An Oakland kitchen and powder bath, reimagined in navy, marble, and brass. A study in confident contrast — and in how to renovate two adjacent rooms as one continuous design statement.
The clients on Campus Drive came to us with a clear vision and a difficult site. They wanted a kitchen that could hold its own as the centerpiece of an entertaining household — but the existing kitchen was small, dark, and disconnected from the dining room beyond. They also wanted to refresh the adjacent powder bath to the same level of finish, treating both spaces as one continuous design move.
Our solution centered on three decisions. First, we removed the wall between the kitchen and dining area, preserving the existing structural archway as a framing element and painting it a confident burnt orange — a single bold note against the navy and stainless. Second, we anchored the kitchen with a single oversized soapstone island, hand-selected and book-matched at the slab yard. Third, we paired the dark, dramatic palette of the kitchen with a powder bath that runs in the opposite direction — light chevron mosaic, soapstone counter, walnut vanity, brass-and-black plumbing.
"Two rooms, one conversation. The kitchen is loud and confident. The powder bath is quiet and intricate. They make each other better."
The kitchen's island is the project's organizing element. At nearly eleven feet long, it serves as prep surface, breakfast counter, and entertaining bar all at once. The soapstone was specified for its visual weight and for the way it ages — every scratch and water mark eventually patinas into the surface rather than damaging it.
The powder bath was a smaller move, but a more technical one. The chevron tile is a hand-set glass mosaic that demanded a tile setter willing to slow down — every chevron point lines up with its neighbor across nearly six feet of vertical wall. The matte black plumbing was matched with knurled brass accents from a single Brooklyn workshop. The vanity is solid walnut, custom-fabricated to a shallow depth so the small footprint of the room reads as deliberate rather than constrained.
The project ran sixteen weeks, on schedule, and within four percent of the original quoted budget — including one mid-construction scope change that added the burnt orange archway treatment after the clients saw the original color on a paint sample and asked if it could be done at a larger scale.
Juan and Brayan understood the brief immediately — they didn't try to talk us out of the dark kitchen, the orange archway, the chevron mosaic. They figured out how to do all of it, in the same house, and have it read as one design rather than three loud ideas.
