The backyard of this house was a no-man’s land when the owners moved in. With little more than a few established trees and a big, noisy air-conditioning unit, the yard was an almost open canvas bordering the Los Padres National Forest in a high-fire zone. We installed a large infiltration swale to capture as much rainfall as possible from the house rain gutters, so the water can be stored in the soil where plants can access it, reducing the amount of irrigation this landscape needs. Plantings obscure the air-conditioning unit, and a water feature was installed so the sound of trickling water would drown-out its sound. The plants we chose are drought tolerant and attractive to native birds and insects. We paid special attention to the plantings nearest to the house, keeping them fairly low growing as to not create a fire ladder beneath the eves. The plants also hold a good deal of moisture in their stems and leaves and are easily kept free of desiccated material, making them fire-wise plants that can actually reduce the chances of the property burning in the event of a nearby wildfire.

The only room that isn't colorful in this project is the bathroom. Restrained to white oversize floor tiles, ceramic wall and shower floor tiles, black hardware, and white veined marble-look engineered quartz countertop on a dark wood vanity, this bathroom is truly elegant. The custom-lighted shower niche provides additional lighting to the overhead light and a skylight above. The shower features a wand that can be placed where needed, and an overhead rain showerhead. This low-flow toilet is specially made to reduce cleaning - there are no cut-in shapes that catch dust or dirt.

Client Objectives The homeowners wanted to transform their primary bathroom into a more functional and relaxing retreat. Additional storage was a top priority, along with updated fixtures, improved ventilation, and a deeper soaking tub that better suited their lifestyle. The goal was to create a bright, comfortable space that balanced everyday practicality with a spa-like feel. Our Solution We redesigned the primary bathroom to improve functionality, storage, and comfort while maintaining a timeless aesthetic. The updated layout incorporates a spacious vanity with enhanced storage, a deep soaking tub and shower combination, refreshed finishes, and upgraded ventilation. Thoughtful design decisions throughout the space help reduce clutter while creating a more relaxing and enjoyable daily experience. Special Features Deep soaking tub and shower combination, dual shower heads, custom vanity with increased storage, updated mirrors and lighting, LVP flooring, refreshed plumbing fixtures, improved ventilation vented to the exterior, and a bright, timeless design tailored to everyday living.

Client Objectives The homeowners wanted to transform their primary bathroom into a more functional and relaxing retreat. Additional storage was a top priority, along with updated fixtures, improved ventilation, and a deeper soaking tub that better suited their lifestyle. The goal was to create a bright, comfortable space that balanced everyday practicality with a spa-like feel. Our Solution We redesigned the primary bathroom to improve functionality, storage, and comfort while maintaining a timeless aesthetic. The updated layout incorporates a spacious vanity with enhanced storage, a deep soaking tub and shower combination, refreshed finishes, and upgraded ventilation. Thoughtful design decisions throughout the space help reduce clutter while creating a more relaxing and enjoyable daily experience. Special Features Deep soaking tub and shower combination, dual shower heads, custom vanity with increased storage, updated mirrors and lighting, LVP flooring, refreshed plumbing fixtures, improved ventilation vented to the exterior, and a bright, timeless design tailored to everyday living.

This Kitchen was designed to meet the needs of a chair user. The cabinet height is reduced and each wall cabinet has a pull down unit to make it easy to reach the contents. The Stainless steel doors are add to the durability of the base cabinets.

Client Objectives The homeowners wanted to transform their primary bathroom into a more functional and relaxing retreat. Additional storage was a top priority, along with updated fixtures, improved ventilation, and a deeper soaking tub that better suited their lifestyle. The goal was to create a bright, comfortable space that balanced everyday practicality with a spa-like feel. Our Solution We redesigned the primary bathroom to improve functionality, storage, and comfort while maintaining a timeless aesthetic. The updated layout incorporates a spacious vanity with enhanced storage, a deep soaking tub and shower combination, refreshed finishes, and upgraded ventilation. Thoughtful design decisions throughout the space help reduce clutter while creating a more relaxing and enjoyable daily experience. Special Features Deep soaking tub and shower combination, dual shower heads, custom vanity with increased storage, updated mirrors and lighting, LVP flooring, refreshed plumbing fixtures, improved ventilation vented to the exterior, and a bright, timeless design tailored to everyday living.

Client Objectives The homeowners wanted to transform their primary bathroom into a more functional and relaxing retreat. Additional storage was a top priority, along with updated fixtures, improved ventilation, and a deeper soaking tub that better suited their lifestyle. The goal was to create a bright, comfortable space that balanced everyday practicality with a spa-like feel. Our Solution We redesigned the primary bathroom to improve functionality, storage, and comfort while maintaining a timeless aesthetic. The updated layout incorporates a spacious vanity with enhanced storage, a deep soaking tub and shower combination, refreshed finishes, and upgraded ventilation. Thoughtful design decisions throughout the space help reduce clutter while creating a more relaxing and enjoyable daily experience. Special Features Deep soaking tub and shower combination, dual shower heads, custom vanity with increased storage, updated mirrors and lighting, LVP flooring, refreshed plumbing fixtures, improved ventilation vented to the exterior, and a bright, timeless design tailored to everyday living.

