Inside a playful Palo Alto Eichler renovation that honors its midcentury roots

Eichler front entry with dark gray vertical siding and a slanted cedar slat pivot gate opening onto an exposed aggregate walkway with brick bands

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This Palo Alto Eichler renovation by Klopf Architecture took five years and three phases to complete. The clients are an executive mom, her two young children and their dog.

Rather than erasing what makes Eichlers distinctive, the redesign celebrates it. A larger kitchen now opens onto the great room. New floor-to-ceiling glass connects the living space to the atrium. At the entry, a custom slanted wood slat pivot gate adds privacy without blocking the light.

Along the way, Klopf’s new interior design department carried the vision through to the furnishings. Highlights range from custom leather counter stools to playful bathroom tile. Continue below to see the rest of this fabulous home tour…

DESIGN DETAILS

ARCHITECT Klopf Architecture
INTERIOR DESIGN AND FF&E Klopf Architecture
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER BASE Design Inc.
CONTRACTOR Keycon Inc.

Slanted cedar slat pivot gate swung open at the front of the gray Eichler, revealing the glass wall of the entry atrium

Three Phases, One Family: Inside a Klopf Eichler Remodel

When an executive mom and her two young children moved into their Eichler, she made a deliberate choice. She would renovate the home in a way that honored the qualities that make Eichlers distinctive, rather than erasing them.

That decision set the tone for what would become a five-year, three-phase collaboration with architecture and interior design firm Klopf Architecture and general contractor Keycon. The work touched nearly every room in the house. Along the way, it turned a client-architect relationship into something closer.

Entry atrium with a multi-trunk tree in a planting bed in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass wall looking into the living space

What We Love About This Home

This Palo Alto Eichler renovation beautifully updates a midcentury home while honoring its original character. We love the glossy green hexagon tile backsplash in the kitchen. It sets a playful tone that carries through to the pastel stacked tile in the bathrooms. Other favorites include the warm wood-paneled bedroom, the navy slatted living room wall and the cedar pivot gate. Overall, the project team created a cohesive, light-filled home that feels tailored to this family’s everyday life.

Tell Us: What are your overall thoughts on this renovation project? Let us know in the Comments below; we love reading your feedback!

Note: Be sure to check out a couple of our favorite Eichler home tours that we have featured here on One Kindesign from the portfolio of the architects of this project, Klopf Architecture: An Eichler home in Palo Alto gets renovated with a fabulous courtyard and Eichler home renovation celebrates indoor-outdoor living in Palo Alto.

View from the atrium past a multi-trunk tree and the open cedar slat gate toward the street, with globe wall lights on gray siding

Above: A custom slanted wood slat pivot gate lets light filter into the atrium. It also blocks sight lines from passersby.

Living Through the Work

Unlike many remodels where clients decamp to a rental during construction, this family stayed put through all three phases. So the Klopf team didn’t just design the home. They watched the family live in it, room by room, in real time.

Phase 1 covered the kitchen and living areas. By the time later phases began, the team had already seen how the family used those spaces.

Open great room with a large-format gray tile floor, a mustard velvet chair and gray sofa, looking toward the dining area and kitchen

That feedback loop and conversations with the client shaped the rest of the project directly. She shared her feedback with the design team along the way. As she put it, “throughout the various phases as they were completed, each day I noticed a new detail.”

For instance, she loved the Phase 1 kitchen countertops. So the team used the same countertops in the later bathrooms. She also loved the playful kitchen backsplash tile. That sense of pattern and play carried into her Phase 2 bathroom and a second bath in Phase 3.

The result is a home where each phase speaks to the ones before it. It never reads as a series of disconnected updates.

A Larger Kitchen With Playful Hexagon Tile

Round oak pedestal dining table with navy upholstered chairs in front of the kitchen island and green hexagon tile wall

Kitchen island with a white waterfall countertop, oak base and leather counter stools under globe pendants, with a green and white hexagon tile backsplash

Brass faucet on a white quartz island in front of a glossy green hexagon tile backsplash and stainless range hood

Above: The client loved this playful hexagon backsplash tile. The design team carried its sense of pattern and play into the later bathrooms.

