Kitchen Remodel: Chase Away the Shadows

A trio of Bay Area architects bought this neglected Modernist house—and brought the outside in. They used materials emblematic of the era when this California ranch house was built—concrete, plywood, frosted glass, ceramic tile—in rooms with layers of balanced light. Among their solutions in the kitchen were a lower, wider island and a unified palette of shapes, colors and finishes; and in the bath, vertical sidelites around the mirror and a wet-location-rated fluorescent fixture over the tub.