tech world; is passionate about compassionate hunting for food; is a voracious reader and collector of rare books; and is a bit of an audiophile. The room needed to feature his taxidermy; house his books; be a good work environment; absorb any echoing sound; and be a bit of an oasis or escape from the world. I decided we needed to lean in hard on an old-world lodge aesthetic. So we started with wood paneling; took out the luxury vinyl tile floors and replaced them with real wood floors; covered these floors in vintage Persian rugs; changed out the sliders with wood clad french doors; added brass hardware and library lights over the inset bookcases; painted the walls Farrow & Ball Bancha Green; and faux painted the stucco beam to look like wood…. something that completely fools the eye due to its 20’ height.

We also redid the guest bedroom. This bedroom started out with the same white stucco walls, and an oversize fan/light combo. I normally like to start with a rug, but since they wanted to stick with the wall to wall that was there, I decided we needed to find a really cool wallpaper that would bring in color and draw the eye up to the walls and give the whole room a cosy feel. We used a House of Hackney wallpaper; made a window seat; piled on the pillows; and made sure we had some really great bedding… linens and blankets.

A Santa Cruz couple tasked us with redoing the kitchen and dining space (including the powder room) of a beach bungalow (the first home they have owned together). 

When you have two very hip, stylish, thoroughly modern individuals as clients, you get to step outside the traditional design box a bit and give them the fun, really good stuff.

A subtle change that added polish to the entire space was achieved by applying skim coat of plaster over the popcorn walls and ceiling, smoothing everything and then painting in a soft white. We also replaced the 80’s lighting with small, rimless recessed lights. This first step created a blank but sophisticated canvas for all the rooms to come alive.

The kitchen had a very aggressive zebra-like marble for counters. Coupled with the fact that the kitchen was an extremely narrow “U” shape making the lower cabinets hard to access and the upper cabinets impossible to reach for our petite client who loves to cook, it was and felt like a very restrictive space.  We made the foot print of the kitchen a bit wider (we didn’t have a ton of wiggle room there), and we got rid of the upper cabinets all together. Where we added storage space drew the kitchen into the dining room area by putting a bank of floor-to-ceiling cabinets that included a bar area and incorporated the fridge. We added a beautiful range and a custom unlacquered brass hood… and as a nod to Italy (where the couple met while working for Gucci), we used small zellige tiles in two colors to create a mosaic feel for the backsplash. We also added a new larger window over the sink that let in more light and just made the kitchen feel more expansive and more inviting. 

The bar we created incorporated an area for reds and a fridge for whites. We added color and a great heft of texture by backing the bar with thick clay tiles in the most appealing Tiffany blue. …And topped the section off with a vintage brass Italian light fixture. 

To make the dining area function for entertaining, we created a custom table that was long and skinny.  We added furniture by the fireplace to add a comfortable and cozy sitting area and also visually break up the very long recto linear dining space. 

Last stop, the powder room. We replaced an exterior door in the bathroom with a window and painted the whole space a soft, soothing .. aloe green. We also tiled the floor in that same green and added a vintage mirror from Italy, an industrial green sink from the Ukraine, and a 50’s life preserver as a nod to their love of the surf and surfing.

This mid-century architectural gem boasts a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean. So fab is this house, it has earned a prominent spot in the book California Cool in the company of California’s elite coastal architectural masterpieces. 

The assignment here was to furnish the living room and guest bedroom. It was such a fun project because we started from square one…with not a single piece of furniture. The first purchase was a fantastic Chinese Deco rug and then we were off to the interior design races. My clients love mid century and vintage furniture (yay!)… so we purchased a great pair of swivel chairs and, woven leather stools, snakeskin covered tables and a 70’s sofa. In addition we bought a vintage leather lounge and an Italian standing lamp for reading, ocean watching and napping. The goal in the furnishings we picked was to make the living room mobile. We decided against a big coffee table in the middle of the room and went for using the side tables for drinks etc. This way they could easily move things around to enjoy the ocean, sit around the fireplace or watch tv. The design focus was always furniture-flexible. 

The guest bedroom was initially a workout room with a very sad looking (after-thought) bed stuck in there for guests. We wanted to make it a room guests felt welcome in and comfortable. My client wanted to furnish this room on a budget (unlike the living room). So… we hit up Crate and Barrel and Wayfair in a very minimal way… just the bench and chair and side tables… and then added colorful bedding; artwork; metal framed old glass and a great vintage Kilim rug. She tells me she’s getting rave reviews from her guests.