--- title: "Spanish Bungalow Full Remodel & Backyard ADU - Modern Coastal Interior Design, Santa Monica | Vividly Built" description: "A Santa Monica Spanish bungalow, fully remodeled with a backyard ADU: a closed galley kitchen opened into one bright plan, built from a 360° walkthrough." url: https://vividlybuilt.com/projects/spanish-bungalow-remodel-santa-monica/ last_modified: 2026-10-18 --- *Source: https://vividlybuilt.com/projects/spanish-bungalow-remodel-santa-monica/* Project 10 Full Home Remodel + Backyard ADU Interior Design · Space Planning · Procurement # Spanish Bungalow, _Opened Up_ Santa Monica, California 0 Change orders during the build 360° Walkthrough handed to the GC A–Z Design, samples & procurement 100% Drawn & modeled by our team — no AI ## A closed galley, _turned into the heart of the house._ Before & After · Kitchen. Same camera, both frames. Before: the kitchen as we found it — a narrow galley behind a wall, dark cabinetry, and the living room glimpsed through a doorway. After: the plan we drew — the galley opened into one long, skylit room that runs straight through to the garden. [More before & after](/transformations) Before & After · Living Room. **A red-walled office, turned toward the garden.** The room at the end of the new plan, as we found it: a red accent wall, a pair of dark French doors to the side yard, and a space that had become an office and storage. Those doors became a full-height glass wall to the new garden, skylights went into the ceiling, and the room became the calm end point of the whole house. ## Selected _views._ 9 renderings · one model, one walkthrough 01 — Living Room & Garden Wall: floor-to-ceiling glass to the garden, skylights, a low sectional and a pool-and-cactus painting. 02 — Street Elevation: white stucco bungalow with a black steel garage door, teal front door and laser-cut palm-frond screen gates. 03 — Living Room to Kitchen: looking down the length of the house under a timber beam and a row of skylights. 04 — Kitchen & Island: matte taupe slab cabinetry, a veined stone waterfall island and a blue glazed tile backsplash. 05 — Kitchen, Looking to the Garden: the opened-up kitchen running through to the living room and garden doors. 06 — Dining Room: walnut table, upholstered barrel chairs, a glass pendant cluster and a teal-stained door under a skylight. 07 — Primary Bathroom: a wet room with a freestanding tub between two open showers, a clerestory to the trees and a river-pebble floor. 08 — Guest Bathroom: floating oak vanity, brass triple sconces, a white marble-look shower wall and pebble shower floor. 09 — Backyard ADU & Courtyard: a timber-clad backyard ADU with full-height glass and a steel-framed dining pergola beside a decomposed granite courtyard. ## Good bones, _a difficult plan._ **Location:** Santa Monica, CA · Westside Los Angeles **House:** Single-story Spanish-style stucco bungalow **Type:** Full Home Remodel + Backyard ADU · Interior Design & Space Planning **Design language:** Modern coastal — white stucco, pale oak, veined stone, blue glaze and teal **Scope:** existing-conditions drawings; new floor plan & space planning; interior detailing & design concepts; kitchen & bathroom design; materials, finishes & lighting; furniture & FF&E specification; photoreal 3D renderings of every principal room; 360° virtual walkthrough for owners & GC; physical samples, showrooms & procurement; detached backyard ADU; facade refresh & garden courtyard. This Santa Monica house started life as a Spanish-style stucco bungalow: single-story, solid, and full of the character that makes these houses so sought after on the Westside. What it did not have was a plan that suited the way the owners live. The kitchen was a narrow galley closed off behind a wall, the living room sat on the far side of it, and the garden was something you saw through a window rather than a room you used. The brief was a full remodel and a new backyard ADU: a light, open, modern coastal home that still felt calm — and certainty, before a single wall came down, about exactly what they were going to get. We took on the entire design, from the floor plan to the last cabinet pull, and the procurement that went with it. ### Solving the layout on paper first A single-story bungalow on a Santa Monica lot cannot grow up, so every square foot has to work harder. We redrew the whole floor plan rather than just the kitchen, and the space planning settled on one long axis: entry, dining, kitchen and living now run as a single sequence from the front door to floor-to-ceiling glass at the garden. The galley became the center of the house instead of a corridor beside it. A row of skylights brings daylight into the middle of the plan — usually the darkest part of a bungalow — and a timber beam carries some warmth from the old house into the new one. Getting there took many iterations of the plan; it was by some distance the hardest part of the project, and the part the owners now notice least, which is how it should be. ### Modern coastal, with the Spanish bones intact Outside, the white stucco and simple massing of the original bungalow stay. The changes are in the details: a black steel