(BERKELEY: home is where the heart is…)
in the fall of 2023, my son was a senior in high school and my daughter was in her last year of middle school. we knew we would be facing big transitions for both of them the following year as theo would begin college and lucy would start high school. after fourteen years in colorado, we decided to make those transitions from my hometown of berkeley, california. i am eternally grateful to my first husband and to my children (hank needed no convincing - he LOVES the temperate weather of northern california - boulder got both too hot and too cold for his liking) for supporting this move as it allowed me to spend so much more time with my father in his last, sweet chapter and to finally reground myself in the bay area, where my heart feels best.
the move also provided one of my favorite things… a BIG house project. i immediately put my boulder home on the market and began obsessively hunting for the “just right” house in berkeley. i had some parameters guiding me: i needed a garden for hank, a fireplace for hank, rooms for my children (i wasn’t ONLY thinking about hank), space to work, a big, wide street (many roads in berkeley are very narrow and windy and TWO way and i get super anxious driving on them!), lots of storage, a place that i could imagine growing old in, i.e. a ranch so i didn’t have to worry about stairs when i’m a granny and ideally something that didn’t need too much work so that we could be settled by the time school started.
this was a pretty tall order… houses in berkeley are all over the map: spanish, tudors, victorian, mid-century, craftsman and many of them are really QUIRKY! they might have weird, angled rooms or electricity that hasn’t been updated in decades or only one bathroom in a four bedroom house or an approach that my nervous system couldn’t handle or absolutely no parking. my wonderful mama was my “boots on the ground” in berkeley and she went to see loads of houses for me live when i was still in boulder. and ultimately, she is the one who found our house. it was NOT a ranch, it did not have a fireplace or much storage and the garden is actually bigger than what hank needs so i end up doing a lot of raking, but the layout is amazing for us, the street is nice and wide (and easily allows for firetrucks - fire is a big fear of mine!) and there is a “widow’s walk” on the roof with a VIEW, which is a cherry i didn’t think was a possibility. we DO have to go up and down a LOT of stairs on the daily, but i am hoping that those stairs provide inadvertant exercise that will help keep me loose and strong into my granny years… i just CAN’T WAIT to be a granny!
(BERKELEY: i had to get a “fake grass rake” for the fake lawn - real grass will not grow under the big oak tree)
(BERKELEY: the BONUS roof deck)
the other deficits were easily remedied. i have always adored the stand alone malm fireplaces (that i learned originated in santa rosa… as alysa liu says, “WHAT’S UP BAY AREA!”) so we put one in the corner of the living room for hank to nap under. with the help of my talented builder, gerson andino, we added tons of storage: two extra pantries and upper cabinets (that had previously been open shelves) in the kitchen, new bathroom vanities with big, wide drawers, a bank of cupboards in the downstairs lounge and all kinds of shelves and drawers inside the bedroom closets.
(BERKELEY: hank snuggled up by his fireplace)
once we figured out the physical changes we needed to make to the house, we began the suduko puzzle of placing our furnishings. interestingly, the two houses: boulder and berkeley, are nearly the exact same square footage, just laid out very differently. it was a super fun challenge to reimagine where everything should go. some items went into like spaces (from boulder bedroom to berkeley bedroom) and others ended up somewhere totally new.
the vintage knoll credenza remained in the entry in berkeley, but we pulled the sarah kinn ikat painting from the boulder stairway to hang above it, replacing our red/orange wil weigant. since our light gray boulder sofa didn’t fit in the berkeley living room, we got a deep orange chaise and with the malm fireplace, the painting felt like too much orange in one space. we kept the blue rug and credenza, but had to rehome the rocker into my bedroom. unfortunately, we couldn’t bring our boulder piano at all, as our berkeley living room is much smaller. we pulled the black and white moroccan ottomans from the boulder playroom to sit under the front windows.
(BERKELEY: sarah’s painting is over the credenza on the right)
(BOULDER: sarah’s painting was in the stairwell with the white mobile that ended up in the dining area in berkeley)
(BOULDER: the entry with the dutch painting and credenza)
(BERKELEY: new fireplace and sofa in the living room)
(BOULDER: this living room had much more space for the piano)
(BOULDER: the playroom where the ottomans lived)
our berkeley kitchen has a long island, compared to the compact one we had in boulder so we had to replace our big marble dining table with a smaller, round one to fit the space. (i coudn’t bear to give up that big table so it is in storage… i just have so many great memories of family dinners… maybe someday it will land in the home of one of my children?) the antique dining room sideboard and mirror that have moved with us from san francisco to amsterdam to boulder and now to berkeley remain in the dining area with our cuckcoo clock (who never adjusted to the time change from europe so he no longer cuckcoos the correct amount of times each hour, but he does reliably cuckcoo on the hour.)
(BERKELEY: seating for four at the island, the trolley and moroccan rug are now in the kitchen)
(BOULDER: the big dining table and the two seater island)
(BERKELEY: the new, smaller round dining table)
hank’s favorite rainbow moroccan rug ended up in the kitchen, instead of on the sofa, as did the moller trolley that used to be in my boulder bedroom.
(BOULDER: this used to be hank’s corner on the sofa)
the berkeley house has such high ceilings that artwork ended up in completely new places: over doorways or arches or above the cabinets. the red orange wil weigant painting also landed on the back kitchen wall. we added three yarn wrapped hay pendant lights that i have adored for ages but never had a place for.
lucy was ready for a more “grown up” bed so i gave her mine and brought in the bludot nook bed (which i have always loved.) i also got a new white dresser because i had built-in dressers in boulder and obviously couldn’t bring those.
(BOULDER: this bed was in my room)
(BERKELEY: lucy inherited this bed for her new bedroom)
i hung lucy’s rainbow painting in my bathroom over the door and it keeps company with kelly degnan’s abstract and my framed ribbons.
(BOULDER: lucy’s rug and rainbow painting both ended up in my bathroom in the new house)
(BERKELEY: my bathroom filled with things raided from lucy’s old bedroom)
(BERKELEY: my new bed and dresser with the rocker that had been in the living room in boulder)
lucy’s bathroom got the sarah kinn flower that had been in a hallway in boulder.
downstairs the two rope chairs were reunited in front of a new bookshelf with the sheepskin bear ottoman that used to be in our boulder living room. theo’s reed weily sticker art was hung at the base of the stairs, because his berkeley room also doubles as my office.
(BERKELEY: the lounge area)
(BOULDER: the alien sticker art used to be in theo’s bedroom)
(BERKELEY: the rope chairs are back together)
(BOULDER: this chair was solo in boulder)
all of the bookshelves from the boulder playroom ended up in the attic, as well as lucy’s red baby bertoia chair.
(BOULDER: the playroom with ikea bookshelves)
(BERKELEY: the attic library where the bookshelves ended up)
ultimately, most everything found a home and we had the challenging and cathartic task of editing down items we no longer needed. moving is exhausting, but there is something so joyful about reexamining what is useful and holds importance for your family. that said, i hope never to move house again!
(now that we are in berkeley, rosie comes to visit a lot! x0x0x)
photos: heather burns of HBK photography
to read more about my berkeley and boulder houses click here or here