These homeowners needed garbage bin enclosures for their San Francisco duplex that did two jobs: keep strangers from putting waste in their bins, and keep the front of the building looking clean. They were on a budget, and there was an added challenge: two different sizes of rolling bins had to fit. Material choice The

This bedroom is in a home designed by Julia Morgan, the California architect best known for Hearst Castle, whose Bay Area houses are prized for their craftsmanship and built-in detail. A room like this deserves paint that respects the architecture, and that starts before the first can is opened. Paint is something to take seriously

Getting a house ready to sell is a different kind of project. The goal isn’t to redesign anything. It’s to fix everything a buyer will notice, clean up everything that looks tired, and let the house show at its best. This Temescal home in Oakland was exactly that: a month-long engagement covering a long list

Housing, the law & your home Why California’s building rules push homeowners to remodel. When building new is slow, expensive, and heavily regulated, improving the home you already have becomes the rational choice. Here’s how the rules shaped that — and what’s changing. Hard to build newZoning, density limits, and permitting have long made new