Client Objectives The homeowners wanted to transform their primary bathroom into a more functional and relaxing retreat. Additional storage was a top priority, along with updated fixtures, improved ventilation, and a deeper soaking tub that better suited their lifestyle. The goal was to create a bright, comfortable space that balanced everyday practicality with a spa-like feel. Our Solution We redesigned the primary bathroom to improve functionality, storage, and comfort while maintaining a timeless aesthetic. The updated layout incorporates a spacious vanity with enhanced storage, a deep soaking tub and shower combination, refreshed finishes, and upgraded ventilation. Thoughtful design decisions throughout the space help reduce clutter while creating a more relaxing and enjoyable daily experience. Special Features Deep soaking tub and shower combination, dual shower heads, custom vanity with increased storage, updated mirrors and lighting, LVP flooring, refreshed plumbing fixtures, improved ventilation vented to the exterior, and a bright, timeless design tailored to everyday living.

Client Objectives The homeowners wanted to transform their primary bathroom into a more functional and relaxing retreat. Additional storage was a top priority, along with updated fixtures, improved ventilation, and a deeper soaking tub that better suited their lifestyle. The goal was to create a bright, comfortable space that balanced everyday practicality with a spa-like feel. Our Solution We redesigned the primary bathroom to improve functionality, storage, and comfort while maintaining a timeless aesthetic. The updated layout incorporates a spacious vanity with enhanced storage, a deep soaking tub and shower combination, refreshed finishes, and upgraded ventilation. Thoughtful design decisions throughout the space help reduce clutter while creating a more relaxing and enjoyable daily experience. Special Features Deep soaking tub and shower combination, dual shower heads, custom vanity with increased storage, updated mirrors and lighting, LVP flooring, refreshed plumbing fixtures, improved ventilation vented to the exterior, and a bright, timeless design tailored to everyday living.

Client Objectives The homeowners wanted to transform their primary bathroom into a more functional and relaxing retreat. Additional storage was a top priority, along with updated fixtures, improved ventilation, and a deeper soaking tub that better suited their lifestyle. The goal was to create a bright, comfortable space that balanced everyday practicality with a spa-like feel. Our Solution We redesigned the primary bathroom to improve functionality, storage, and comfort while maintaining a timeless aesthetic. The updated layout incorporates a spacious vanity with enhanced storage, a deep soaking tub and shower combination, refreshed finishes, and upgraded ventilation. Thoughtful design decisions throughout the space help reduce clutter while creating a more relaxing and enjoyable daily experience. Special Features Deep soaking tub and shower combination, dual shower heads, custom vanity with increased storage, updated mirrors and lighting, LVP flooring, refreshed plumbing fixtures, improved ventilation vented to the exterior, and a bright, timeless design tailored to everyday living.

This single family home sits on a tight, sloped site. Within a modest budget, the goal was to provide direct access to grade at both the front and back of the house. The solution is a multi-split-level home with unconventional relationships between floor levels. Between the entrance level and the lower level of the family room, the kitchen and dining room are located on an interstitial level. Within the stair space “floats” a small bathroom. The generous stair is celebrated with a back-painted red glass wall which treats users to changing refractive ambient light throughout the house. Black brick, grey-tinted glass and mirrors contribute to the reasonably compact massing of the home. A cantilevered upper volume shades south facing windows and the home’s limited material palette meant a more efficient construction process. Cautious landscaping retains water run-off on the sloping site and home offices reduce the client’s use of their vehicle. The house achieves its vision within a modest footprint and with a design restraint that will ensure it becomes a long-lasting asset in the community. Photo by Tom Arban

The backyard of this house was a no-man’s land when the owners moved in. With little more than a few established trees and a big, noisy air-conditioning unit, the yard was an almost open canvas bordering the Los Padres National Forest in a high-fire zone. We installed a large infiltration swale to capture as much rainfall as possible from the house rain gutters, so the water can be stored in the soil where plants can access it, reducing the amount of irrigation this landscape needs. Plantings obscure the air-conditioning unit, and a water feature was installed so the sound of trickling water would drown-out its sound. The plants we chose are drought tolerant and attractive to native birds and insects. We paid special attention to the plantings nearest to the house, keeping them fairly low growing as to not create a fire ladder beneath the eves. The plants also hold a good deal of moisture in their stems and leaves and are easily kept free of desiccated material, making them fire-wise plants that can actually reduce the chances of the property burning in the event of a nearby wildfire.