Wall of oak cabinetry with a stainless French-door refrigerator and double wall ovens beneath a skylight in the white plank ceiling

Oak tambour appliance garage beside a white quartz counter, drawer microwave and green hexagon tile backsplash

Opening Up the Center of the House

At the heart of the project was a reorganization of the home’s most-used spaces. Klopf reclaimed a former dining area off the great room to build a larger kitchen. The kitchen now opens directly onto the living space. That frees up room for the family to gather for reading, games, meals and TV. It’s the ordinary business of daily life with two kids and a dog.

Living room with a gray sectional and walnut coffee table against a navy slatted wall, beside a white block fireplace and floor-to-ceiling glass

New floor-to-ceiling glass panels now connect the living space to the home’s atrium. They pull in light and views from both directions, doubling down on the Eichler’s signature indoor-outdoor connection.

But more glass also meant less privacy, particularly at the entry. There, a new wall of glass would have opened the courtyard directly to the street. Klopf’s solution was a custom slanted wood slat pivot gate at the front of the house. It lets light filter through while blocking sight lines from passersby.

It’s a small architectural gesture that solves a real problem. The gate creates privacy without sacrificing the light-filled openness at the heart of the redesign.

Gray sofa with velvet pillows, a walnut coffee table and a black floor lamp against a navy slatted wall, with a bedroom visible through the glass beyond

Sunlit sitting area with mustard velvet lounge chairs, a paper floor lamp and a geometric painting, with a rain chain outside the glass

Five Years and Increased Capabilities

A project of this length rarely survives with the same team intact, and this one didn’t. Klopf’s original project leader left the firm partway through. John Klopf and Elise Webb, however, stayed on from start to finish for continuity.

Instead of shrinking, the Klopf team actually grew when the firm formed its new interior design department in 2024. The client was excited about these new capabilities. She welcomed designers Justine Alvarez and Ekaterina Nesterova on board, and the architectural scope became an architecture-plus-interiors effort.

In the end, Klopf designed it all: the exterior envelope and layout, plus materials, colors, furnishings, décor and finishing touches.

Gray velvet sofa with a blush pillow against a dark wood-paneled wall, beside a fluted wood side table, built-in bookshelves and a jute rug

What began as an architectural renovation became something more comprehensive. The team reimagined the home’s interiors as well as its bones, down to the containers on the bathroom counter.

A Walnut-Wrapped Laundry Room

Walnut-paneled laundry room with a stacked washer and dryer, leading under a skylight to a bathroom with a frosted window

Walnut laundry room cabinetry with a white counter and sage green stacked tile backsplash, with a vase of blue thistles

Sage green vertical stacked tile backsplash beneath walnut upper cabinets, with a dark vase of blue thistles on the counter

Carrying the Vision Through to the Furnishings

Klopf’s interior design department helped turn good architecture into a place a family actually lives. The interiors team worked closely with the client on furniture, fabrics, lighting and accessories. They sourced pieces from makers and vendors in both the U.S. and Europe.

The guiding idea was continuity: every piece needed to feel like it belonged in the house, not added to it.

The custom counter stools are a good example. They pick up on the kitchen’s cabinetry materials. The team chose the leather carefully, so the seating reads as part of the same architectural language. The sofa, rug, pillows and other pieces followed the same logic. The team weighed each one’s material, color and proportion against the architecture around it.

Even the playful character of the bathroom tile found its way into the furnishings. It shows up as fun accents in the textiles and finishes, all while staying period-appropriate to the Eichler.

A Second Bathroom With Playful Accent Tile

Bathroom with white vertical tile scattered with pink, blue, green and mustard accents, a walnut vanity, green globe sconce and tiled tub

The interiors team also benefited from the feedback loop that shaped the architecture. When selecting furnishings, they took cues from earlier material and design decisions. As a result, the finished home reads as one continuous idea, not a stack of separate decisions.

Walnut vanity with a brass wall-mounted faucet and towel ring against gray stone, below white tile dotted with pastel and mustard accents

Above: Scattered pastel and mustard accent tiles bring a sense of pattern and play to this bathroom, echoing the kitchen backsplash.

