Working with Tim Wooster and Bryn Wears-Fitipaldi of Archipelago Design, Understory took an existing Mill Valley home and reworked it top to bottom — a full interior renovation, a second-story addition, and a bump-out that reshaped how the house lives. Adding a floor to a home that's already standing is where the hard questions live, so we answered them first: how the new structure ties into the old, how the loads carry, how the addition reads as original rather than added. Resolved on paper, the build moved without guesswork.

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The design leans into light and openness — high vaulted ceilings, full-height windows and doors, and a sixteen-foot sliding exterior door that opens the living space to the outside. Inside, warm white oak and clean plaster set a calm, modern tone, carried through custom millwork and integrated audio throughout.

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The exterior is where the detail work mattered most. A full plaster envelope with no overhangs leaves no roofline to hide behind — every transition, every flashing, every waterproofing detail has to be right, because there's nothing above it doing the work. That's the kind of decision we'd rather solve at the drawing stage than discover in the field, and it's why the finished house looks effortless: the difficult parts were handled before anyone saw them.

Understory is what happens when design ambition and constructability are worked out together, early — a home that gained a floor, opened to its setting, and came out looking like it was always meant to be this way.