The Living Is (Mostly) Easy for the Residents of Three California ADUs

Mary Kawar never planned to leave the home she’d owned for 15 years. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area community of El Cerrito, it boasted a lifetime’s worth of treasures, from antique furniture and souvenirs collected on her travels to photos of her children and grandchildren. But during the pandemic, Mary’s daughter, Jennifer, asked if she would consider moving in with her. Mary, now 88 and semi-retired from her career as an occupational therapist, liked the idea.

"I loved my house and had no intentions of leaving it until I left the planet, but it was more than I needed," she says. "And Jennifer wanted me closer if or when I needed additional support."

For her part, Jennifer had never thought about building an accessory dwelling unit (ADU), but she’d just purchased a home in Berkeley with a backyard art studio that she figured could be converted into a standalone apartment for her mom. "I thought it would be easy and relatively inexpensive because it already had plumbing, electrical, and heat," Jennifer recalls. "The lie I told myself was that it was basically an ADU—it just needed a few tweaks," she adds with a laugh.

Those "tweaks" snowballed into a major renovation, but after eight months or so, Mary was able to move into the space.

Downsizing from a 2,000-square-foot house to the 360-square-foot ADU went surprisingly smoothly, in part because Mary was willing to sacrifice size for the comfort of having family nearby. "When people hear I’m in such a small space, they say they could never do it," she says. "But it’s a unique design, with high ceilings and lots of windows. I have a regular oven and a full-size fridge as well as room for my coffeemaker and Vitamix."