Navigating Tariffs and Custom Furniture Lead Times

That continuity came with its own hardships. A few months after furniture purchasing began, new tariffs took effect. They affected the overall furniture budget and complicated ordering and expediting pieces.

Walnut coffee table, olive sofa with rust and green velvet pillows, and a sculptural oak side table against a navy slatted wall

Developing custom furniture added another layer of coordination. Aligning fabric and leather samples and wood finishes with the architecture meant close, ongoing communication with makers. Because makers produced some pieces internationally, the team had to carefully manage lead times, shipping and customs. In a few instances, that pushed the timeline out further still.

Two mustard velvet tufted lounge chairs beneath a large geometric painting, beside a paper floor lamp and a rain chain outside the glass

In the end, the extra time was worth it. It allowed the team to get the materials and details right and keep the design cohesive.

A Relationship, Not Just a Project

Ask the Klopf team what made this project unique, and the answer isn’t really about square footage or finishes. It’s about time.

Over five years, the team got to know the family in a way a shorter project never allows. They watched the kids head off to summer camp and met the foster kittens that passed through the house. They even got to know the dog walker’s daily routine. It became a professional relationship that was also a personal one.

Kids’ Bedrooms Designed With Their Input

That closeness extended into the design process itself once the interiors team came on board. The client made a point of involving her kids in meetings about their own rooms. They got to share their vision and hopes for the spaces.

Kid's bedroom with a dark wildflower wallpaper accent wall, rust and green linen bedding, a cane nightstand and a wood ladder bookshelf

Her daughter, in particular, was thrilled to work with an interior designer and help build her dream room. It’s a small detail, but it shows how thoroughly this project became a family effort.

White and cane nightstand with a smoky glass lamp against dark wildflower wallpaper, beside a bed with rust linen bedding

Kid's bedroom with walnut corner floating shelves of books and sports collectibles, a neon basketball wall light and navy plaid bedding

Above: The kids weighed in on the vision for their own bedrooms during meetings with the interior design team.

A Home Signed by the People Who Built It

That closeness shows up in the house itself. During Phase 1, the client asked everyone involved to sign the pony wall in the new kitchen. The Klopf team, the client, her kids, and the Keycon crew all left their names there. It’s a permanent record of the people who built the house together.

The client said: “I am filled with joy and gratitude to be able to live in such a beautiful space and to have gotten the chance to work with such a talented team. The mark of true artistry is the attention to detail that allows one to experience the design in different ways. One might be looking at the same view, but because of the way the light moves, it’s a totally different perspective.”

A Warm, Wood-Paneled Bedroom

Bedroom with a blue-gray channel-tufted bed centered on a wood-paneled wall between two brass globe pendants casting warm light, with glass to the garden

Channel-tufted bed and walnut nightstand under a warm-lit globe pendant, with sheer white curtains drawn across floor-to-ceiling glass

Bed with linen bedding and a mauve throw beside a warm-lit globe pendant and a corner window looking out to the garden

Warm-lit globe pendant hanging over a walnut nightstand against a wood-paneled wall, beside a blue-gray upholstered headboard

Vintage walnut nightstand with books on its lower shelf and a pink bud vase, under a warm-lit globe pendant against wood paneling

By the time the third phase wrapped, a running joke had spread on site. Nobody actually wanted the project to end, and the team half-seriously floated the idea of a “Phase 4.”

It’s a fitting note for this project. It was never about any single renovation. It was about a family and their architects growing, quite literally, alongside one another.

A Bathroom With Pastel Stacked Tile

Walnut floating double vanity with wall-mounted brass faucets, a walnut-framed mirror and stacked blush, mint and gray tile

Brass sconce and towel ring above a speckled gray stone backsplash and walnut vanity, with blush and mint vertical tile above

Wall-mounted brass faucet over an undermount sink against speckled gray stone, with a walnut-framed mirror and pastel tile above

Above: The client loved the Phase 1 kitchen countertops, so the team used the same ones in the later bathrooms.

Curbless shower with stacked blush and white tile, a brass rain showerhead and a tall frosted window topped by a clear transom

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