Before & After: San Francisco’s Famous Fog Inspired This Midcentury Revamp

Having met at college in Boston in the nineties, Yuki Bowman and Georgia Young have been friends for half their lives. "We’ve been through a lot of life milestones together," says Bowman—from moving across the country and living together in Seattle, to being there for each other’s elopements at San Francisco City Hall, children’s births, and career changes. "We’ve seen each other through a lot of highs and lows and personal evolutions."

Most recently, the friends worked together to transform the San Francisco home Georgia shares with husband, Peter Duyan, and their two children. Georgia, an environmental fundraiser, and Peter, a product designer, met as teenagers in Portland, Oregon, where Bowman now lives, and they had lived in San Francisco for years before they bought a 1948 midcentury home in the Golden Gate Heights neighborhood.

"I think this is the tenth place we’ve lived in San Francisco," says Georgia. They were sold on the incredible panoramic views, which overlook the city, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the distant Marin Hills, where they’ve logged a lot of miles trail running.

Still, the house needed updates—especially in the kitchen and main bathroom. The couple had progressed pretty far with a designer on plans, before they realized that they didn’t actually like the design that was emerging. By that point they had asked Bowman, an architect at Waechter Architecture, for so much after-hours advice, that they decided to formalize their conversations.

For starters, Bowman understood the couple’s aesthetic. "When I met them decades ago, they were both fine artists (Georgia a painter, Peter a photographer) with a keen eye for color, light, and atmosphere," says Bowman.

Before: Living Room

After: Living Room