Living in the Clouds in San Francisco

Living in the Clouds in San Francisco

Fran Meckler, a professional photographer, and her husband, David, were downsizing from the beautiful traditional San Francisco home where they had raised their family into a new contemporary flat in Pacific Heights. They wanted a home that reflected their love of travel and so hired Chris and Susan Weir of Studio Collins Weir to transform it. Today, the designer tells us more:

This home was a totally different style than your client’s previous home. How did you make the new place feel like home?

The new home is the complete opposite of the wood panelled, traditionally detailed home they were leaving. Its location, perched above the Mansard roofs of Pacific Heights, is also dramatically different from their former home. Fran fell in love with these views and had a strong desire for the main living space to feel as if it was part of the view, “sitting in the clouds”. We used this as a starting point for our color palette and it was the inspiration for a beautiful custom rug in the living room. David wanted to bring several pieces of family history from their former home and asked that they be worked into our scheme. One piece in particular is a door that he had made to resemble a bookshelf. Over the years, their family and their childrens friends had painted the “spines” of books to be the family library. We rehung this door in the new home in a location that Fran and David can see every day. Its a lovely touch that makes the new home feel immediately familiar and an extension of their families history rather than a completely new chapter.

Where there any particular challenges for this project?

The biggest challenge of a project for a family downsizing is to maintain a sense of their shared history in a new home. Making elements like the “library door” focal points of a project really helps with this. This challenge was compounded by the fact that the clients were moving from a family home into a home that was developed on spec. These kind of properties are developed to appeal to the broadest cross section of the buying market. A big part of our job then is to personalize the space and make it feel specific to our client. No small job sometimes.

See more and discover Studio Collins Weir’s design choices in the slideshow.

Original article and pictures take ruemag.com site