LINEA Design Build Remodel designed and executed every aspect of this thorough indoor and outdoor transformation of a client's home in South Arlington, VA. The work included: new James Hardie plank siding, a new, custom permeable paver driveway (with stabilizing concrete borders) and walkways, an all new interior including an entirely new master bath with free-standing tub, separate walk-in shower and double vanity, two renovated hall baths, a new Art Deco jewel-box of a powder room featuring red glass tile from California and a wallpapered ceiling, a large, expanded kitchen with custom blue cabinets and an 11-foot island, a completely re-invented fireplace and hearth, family room and dining area, removal of 2 load-bearing walls, a completely remodeled basement with bar, guest bedroom and bathroom suite, a dramatic and highly functional new lighting plan inside and out, an extensive, well-engineered and effective storm drain system encircling the entire house, a new floating porcelain-tiled back patio with a sun- and neighbor-shielding pergola, a simplified, elegant new facade and drought-friendly, easy-care landscaping all around.

For this Cherokee County home, we completed a full roof replacement. We used GAF Timberline HDZ Architectural Shingles in the shade Pewter Gray, and GAF ProStart starter shingles for the perimeter of the roof. We also replaced all of the vent pipe boots with new 3 in 1 plastic pipe boots with rain collars. Along with this, we installed GAF Weatherwatch Waterproof Leak Barrier in all of the valleys, penetrations, eaves, and at the walls for ice and water shielding. For the ridges, we installed new GAF Cobra 3 ridge vents.

This backyard started with nothing but dirt and with the guidance of Eagleson Landscape Co. has been transformed into a fully landscaped space. The Viburnum in the back provide a screen from neighbors and act as a shield for stray golfs balls. Plants have been chosen to provide year round interest. Low Gro Sumac provide excellent fall color, evergreens and red twig dogwood winter interest and the abundant perennials summer and spring color. A prairie theme is the idea we started with and together with the home owner the landscape design unfolded into a beautiful sprawling space they can sit and enjoy. Lawn space provides room for kids and dogs and ensures the landscape is not only beautiful, but functional.

New Custom Pool Home Construction SW Cape Coral - 2525 S.F. 3 bedrooms 2 baths. This house also features a huge master bedroom walk-in closet, master bath with dual sink, large shower with dual shower heads, free-standing tub, nice open floorplan with a spacious great room, formal dining, and an open kitchen with pantry, tile throughout, oversized screened lanai with outdoor kitchen and a three-car garage. Build this custom energy efficient - healthy - smart home for yourself. 2525 Model Home Features: Impact Windows with low E glass - 8ft. L-Shaped disappearing double Impact Sliders in the family room, 8ft. Impact Slider in Master - Mold and Mildew Resistant Purple Drywall and microbial-based paint, R40 Attic Insulation house & garage. Standard 10' 0" Exterior Masonry Walls, 12' 0" Tray Ceilings in Master and Great Room, 13' 0" front entry, 8 ft. solid core Interior Doors throughout, Wood Cabinets with Soft Close Drawers and Doors, Granite countertops, All Appliances Energy Star Rated,16 All our homes come with an extended 4 - year American Home Shield warranty. Call us to start the process of building your new home. Build one of ours or Build the house you really want.

Built for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape. The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right. What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time. Where the House Meets the Ocean The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it. A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam. Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore. Welcoming Light A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival. With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof. Two Suites, Two Views At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room. An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate. The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest. Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner. Owners Who Picked Up the Tools The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors. The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should. They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it. The Landscape Holds Priority Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building. From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade. Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA

Inspiration for a transitional bathroom remodel in Toronto

Stephen Allen
Example of a classic boy medium tone wood floor childrens' room design in Orlando

