2040 Oak Ave, Boulder, CO 80304

The Garden Gate. The original owner built a life in this North Boulder home and kept it to the standard that implies, which shows most in the parts nobody photographs. The floor plan reads the way people actually live. A dining room at the front takes the quiet street and works as easily for a desk as for a dining table. The living room gathers around a gas fireplace with a built-in bar, windows on enough sides that the light moves through the day. A mud room beautifully handles the unglamorous part with a floating maple bench, a row of hooks, slate floor, and granite-topped cabinetry. The kitchen is where the house shows its hand: premium appliances, a breakfast bar, a sunny nook, and an island that began life as an antique chest, iron ring pulls intact, capped in thick timber and joined to a blackened steel bar. Designer pendants and track lighting throughout. Upstairs, three secondary bedrooms hold real furniture and large closets, with the foothills out the windows. The primary...