When COVID hit, The Radish, a co-living community with 13 residents in Oakland, California, was already well-suited for the pod lifestyle. But as the pandemic wore on, the residents found themselves in need of more space. Fortunately, the solution was parked in the backyard: an RV that the owner's mother had driven from Nashville to the Bay Area a few months prior. They reached out to Catherine Hooper, owner of iSPY Home Design, to help them transform the vehicle into a work-from-home space that could also serve as a lounge and happy hour area.
Hooper began by researching RV remodels and found that most felt the same, style-wise. "[It was] a kind of Los Angeles meets Santa Fe vibe that I certainly love, but I felt compelled to try something completely different for this project," Hooper says. So she took inspiration from local history. "The more I thought about the inspiring community my clients have built at The Radish, the more it reminded me of how members of San Francisco's cultural revolution in the 1960s and '70s lived together in group homes across the city, believing in the power of community and belonging to affect change," the designer says. "So I decided to really run with that theme and come up with a retro design that only a Bay Area camper could pull off."
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Renovating the RV was a new, additional challenge for the designer and Hooper worked to make the most of the small space. "My clients had already done the hard work of gutting the old kitchen and cleaning out the main space, so we had about 7 feet by 13 feet to work with just for the lounge," the designer says. The finished space is a stylish retreat that's just steps away from home.
