MISSION MEETS MODERN

Green describes her personal style as eclectic with an overall modern feel. Throughout the house, she mixes vintage pieces, many of which she received from her grandparents, with new items. Her office is her “main hub” and features an elaborate chandelier from California she says she bought at market for thousands less than it is worth.

“I did projects like that in school and I always said, ‘never again,’ ” she explains. But she signed her name anyway, realizing the headache that might come.

She pushed her doubts aside because she loved the mission style architecture, which is the only house of its kind in Junius Heights. There was just something about it. But the house was in shambles, on top of having a nonsensical layout.

“Rooms were open to rooms were open to closets were open to rooms,” she recalls. “The floor plan didn’t make any sense.”

The historic district allowed her to tear down any inside walls, but she wasn’t permitted to tear down some of the outside walls or move windows that faced the street.

“That was one of the biggest architectural challenges,” she points out. “There were times when I drew up floor plans and then realized, ‘Well, I can’t do that because that puts that wall right in the middle of that window and I can’t move the windows.”

On the upside, that means her windows are all 100-percent original. Some still contain the original glass panes, their slight wave pattern a telltale sign that someone made them by hand. Green drew up all the architectural plans herself, and despite having to work around the window placement, she tore down almost every interior wall, which wasn’t always well received by her neighbors.

“Lots of people in the neighborhood thought I was taking down more than what I had approval to do, so I had several times when construction was stopped,” she says.

She had to patch the stucco on the outside, but she left the chipping paint on the cast stone frame around the front door, which gives the home a shabby-chic look. At night a flame flickers from the custom-made gaslight that was inspired by the original lantern that hung beside the door. The trim around the windows, once a drab green, was painted a modern charcoal grey.

The foundation proved to be a major hurdle. She was told that in order to repair it, she’d have to knock down a large chunk of the backend of the house that blocked access to the broken foundation.

“It was literally the first thing I had to do, so immediately there went my budget,” she says.

She decided if she was going to completely take the house down to the studs, then she should rebuild it right. One of the things she loved most about the house was the courtyard in the center, although it originally had very small doors and windows and permitted only small amounts of sunlight. She added larger windows and built a new wood deck to cover the crumbling concrete.