A flood became the reason to finally redo it right.

After water damage forced a renovation, the house got the changes it had needed for years. An opened-up staircase, a pantry that finally has light, and a floor plan that breathes from front door to pool.

Open-concept great room with vaulted ceilings, an open-tread staircase, and floor-to-ceiling sliders out to the pool

Space: Full home remodel
Location: Achilles Dr · Hollywood Hills
Year: 2026

Full home remodel
Hollywood Hills
Built-in storage
Kitchen and pantry

The problem

A flood left the house needing repairs, and with the walls already open we faced the question every owner postpones. Fix it back, or finally make the changes that had bothered us for years. The closed-in staircase ate the floor plan. The pantry was dark and felt like a closet you had to apologize for.

The approach

We treated the rebuild as one continuous project rather than a list of repairs. Every decision answered the same two questions. Does it open the space up, and does it earn its keep day to day. The staircase moved against the wall and lost its solid sides. The pantry traded its door for glass. Storage got built into the places we used to walk past.

The outcome

A house that flows from the front door to the pool without a single visual stop. The stairs read as architecture instead of a wall. The pantry is the room you want to show people. And the rooms we didn't touch first ended up getting touched anyway. That's how it goes.

Highlights

Room by room.

Open-tread floating staircase set against a feature wall, with the great room flowing past underneath

The staircase, against the wall

The old staircase sat in the middle of the floor plan and closed off everything behind it. We moved it flush against the wall and opened the treads so light passes through. Underneath, what used to be wasted volume is now built-in shelving and cabinets. The kind of storage you don't notice until you go looking for it.

Walk-in pantry with a glass door, butcher-block shelves, and natural light spilling in from the kitchen

A pantry with light

The original pantry was a dark box behind a solid door. Swapping the door for glass borrowed light from the kitchen and turned the pantry into part of the room. Butcher-block shelves replaced the wire ones. Warmer to look at, and stable enough to actually hold what you put on them.

A flood is a terrible way to start a renovation, but it’s an honest one. The walls were already open. The floors were already coming up. The question became less should we and more while we’re here, what have we been putting off?

Starting with the stairs

The staircase was the first domino. It sat in the middle of the entry and divided the downstairs in half, so you came in the front door and immediately had to choose a side. Moving it against the wall gave the great room back to itself. Opening the treads let light pass through instead of stopping at them. And the volume under the stairs, which had been doing nothing for anyone, became real storage.

The pantry that wanted to be a room

The original pantry was a dark closet with a solid door. You opened it, you found what you needed, you shut it again. Replacing the door with glass changed the relationship. Now the pantry borrows light from the kitchen and gives back the warmth of butcher-block shelves and the things you actually keep on them.

Then the rest

Every project I do has a domino effect, and a personal one is no exception. Once the stairs and pantry were decided, the rooms around them started asking for the same attention. The kitchen got the island it always needed. The primary bath got the tub. The laundry got barn doors instead of a flimsy bifold. None of it was on the original list. All of it earned its place.