garage door, a teal front door, wall lights in dark bronze, and laser-cut metal screen gates in a palm-frond pattern that filter the side yards. Inside, the palette is quiet and coastal rather than themed — warm greige walls, pale oak-plank floors, matte taupe slab cabinetry and a veined natural-stone waterfall island, while blue comes in through a hand-glazed tile backsplash and a teal-stained door in the dining room that answers the one at the street. The dining room sits under its own skylight with upholstered barrel chairs and a cluster of glass pendants; the living room is built around a low sectional, a sculptural shell wall piece and a bright painting of a pool in the desert. ### Bathrooms that borrow from the garden The primary bathroom is planned as a wet room: a freestanding tub set between two open showers, a full-width clerestory window looking into the tree canopy, a river-pebble floor in the wet zone and a full wall of flush storage that keeps everything else out of sight. The guest bathroom uses the same ideas at a smaller scale — a floating oak vanity with a stone top, brass triple sconces, a white marble-look shower wall, a pebble shower floor and its own clerestory for light without overlooking. ### A backyard ADU, designed with the house Because the new plan ends in glass, the back garden had to be designed as part of the house rather than after it — and it had to make room for a detached ADU. The ADU sits at the back of the lot as a timber-clad, flat-roofed volume with full-height glass, and a steel-framed pergola extends from it over an outdoor dining table. Between the ADU and the house, a decomposed granite courtyard, a planted lounge area and a blue glazed-tile wall and bench tie back to the kitchen tile inside. Because the ADU was designed in the same model as the main house, its materials, sightlines and lighting were resolved together with everything else — so it reads as part of the property, not something added to it later. For another example of an ADU designed alongside a full remodel, see our [Brentwood ADU project](/projects/full-remodel-extension-adu-brentwood), and for costs and rules, our [Los Angeles ADU guide](/answers/adu-design-cost-los-angeles). ### One model, handed to the contractor Every element of the house was drawn by our design team in AutoCAD and Revit and built as a full 3D model by our in-house 3D team. The owners walked the finished home in a [360° virtual walkthrough](/answers/vr-walkthrough-luxury-interior-design) and approved it room by room. Then we gave that same walkthrough to their general contractor. The GC priced and built from the model the owners had already signed off — they knew exactly what they were building, nothing was left to interpretation on site, and the remodel ran without a single change order. ### Samples in hand, orders managed Design did not stop at the drawings. We specified every product and material in the house, ordered physical samples so the owners could see and touch each finish before committing, took them through the showrooms, and then placed, tracked and managed the orders through to delivery. Because procurement sat with the same team that designed the house, what arrived on site matched the model. ### No AI — people, drawings and a model Nothing on this page was generated by AI. Every rendering is the construction model itself, lit and finished by the same team that drew the plans, which is why it can be built exactly as shown. If you are comparing firms, it is worth asking how their images are made — [here is our answer](/answers/do-you-use-ai-for-design). ### Remodeling in Santa Monica and the Westside Santa Monica's older neighborhoods are full of Spanish-style and Craftsman bungalows on tight lots, and this project is typical of the work we take on there: a full remodel that keeps the house's character and changes how it lives, plus an ADU that adds space the main house cannot. We design remodels, ADUs, additions and new construction across [Santa Monica](/locations/santa-monica), [Brentwood](/locations/brentwood), [Pacific Palisades](/locations/pacific-palisades), [Malibu](/locations/malibu) and [Beverly Hills](/locations/beverly-hills). See more [before-and-after projects](/transformations), [estimate your project](/cost-calculator), or [talk to our team](/contact). Start a project ## Planning a full remodel _you want to walk_ before the walls come down? We take on whole-home remodels, ADUs, additions and new construction across Santa Monica, the Westside and greater Los Angeles — floor plan, design, 3D, walkthrough and procurement under one roof. Scope, timeline, and an honest read on whether your project fits, in a single conversation. [Start a project](https://vividlybuilt.fillout.com/quickstart) [See more work](/portfolio) ## More _remodel & ADU_ projects. [Complete Transformation — Los Angeles](/projects/complete-transformation-los-angeles) [Modern Brentwood ADU — Brentwood](/projects/full-remodel-extension-adu-brentwood) [Beverly Hills Remodel — Beverly Hills](/projects/full-remodel-modernization-beverly-hills) [Backyard Oasis & ADU — North Hollywood](/projects/immersive-backyard-oasis-retreat-design-north-hollywood) ## Related _answers._ [Remodel or Rebuild?](/answers/remodel-vs-rebuild-los-angeles) · [360° Walkthrough Process](/answers/vr-walkthrough-luxury-interior-design) · [Do You Use AI?](/answers/do-you-use-ai-for-design) · [ADU Cost & Rules in LA](/answers/adu-design-cost-los-angeles) ## Santa Monica Bungalow · _questions._ **What was included in the Santa Monica Spanish bungalow remodel?