Check out what's new in Carmel Valley

For many, life in bucolic Carmel Valley would be ideal. Now consider living in a converted horse barn on 20 acres with views of rolling hills, vineyards, horses, and a friendly cow. That's right, I said a 'friendly cow.'

Santa Cruz Landmark Construction's newest project is converting what originally was a barn on the first floor and living space on the second floor, into two separate living units for the homeowner. We began by stripping out the old lower banged up kitchen cabinets, flooring, and out dated plumbing and electrical supplies, and completely gutted the upstairs bathroom. The low hanging structural beam which separated the kitchen from the living room was raised in order to open the space up.

In our second week there, we ran all plumbing and electrical lines in the kitchen and bathroom, set the jetted tub in the bathroom, built a laundry room.

This last week has been challenging with the triple digit heat, so we took on a cool project, in separating the first and second stories, by removing the spiral staircase which connected the two. Removing this, along with framing in and sealing up the stairwell opening was a milestone in this project conversion, and moves the homeowner closer to being able to rent the space out.

Once we had the stairwell framed up, it was time to lay down new laminate flooring throughout the upstairs, followed by installing new lower kitchen cabinets and painting the upper cabinets.

We then installed new baseboards, closet doors, door trim, and primed and painted the place in Kelley Moore's Navajo White. This is a soft neutral color, which compliments our work nicely.

In our last stages, we installed new electrical outlets, plumbing fixtures, bathroom vanity, and cabinet hardware.

Here are some before and after photos