PORTOLA NEWLYWEDS GET CREATIVE WHILE DOWNSIZING.
Squeezed for space and cash, this couple went big with bright white paint and DIY projects
When newlyweds Christine Everett and Tony Righetti moved from a 1,200-squarefoot SoMa loft into an 890-square-foot Portola neighborhood one-bedroom in 2015, it was a considerable squeeze — both in terms of space and budget.
“A lot of our old furniture simply wouldn’t fit,” says Everett, a research scientist at Genentech. And although the funky 1942 home was due for a face-lift, the couple hoped — ambitiously, they admit — to cap their renovation expenses at just $5,000.
Luckily, their interior designer, Benni Amadi, was undaunted. “I lived in New York for almost 15 years,” she says, with a grin. “Any New Yorker becomes skilled at designing small spaces out of necessity.”
To tamp down costs, the couple surveyed the home’s outdated decor — beige paint, granite backsplash, cherry wood kitchen cabinets — and rolled up their sleeves. “Some people just open a checkbook and say, ‘Fill up the place,’ ” says Righetti, who works in investor relations. “We are not those people.”
He and his wife repainted the home’s entire interior in Benjamin Moore’s Simply White, replaced the kitchen’s clunky round cabinet pulls with slim, square hardware, measured and hung their own Roman shades (through DIY drapery source Blindster.com), and refinished the cabinets themselves. “We had to strip what seemed like 500 layers of paint,” Righetti says.
Clearly, the duo isn’t precious. “Our taste isn’t sterile or super-modern,” says Everett. “It’s more laid-back Californian.” For Amadi, that meant sourcing contemporary furniture that meshed with the couple’s beloved trove of vintage pieces and personal art.
Nowhere is that balance more apparent than in the sunny dining room, which offers northern views of Bernal Heights, Twin Peaks and Sutro Tower out the side window. Though the couple spend most of their time in the petite space, one awkward
“Some people just open a checkbook and say, ‘Fill up the place.’ We are not those people.” — Tony Righetti, homeowner
built-in cabinet — an ironing board closet, common in Bay Area homes of the ’30s and ’40s — nearly dissuaded them from buying the home altogether.
“It was the ugliest thing, which you saw as soon as you entered the front door,” recalls Everett. Once the home was theirs, Righetti ripped off the door and tore out the ironing board; Everett stripped the paint and stained the wood; and their friends at Arc Wood and Timbers created custom shelves with white oak reclaimed from a 150-year-old barn. That former retro eyesore is now an enviable built-in bar.
Like much of their furniture, the couple’s round dining table wouldn’t fit into the narrow space. Instead, they repurposed Righetti’s former Room and Board desk as a dining table for four. The accompanying set of chairs was a steal, purchased for less than $100 at McCarney’s Furniture, a SoMa shop peddling English and Scottish antiques. Amadi had them refinished and reupholstered in two contrasting black and white fabrics by Dan’s Upholstery in San Carlos. The dining room’s centerpiece is an oversize vintage Italian racing poster, a nod to Righetti’s Italian heritage.
In fact, much of the home’s decor is inspired by the couple’s worldly past, including the framed photographs from Puerto Rico and Hawaii in the bedroom, midcentury prints from Italy and France in the dining room and kitchen, and bedding from Morocco. In the living room, two hunks of stone displayed on the coffee table are actually pieces of the Berlin Wall, salvaged during Everett’s childhood in West Germany. (Even the diminutive bathroom is painted an evocative green hue, Bavarian Forest by Benjamin Moore.)
The cozy living room is flanked by an unwieldy corner fireplace, “every designer’s nightmare,” says Everett. In lieu of bulky floor lamps, Amadi installed a pair of plug-in brass and walnut sconces from Schoolhouse Electric and One-fortythree in the living room and bedroom, respectively. In the living room, Righetti’s beloved leather couch from Room and Board — “a masculine, midcentury man couch,” quips Everett — is topped by pillows covered in colorful fabrics from Turkey and India.
More vibrant pillows and a blue ombre outdoor rug from Loloi’s Venice Beach collection brighten up the terrace, which, after a recent trip to Hawaii, Everett and Righetti have dubbed the “lanai.” The surprisingly spacious open-air deck includes a dining table, grill and lounge area for entertaining, where the views stretch from Oakland to Bernal Heights.
Though the home spans two floors, the only spaces relegated downstairs are the garage and office. The latter is what Everett calls “Tony’s man cave,” decked with black-andwhite family photographs, vintage prints and news clippings from Righetti’s college baseball career. Given the bedroom closet’s limited size, Righetti hangs his wardrobe for the week on the clothing bay in the office, a room that is currently a bit of an outlier, mostly used when Everett and Righetti face “a difference of TV opinions,” they joke.
The adjoining three-car garage has serious potential, and the couple hopes to convert it into a new master bedroom, expanding the living room’s footprint upstairs. If so, Amadi is psyched. “It’s the creative challenge that makes it fun,” she says.