Interior Living

Why do you take on so few projects?

Because I want to know the family — and the story of the house — before we touch a wall.

I  ·  The Approach

How would you describe the way Casa de RJ builds right now, and how has that changed since you started?

When we started, our client was the investor flip: buy, rehab, sell. Investors like to play it safe. Even bringing the original hardwoods back in a dark finish met resistance. We pushed it through, but everything else stayed conservative.

Berkeley and San Francisco let us push the envelope. Homeowners here gravitate toward design that’s fun, unique and striking — they want something their friends don’t have. That’s where we have the most fun: clients who don’t want cookie-cutter. We study what great designers are doing, borrow from the best of it, and put our own creative twist on it.

II  ·  The Industry

In the Bay Area, remodel horror stories are almost their own genre: blown budgets, contractors who disappear, projects that drag on. Why does it go wrong so often, and what do you do differently?

It happens to me too, with subs — especially on new assemblies we haven’t built before. You have to build in flexibility. But a lot of it comes from two places. First, unrealistic budgets: builders don’t want to lose the job, so they make their bids look as attractive as possible. Second, incomplete design. No surprise there.

What we’ve learned is that design has to ramp up fast. Clients are eager to start, and time is money — but it takes money to buy time. We bring in multiple designers, each working to their strength, with a principal designer holding continuity across color, furniture, lighting and landscape alongside the architect.

And bring the GC in from day one, retained as a consultant. You need to know which ambitious ideas will strain the infrastructure, and what they’ll mean for maintenance. Plan, plan, plan. Spending upfront can save you a fortune in change orders later.