New Custom Pool Home Construction SW Cape Coral - 2525 S.F. 3 bedrooms 2 baths. This house also features a huge master bedroom walk-in closet, master bath with dual sink, large shower with dual shower heads, free-standing tub, nice open floorplan with a spacious great room, formal dining, and an open kitchen with pantry, tile throughout, oversized screened lanai with outdoor kitchen and a three-car garage. Build this custom energy efficient - healthy - smart home for yourself. 2525 Model Home Features: Impact Windows with low E glass - 8ft. L-Shaped disappearing double Impact Sliders in the family room, 8ft. Impact Slider in Master - Mold and Mildew Resistant Purple Drywall and microbial-based paint, R40 Attic Insulation house & garage. Standard 10' 0" Exterior Masonry Walls, 12' 0" Tray Ceilings in Master and Great Room, 13' 0" front entry, 8 ft. solid core Interior Doors throughout, Wood Cabinets with Soft Close Drawers and Doors, Granite countertops, All Appliances Energy Star Rated,16 All our homes come with an extended 4 - year American Home Shield warranty. Call us to start the process of building your new home. Build one of ours or Build the house you really want.

Built for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape. The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right. What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time. Where the House Meets the Ocean The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it. A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam. Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore. Welcoming Light A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival. With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof. Two Suites, Two Views At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room. An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate. The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest. Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner. Owners Who Picked Up the Tools The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors. The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should. They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it. The Landscape Holds Priority Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building. From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade. Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA

LINEA Design Build Remodel designed and executed every aspect of this thorough indoor and outdoor transformation of a client's home in South Arlington, VA. The work included: new James Hardie plank siding, a new, custom permeable paver driveway (with stabilizing concrete borders) and walkways, an all new interior including an entirely new master bath with free-standing tub, separate walk-in shower and double vanity, two renovated hall baths, a new Art Deco jewel-box of a powder room featuring red glass tile from California and a wallpapered ceiling, a large, expanded kitchen with custom blue cabinets and an 11-foot island, a completely re-invented fireplace and hearth, family room and dining area, removal of 2 load-bearing walls, a completely remodeled basement with bar, guest bedroom and bathroom suite, a dramatic and highly functional new lighting plan inside and out, an extensive, well-engineered and effective storm drain system encircling the entire house, a new floating porcelain-tiled back patio with a sun- and neighbor-shielding pergola, a simplified, elegant new facade and drought-friendly, easy-care landscaping all around.

New Custom Pool Home Construction SW Cape Coral - 2525 S.F. 3 bedrooms 2 baths. This house also features a huge master bedroom walk-in closet, master bath with dual sink, large shower with dual shower heads, free standing tub, nice open floorplan with a spacious great room, formal dining, and an open kitchen with pantry, tile throughout, oversized screened lanai with outdoor kitchen and a three-car garage. Build this custom energy efficient - healthy - smart home for yourself. 2525 Model Home Features: Impact Windows with low E glass - 8ft. L-Shaped disappearing double Impact Sliders in the family room, 8ft. Impact Slider in Master - Mold and Mildew Resistant Purple Drywall and microbial-based paint, R40 Attic Insulation house & garage. Standard 10' 0" Exterior Masonry Walls, 12' 0" Tray Ceilings in Master and Great Room, 13' 0" front entry, 8 ft. solid core Interior Doors throughout, Wood Cabinets with Soft Close Drawers and Doors, Granite countertops, All Appliances Energy Star Rated,16 All our homes come with an extended 4 - year American Home Shield warranty. Call us to start the process of building your new home. Build one of ours or Build the house you really want.

Bathroom - transitional bathroom idea in Toronto

The landscape design for this private residence brings together a diverse array of elements to create an ethereal, multi-sensory experience where sound, movement, colour and scent are simultaneously evoked. Shielded by a forty foot hedge, the site challenged us to create an exterior, yet interior, world where Asian and Western influences intersect. In honouring the traditions of Feng Shui, the retaining wall does not sit directly on the entrance. Meditation pathways lead to areas of retreat and socialization (including an outdoor fire, a restored pool and covered seating area). An ergonomic garden and potting station lined with fruit trees allows the client to grow her own plants and vegetables. A multi-leveled water feature is framed with lush camellias and peonies; the landscape is lined with evergreens and decorated with Chinese basalt and local granite. The multi-sensory design comes to life in the grove of Shirofugen cherry trees as it sheds its petals to the music of a custom Corten steel wind chime sculpture made by English artist David Harber. A weather station was placed on site for a month to determine the weight of the chimes—each one set to the pentatonic scale. This is a space where our clients can grow and evolve their lives with the seasons.

