November 30, 2017
Bay Area-residents Toni Heren and her husband always longed to return to Santa Barbara, a town they’d fallen in love with while attending UCSB many years ago. In 2011, they jumped on an opportunity to purchase a small vacation home in the San Roque neighborhood off Upper State Street. “It was beyond our budget but we loved it,” remembers Toni. “It was just a charming little house with incredible privacy.”
Built in 1936, the 1,600-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom cottage (pictured above) had been maintained fairly well — in fact, a previous owner had Giffin & Crane remodel the kitchen and master bath in the 1990s — but the Herens wanted to give it their own touch while tackling an emergent issue with the foundation. They called Bruce Giffin very early on, remembers Toni, and started working with him and his crews right away.
In addition to that big fix — reinforcing the foundation to lift and secure one corner of the home that had started to sink slightly — crews on the inside restored the Douglas fir beams and gables in the living room. They also repaired the original brick fireplace, refinished hardwood flooring, and replaced contemporary lighting fixtures with traditional counterparts, among other upgrades. Off the guest bedroom, they installed matching French doors to the garden. All said, the project took about six months.
All along, the Herens, who were living in the Bay Area, stayed tuned-in via weekly updates from Bruce, detailing what had been completed, what his crews were in the middle of, and what would come next. “They were extremely good about that,” remembers Heren. “And we really enjoyed working with them overall.”