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This modern green home offers both a vacation destination on Cape Cod near local family members and an opportunity for rental income. FAMILY ROOTS. A West Coast couple living in the San Francisco Bay Area sought a permanent East Coast vacation home near family members living on Cape Cod. As academic professionals focused on sustainability, they sought a green, energy efficient home that was well-aligned with their values. With no green homes available for sale on Cape Cod, they decided to purchase land near their family and build their own. SLOPED SITE. Comprised of a 3/4 acre lot nestled in the pines, the steeply sloping terrain called for a plan that embraced and took advantage of the slope. Of equal priority was optimizing solar exposure, preserving privacy from abutters, and creating outdoor living space. The design accomplished these goals with a simple, rectilinear form, offering living space on the both entry and lower/basement levels. The stepped foundation allows for a walk-out basement level with light-filled living space on the down-hill side of the home. The traditional basement on the eastern, up-hill side houses mechanical equipment and a home gym. The house welcomes natural light throughout, captures views of the forest, and delivers entertainment space that connects indoor living space to outdoor deck and dining patio. MODERN VISION. The clean building form and uncomplicated finishes pay homage to the modern architectural legacy on the outer Cape. Durable and economical fiber cement panels, fixed with aluminum channels, clad the primary form. Cedar clapboards provide a visual accent at the south-facing living room, which extends a single roof plane to cover the entry porch. SMART USE OF SPACE. On the entry level, the “L”-shaped living, dining, and kitchen space connects to the exterior living, dining, and grilling spaces to effectively double the home’s summertime entertainment area. Placed at the western end of the entry level (where it can retain privacy but still claim expansive downhill views) is the master suite with a built-in study. The lower level has two guest bedrooms, a second full bathroom, and laundry. The flexibility of the space—crucial in a house with a modest footprint—emerges in one of the guest bedrooms, which doubles as home office by opening the barn-style double doors to connect it to the bright, airy open stair leading up to the entry level. Thoughtful design, generous ceiling heights and large windows transform the modest 1,100 sf* footprint into a well-lit, spacious home. *(total finished space is 1800 sf) RENTAL INCOME. The property works for its owners by netting rental income when the owners are home in San Francisco. The house especially caters to vacationers bound for nearby Mayo Beach and includes an outdoor shower adjacent to the lower level entry door. In contrast to the bare bones cottages that are typically available on the Cape, this home offers prospective tenants a modern aesthetic, paired with luxurious and green features. Durable finishes inside and out will ensure longevity with the heavier use that comes with a rental property. COMFORT YEAR-ROUND. The home is super-insulated and air-tight, with mechanical ventilation to provide continuous fresh air from the outside. High performance triple-paned windows complement the building enclosure and maximize passive solar gain while ensuring a warm, draft-free winter, even when sitting close to the glass. A properly sized air source heat pump offers efficient heating & cooling, and includes a carefully designed the duct distribution system to provide even comfort throughout the house. The super-insulated envelope allows us to significantly reduce the equipment capacity, duct size, and airflow quantities, while maintaining unparalleled thermal comfort. ENERGY EFFICIENT. The building’s shell and mechanical systems play instrumental roles in the home’s exceptional performance. The building enclosure reduces the most significant energy glutton: heating. Continuous super-insulation, thorough air sealing, triple-pane windows, and passive solar gain work together to yield a miniscule heating load. All active energy consumers are extremely efficient: an air source heat pump for heating and cooling, a heat pump hot water heater, LED lighting, energy recovery ventilation (ERV), and high efficiency appliances. The result is a home that uses 70% less energy than a similar new home built to code requirements. OVERALL. The home embodies the owners’ goals and values while comprehensively enabling thermal comfort, energy efficiency, a vacation respite, and supplementary income. PROJECT TEAM ZeroEnergy Design - Architect & Mechanical Designer A.F. Hultin & Co. - Contractor Pamet Valley Landscape Design - Landscape & Masonry Lisa Finch - Original Artwork European Architectural Supply - Windows Eric Roth Photography - Photography

Master Bedroom Window Treatments

User

Silk material was selected to coordinate with the clients beautiful bedding ensemble along with a lovely tassel fringe to embellish the lead edges. A structural challenge was met, driven by the clients desire to combine the window treatments at the slider and window, creating a wall to wall effect. The slider had a recessed pocket in the ceiling above the door created with crown molding that also included a Hunter Douglas motorized Silhouette shade. She did not want to have structural work done to unify the crown molding pocket, continuing it over the window. So the simple rod pocket panels were shirred and mounted on small boards. The panels over the slider met the projected recess depth of the crown molding pocket and the panels over the window were on a minimal 3/4" projection to hug closer to the wall since the window's Silhouette shade was mounted inside the depth of the window. This created an interesting dimension with the stepped back effect of the panels over the window.

StarLED with Clear Crystals from Swarovski

Schonbek

INTENSIVE EFFECTS FOR LARGE INTERIOR SPACES Light fixtures with large crystal and powerful light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are the distinctive features of Crystal StarLED Deluxe. This large-scale lighting system is excellent for achieving powerful light reflections (up to a meter in diameter) in high-ceilinged rooms and where the ambient brightness is high. The large crystal is an attractive design feature in its own right. The pure brilliance of perfectly polished crystals is combined with powerful LEDs, creating an amazingly effective, economical and low-maintenance lighting system of unparalleled durability. Crystal StarLED Deluxe is available in three different set configurations. It Is also possible to configure a highly versatile lighting system from the individual elements to ensure optimal and unique lighting for any specific room. Outstanding effects can also be achieved in combination with Crystal StarLED. THE ADVANTAGES Distinctive features of the Crystal StarLED Deluxe: MODULARITY - Pre-assembled, ready-to-install sets make planning easy - Individual design configurations or combinations for special requirements: Expansion of the lighting system with additional crystal is easy, creating uniquely individual systems. The system range can also be easily expanded several meters with a pluggable extension. UNPARALLELED DURABILITY No other light source can beat the lifespan of LEDs, provided they are used under optimal conditions. The cost of maintaining the system is minimal: all you have to do is clean the crystals occasionally. LOW ENERGY CONSUMPTION Crystal StarLED Deluxe lighting systems use 1 W LEDs. LEDs convert power directly into light. The resulting minimal energy consumption is clearly reflected in the operating costs.

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Camp Rd Renovation

Alair Homes Kelowna

For this kitchen renovation we preserved as much of the original materials in the home in order to have a minimal effect on wasted materials. Counters are finished in quartz and accented with a timeless subway backsplash. Additional storage was added below the windows and our cabinet company created a matching hutch and floating shelves to help tie everything together.