** It was a full home remodel with Vividly Built handling the entire design: existing-conditions drawings, a new floor plan and space planning, interior detailing, the material and finish palette, kitchen and bathroom design, a detached backyard ADU, the garden courtyard, lighting, furniture and FF&E, photoreal renderings of every principal room, a 360° virtual walkthrough for the owners and the general contractor, and procurement — physical samples, showroom visits, ordering and order tracking for every product in the house. **How do you open up a closed galley kitchen in an older bungalow?** The plan comes first. We redraw the whole floor plan, not just the kitchen, so the opened kitchen, dining and living spaces work as one sequence with clear circulation and enough storage. Where a wall carries load, a structural engineer sizes the beam or post solution and we coordinate it into the drawings before anything is priced. Then the full design is built as a 3D model, so the owners and the contractor can walk the opened-up space before a wall comes down. On this house the galley became the center of a single plan that runs from the front entry to the garden glass. **Can you design an ADU as part of a full remodel in Santa Monica?** Yes, and it is usually better done together. California state law allows ADUs on most single-family lots, and Santa Monica applies its own local standards within that framework, so the first step is confirming what the lot allows. We then design the ADU in the same model as the main house — layout, materials, lighting and the garden between them — so the two read as one property and the owners and contractor can walk both in the 360° walkthrough before construction. On this project the detached ADU sits at the back of the lot with a dining pergola and a courtyard linking it to the house. Costs, size limits and timelines are in our [Los Angeles ADU guide](/answers/adu-design-cost-los-angeles). **What is modern coastal interior design?** Modern coastal is a calm, light-filled interior built on pale woods, white and warm greige walls, natural stone, linen and soft blues and teals, with a strong connection between indoors and the garden or the water. It is not beach-house theming — no anchors or driftwood. On this Santa Monica bungalow it meant pale oak-plank floors, matte taupe cabinetry, a veined stone island, blue glazed tile and teal doors against white stucco, with skylights and floor-to-ceiling glass doing most of the work. **How does a 360° virtual walkthrough prevent change orders?** Change orders mostly come from decisions that were never actually made, or that were made differently in different people's heads. A 360° walkthrough built from the construction model removes that gap: the owners approve the house room by room, and the general contractor prices and builds from the same model they approved. On this project the GC had the walkthrough from the start, knew exactly what was being built, and the remodel ran without change orders. **Does Vividly Built use AI to create its designs or renderings?** No. Every drawing is produced by our design team in AutoCAD and Revit, and every rendering and walkthrough comes from a 3D model built by our in-house 3D team — the same model the drawings are cut from. Nothing on this page is AI-generated. That matters because a rendering is only useful if it is buildable: ours are the construction model, lit. More on our position in [Do you use AI for design?](/answers/do-you-use-ai-for-design) **Do you handle material samples and procurement?** Yes. We specify every product and material in the house, order physical samples so the owners see and touch finishes before committing, take clients to showrooms, then place, track and manage the orders through to delivery. Procurement sits with the same team that designed the house, so what arrives on site matches the model. **Do you design home remodels elsewhere on the Westside?** Yes. Alongside [Santa Monica](/locations/santa-monica) we design full remodels, additions and new construction across [Brentwood](/locations/brentwood), [Pacific Palisades](/locations/pacific-palisades), [Malibu](/locations/malibu), [Beverly Hills](/locations/beverly-hills), [Bel Air](/locations/bel-air) and [Manhattan Beach](/locations/manhattan-beach), with the same model-first process on every project. Related: [Whole-home remodel design](https://vividlybuilt.com/services/whole-home-remodel-design) · [Floor plan redesign](https://vividlybuilt.com/services/floor-plan-space-planning) · [ADU design](https://vividlybuilt.com/services/adu-design) · [Modern coastal interiors](https://vividlybuilt.com/styles/modern-coastal-interior-design) · [Spanish & Mediterranean remodels](https://vividlybuilt.com/styles/spanish-mediterranean-revival-design)