The interior of the home went from Colonial to Classic Lodge without changing the footprint of the home. Columns were removed, fur downs removed that defined space, fireplace relocated, kitchen layout and direction changed, breakfast room and sitting room flip flopped, study reduced in size, entry to master bedroom changed, master suite completely re-arranged and enlarged, custom hand railing designed to open up stairwell, hardwood added to stairs, solid knotty alder 8’ doors added, knotty alder crown moldings added, reclaimed beamed ceiling grid, tongue and groove ceiling in kitchen, knotty alder cabinetry, leather finish to granite, seeded glass insets, custom door to panty to showcase an antique stained glass window from childhood church, custom doors and handles made for study entry, shredded straw added to wall texture, custom glazing done to all walls, wood floor remnants created an antique quilt pattern for the back wall of the powder bath, custom wall treatment created by designer, and a mixture of new and antique furnishing were added, all to create a warm, yet lived in feeling for this special family. A new central stone wall reversed with an over scaled fireplace and reclaimed flooring from the East became the anchor for this level of the home. Removing all the “divisions” of space and using a unified surface made unused rooms, part of the daily living for this family. The desire to entertain large group in a unified space, yet still feel like you are in a cozy environment was the driving force for removing divisions of space. Photos by Randy Colwell

Luis Valdizon
Danish home design photo in Vancouver

Images by Nic LeHoux Designed as a home and studio for a photographer and his young family, Lightbox is located on a peninsula that extends south from British Columbia across the border to Point Roberts. The densely forested site lies beside a 180-acre park that overlooks the Strait of Georgia, the San Juan Islands and the Puget Sound. Having experienced the world from under a black focusing cloth and large format camera lens, the photographer has a special fondness for simplicity and an appreciation of unique, genuine and well-crafted details. The home was made decidedly modest, in size and means, with a building skin utilizing simple materials in a straightforward yet innovative configuration. The result is a structure crafted from affordable and common materials such as exposed wood two-bys that form the structural frame and directly support a prefabricated aluminum window system of standard glazing units uniformly sized to reduce the complexity and overall cost. Accessed from the west on a sloped boardwalk that bisects its two contrasting forms, the house sits lightly on the land above the forest floor. A south facing two-story glassy cage for living captures the sun and view as it celebrates the interplay of light and shadow in the forest. To the north, stairs are contained in a thin wooden box stained black with a traditional Finnish pine tar coating. Narrow apertures in the otherwise solid dark wooden wall sharply focus the vibrant cropped views of the old growth fir trees at the edge of the deep forest. Lightbox is an uncomplicated yet powerful gesture that enables one to view the subtlety and beauty of the site while providing comfort and pleasure in the constantly changing light of the forest.

The backyard of this house was a no-man’s land when the owners moved in. With little more than a few established trees and a big, noisy air-conditioning unit, the yard was an almost open canvas bordering the Los Padres National Forest in a high-fire zone. We installed a large infiltration swale to capture as much rainfall as possible from the house rain gutters, so the water can be stored in the soil where plants can access it, reducing the amount of irrigation this landscape needs. Plantings obscure the air-conditioning unit, and a water feature was installed so the sound of trickling water would drown-out its sound. The plants we chose are drought tolerant and attractive to native birds and insects. We paid special attention to the plantings nearest to the house, keeping them fairly low growing as to not create a fire ladder beneath the eves. The plants also hold a good deal of moisture in their stems and leaves and are easily kept free of desiccated material, making them fire-wise plants that can actually reduce the chances of the property burning in the event of a nearby wildfire.

Simonton Windows uses a spacer system that helps seal the entire window, allowing space for argon gases as well as to reduce temperature transfer. Simonton puts a focus on energy efficiency and only uses a premium vinyl for all of their windows and doors because of it's thermal properties. The windows in this home are double hung with a white finish.

The backyard of this house was a no-man’s land when the owners moved in. With little more than a few established trees and a big, noisy air-conditioning unit, the yard was an almost open canvas bordering the Los Padres National Forest in a high-fire zone. We installed a large infiltration swale to capture as much rainfall as possible from the house rain gutters, so the water can be stored in the soil where plants can access it, reducing the amount of irrigation this landscape needs. Plantings obscure the air-conditioning unit, and a water feature was installed so the sound of trickling water would drown-out its sound. The plants we chose are drought tolerant and attractive to native birds and insects. We paid special attention to the plantings nearest to the house, keeping them fairly low growing as to not create a fire ladder beneath the eves. The plants also hold a good deal of moisture in their stems and leaves and are easily kept free of desiccated material, making them fire-wise plants that can actually reduce the chances of the property burning in the event of a nearby wildfire.