Julie Crosby is a self-proclaimed serial remodeler. The San Diego–based interior designer bought her first house in 2003 and has rehabilitated a fixer-upper for herself nearly every other year since then. At a certain point her renovations began attracting attention and thus her hobby turned into her full-time job—but transforming her own homes remains her creative outlet.
“It’s been a passion project for me in a lot of ways,” Julie says of her most recent transformation, a 1968 midcentury-modern abode that she bought from the original owners. Though they lived there for five decades, they hadn’t much changed the Simpson & Gerber Architects design, so she was gifted a time capsule of retro features like a spiral staircase, a Space Age fireplace, and a Coke bottle window.
Aside from these precious historic elements, there was nothing worth preserving, so Julie otherwise gutted the interior. She installed new oak floors, replaced every finish, and extended the upper level over the existing lower level roof to add two bedrooms and two bathrooms. But she was careful not to over-modernize—and therefore maintained the layout, kept the location and size of all the windows, and reinstated the fluffy shag carpet that once graced the stair treads.