Built for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape. The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right. What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time. Where the House Meets the Ocean The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it. A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam. Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore. Welcoming Light A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival. With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof. Two Suites, Two Views At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room. An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate. The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest. Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner. Owners Who Picked Up the Tools The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors. The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should. They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it. The Landscape Holds Priority Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building. From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade. Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA

New Custom Pool Home Construction SW Cape Coral - 2525 S.F. 3 bedrooms 2 baths. This house also features a huge master bedroom walk-in closet, master bath with dual sink, large shower with dual shower heads, free-standing tub, nice open floorplan with a spacious great room, formal dining, and an open kitchen with pantry, tile throughout, oversized screened lanai with outdoor kitchen and a three-car garage. Build this custom energy efficient - healthy - smart home for yourself. 2525 Model Home Features: Impact Windows with low E glass - 8ft. L-Shaped disappearing double Impact Sliders in the family room, 8ft. Impact Slider in Master - Mold and Mildew Resistant Purple Drywall and microbial-based paint, R40 Attic Insulation house & garage. Standard 10' 0" Exterior Masonry Walls, 12' 0" Tray Ceilings in Master and Great Room, 13' 0" front entry, 8 ft. solid core Interior Doors throughout, Wood Cabinets with Soft Close Drawers and Doors, Granite countertops, All Appliances Energy Star Rated,16 All our homes come with an extended 4 - year American Home Shield warranty. Call us to start the process of building your new home. Build one of ours or Build the house you really want.

Example of a classic powder room design in Austin

A family cottage in the Gatineau hills infused with Canadiana shifts its way over the edge of a cliff to command views of the adjacent lake. The retreat is gently embedded in the Canadian Shield; the sleeping quarters firmly set in the rock while the cantilevered family room dramatically emerges from this stone base. The modest entry visible from the road leads to an orchestrated, tranquil path entering from the forest-side of the house and moving through the space as it opens up onto the lakeside. The house illustrates a warm approach to modernism; white oak boards wrap from wall to floor enhancing the elongated shape of the house and slabs of silver maple create the bathroom vanity. On the exterior, the main volume is wrapped with open-joint eastern white cedar while the stairwell is encased in steel; both are left unfinished to age with the elements. On the lower level, the dormitory style sleeping quarters are again embedded into the rock. Access to the exterior is provided by a walkout from the lower level recreation room, allowing the family to easily explore nature. Natural cooling is provided by cool air rising from the lake, passing in through the lakeside openings and out through the clerestory windows on the forest elevation. The expanse of windows engages the ephemeral foliage from the treetops to the forest floor. The softness and shadows of the filtered forest light fosters an intimate relationship between the exterior and the interior.

Photo by Drone Your Home
Example of a large transitional black two-story wood exterior home design in Salt Lake City with a shingle roof

The Watonga residence was commissioned by a woman with a big heart for animal fostering. She wanted a house that felt private from the street but visually and physically connected to the backyard. The house needed to consider the typology and scale of the existing neighborhood, and it needed durable materials to accommodate little paws. Finally, it had to support an environmentally conscientious life. The house was intentionally placed on the short end of an irregularly shaped lot, allowing the living spaces to open up to a large native landscape and adjacent lot containing a significant tree grove. This siting allowed for a passive orientation where window walls face north and exposure to the south and west is minimal. The interior is light-filled, capturing expansive landscape views of an established oak grove to the North and bayou views to the East. A carefully choreographed entry vestibule and screen shield create interior privacy from the street. A two-story volume fills the center of the home with warm, southern light. A palette of tile, Texas stone, and concrete are used for budget friendly durability. The house is derived from a simple diagram with utilitarian functions placed in the stone box and living in a minimal gabled roof that supports solar panel orientation and rainwater collection. At its core, this home is designed for family, foster dogs, well-curated music, and Aggie game days.