Design Blog
Thoughts & Musings
View from the side of the new Garage and Side Entry.
In full sunset glory, the best feature will be the new Master Bedroom overlooking the water and Dinner Island.
The existing house has a large sloping shed room, so the addition has one also.
It is really hard to get a goos shot because it is right on the top of a slope, this was the farthest back that I could get:-)
The new back entry will be a nice feature. Connects to the existing house.
There were a few Material changes along the way. This House was designed and permitted in 2019, but Covid came along. Supply chain disruptions and cost increases delayed the construction until 2024. It is just getting finished in 2025. The Hardie Board Panels are much less expensive then the Hardie planks. Glass railings are going to be cheaper then cable railings, but then you have the dead birds to contend with that fly into the glass railings….
Rear elevation faces West towards a water view.
The exterior side fireplace got raised to the ceiling, I think for an outdoor tv that is bigger then I thought.
The entry walls got squared off- they were suppose to be slanted. And the exterior light fixtures are more traditional/ Carriage House looking then we talked about. The front door is “Prairie Style”, which is out of sorts with the rest of the house. It was supposed to be “Modern”, or just all glass. None of the other windows have the Prairie style muntins….it is a mash up of ideas now. And the chunky lick & stick fake rocks were supposed to be smooth concrete tiles 2’x4’. with an exposed wood header a the top. Totally different looking.
The interior double height space is pretty impressive! The stairs go up to 2 bedrooms on the right. The kitchen is below on the right.
My model shot of the house from 2019. Note the slanted entry walls.
Left side of the house, showing slanted entry walls that did not get built.
Rear of the house with indoor pool on the lower left side. It is an impressive house with all of the changes and it will be interesting to see how the interior gets finished off now! There was special engineering to figure out the wind load on that 2 story wall of glass in the Great Room. The clients are very happy with how it is coming out. Kudos to the construction team! They have the winter now to finish the interior off for the summer hopefully….they say when you are sheet rocked, you are halfway done.
Another study with the slanted entry walls in wood- could have looked really cool….sometimes the architect gets over-ruled.
The 2 story ADU got built before COVID, but then COVID happened and the main house took longer than they thought to build.
The siding is being artistically applied from various scrapes of different colored “Hardie Plank” cement siding. This is the Dining Room POP OUT. The covered porch roof has yet to be built. It will have to wait until later.
Main House street side elevation- but really far off the road. Siding is still being applied.
More of the view from the street side.
Front entry in progress. I really like the striped siding on the window bench pop-out and the variegated stripes to the right in a random pattern.
The window bench from the inside.
The Dining Room POP-OUT has got a great table-leg scene happening.
Kitchen opens out to the Dining Room pop out.
The owner is an artist and a painter, and is doing a great job on aging the look. Floor tiles in stone await installation. It is a true work in progress still, but it is so fun to see what my artist friend has done on a shoe string budget. It is fun seeing her old antiques appearing from their long storage from their LA life.
There is the artist herself, modeling the future cool light location. Christie Mellor is the artist. More cool antiques are emerging from their sleep!
And the artist again, in the future Master Bath that awaits completion. The view out the tub will be a green mossy forest.
The owners, Richard Goldman and Christie Mellor at their new front entry.. The roof slope was supposed to go “Butterfly” up in the opposite direction at the entry, but the contractor would not do it… see first rendering at the top. I even had a reverse cricket to shed the water off in opposite directions to prevent water build-up. He said the roofing contractor would not guarantee the roof if we did the butterfly. So that is why the roof seams do not match up, as it was added later. Gives it character.
“After” shot of a Lakefront House (Heart Lake) in Anacortes, that once had an A-frame top.
The A-Frame had been built by the clients uncle in the 1960’s. I tried every conceivable way to do an addition to increase the useable space.
The first idea was just to pop out one side of the A-frame to be able to get a full staircase in to access the upper loft, which just had a ladder up to access.
Staircases take up so much room!
So then, I extended the pop-out to add more useable room in the living room.
But that looked kinda weird and they decided no.
So finally after much pacing not he cost to do the pop-out, it was cheaper to tear off the whole A-Frame and build a place that has more useable room.
This was a better use of the 2nd floor that allowed for. more light to bath the space, instead of being under a huge roof that sloped down tot eh floor.
It is just finishing up construction, as you can see from al of the ladders and equip. still scattered around, but I wanted to see how it was turning out.
The exposed beams go from one side of the house to the other, in a nice shed simple roof.
I really like the rusted corrugated metal siding that they wound up using- kudos to a no maintenance siding that never needs paint! It is called “Corten Steel”, if you ever want to specify it for your house. It comes shiny metal and rusts very quickly over time, to a finish that stops rusting once the surface is coated. It does not keep rusting.
This is the “After”, the black trim and roof are quite handsome.
This was the “Before”. The front door remained in the same location.
Finally got up to Bellingham to see this Second Floor Addition that I designed awhile back...turned out very nicely. It was a pretty nondescript house before. The client is a contractor, so that helped. Added are 2 bedrooms for his kids, bath and a Family Room. Covered deck off the back.
The second floor covered back desk is a great place to hang out!
We started out with a bigger building, but had to shave down the sq. ft. due to the budget. So wound up with a smaller 1st floor then 2nd floor. But it actually works to have more of a covering for the garage (which will have frosted glass doors for the Yoga Studio).
I really like the way the lower roof wraps around to create the covered porch for the 2nd floor deck.
The 20 degree angle of half the guesthouse gives it some visual interest and the main house has some angles too. The owners did not want a rectangular box.
This will be the view from the street, so it has a lot of visual interest.
Working with the San Juan Community Home Trust to come up with a standard 2 bedroom, 1 bath house with a play loft that can be something that they can use on other sites on the island. Big on the list was a welcoming old fashioned front porch. One of the board members drew up the house, and I transferred the design into 3D and CAD so it can be a digital product. Unfortunately , designing with a committee making constant changes has been challenging. But I think we have finally settled on the final form.
There is a side porch that leads to a laundry and the back hallway.
The back of the house is where the bedrooms are.
Simple Shed Style roof with nice big covered 2nd floor porch that acts like a covered entry for the 1st floor entry door. 1st floor is a Shop/ Entry with Laundry and bath. 2nd floor has 2 bedrooms, 1 bath. Covered porch facing South, so great light.
Large windows on the 2nd floor pour light into the stairwell.
Back will have forest views.
For a 1st time house for a young person, under 1000 sq. ft. on the 2nd floor is perfect.
Many clients can’t understand the spacial relationships indicated in 2D drawings, so I think it is helpful to see a 3D model of the space to help understand the massing elements. To be able to walk into the kitchen and feel what it would be like is helpful-no?
Here I am trying to illustrate the idea of a cozy seating area in the kitchen as a window bench, to be able to sit and have a cup of coffee with your mate or friend.
This option maximizes storage on the back of the peninsula with no stools. There would be 12” deep storage on the back.
This option maximizes the storage with a bank of 24” deep pantries and a coffee station.
A more overhead view.
Trying different entry options on this new house- this is a combo of Gable roof over entry with attached Shed roof.
This entry option is just a simple Shed roof all the way across
This is the one that they are going with- Gable over the entry and then a lower Shed Roof that is only 4’ deep, not covering the entire deck so it lets in more light.
Here is the opposite side, the view side of the house. Master Bedroom at the top floor with elevator for aging in place.
End of house has a large covered deck with outdoor kitchen and a place for a large dining table.
Parting shot of how the front entry will look from the side with the final entry design.
