Inspiration: Metal & Wood

Nearly all design styles feature wood as an element of living spaces. It is a soft, warm, organic material that feels welcoming and cozy. When sanded and polished with a simple stain, it can look and feel luxurious. Left a bit rougher and unfinished and it provides a more rustic, natural feel.

Because of its industrial and non-traditional associations, metal appears less often as a design element in homes. Stainless steel appliances are probably the most common use of metal. However, it can be used to great effect as an accent material, and often is used as such in modern design. It is a cold, hard, inorganic material, and large amounts can make a room feel clinical, sterile, and generally inhospitable. But just a little bit can draw the eye, provide a contrast in touch, and provide some extra interest to a room. Like wood, it can be polished to bring out the natural grain of the material and show off its natural beauty.

Together, metal and wood can be used to provide contrast: the coldness of metal versus the warmth of wood; hard versus soft; organic versus inorganic; and browns, tans, reds versus silver, white, gold. The best balance usually involves more wood and less metal; for example, a common application is to have open wooden stair treads (thick slabs of wood), with a metal banister and thin metal wires in the railing (thin threads of metal).

With judicious use, metal can provide elegant, modern style to a home. Just a bit of metal accent can both complement and contrast beautifully with the wood in a house.


Photos from:

• Mont-Saint-Hilaire Residence
• Division Knoll Residence
• A House by the Park  (Photo Album)

Outdoor Spaces: The Garage

The garage will be primarily for vehicles and activities related to them. It could be used for other outdoor work/hobbies, but we currently don't have any.

The main house will have a single primary entrance for both residents and guests. The garage, however, needs two distinct entrances: one for people and one for cars. A garage door does not work for people — it is the wrong scale and feels awkward. That entrance operates mechanically, via a remote. This works from a vehicle, but feels slow and annoying to a pedestrian. To accommodate people, we will have a second, standard sized door. Ideally this will be connected to some kind of covered walkway that leads to the front door of the house. For most single family homes, where the garage is right next to the house, this would be a short gap of less than 10 feet; but in the Taltree development it will likely be longer.

The garage should have space for parking two cars. There should be enough space on all sides of the car to comfortably load/unload people and parcels. (Including the front — while most cars load people from the sides and parcels from the rear, some cars, such as Porsches, have storage space up front and the engine in the rear. Even more interesting, the Tesla Model S has all the hardware in the floor, so both front and rear are storage; and the rear includes two seats for children.) The garage floor should be level and smooth.

The interior should have good lighting. Light sources should include a mix of natural and artificial sources. Most garages are fairly dim; light makes them feel more comfortable and welcoming. It also improves safety and makes it easier to load and unload the car. We would like to have the lights on a timer and/or sensors, so they automatically come on when entering the garage and turn off once everyone has left.

We like to clean and detail our car(s), and being able to do this in the garage would be delightful. It would allow us to keep the car looking good even in the winter or when it is raining. Detailing is about more than making a a car look nice — wax or paint sealant helps to protect the metal and paint from water and dirt, so regular detailing can help maintain the car. For detailing, we need a drain and hose spigot inside the garage, plus ample surrounding space. An electric outlet would provide power for detailing tools.

I like to work on my cars. In addition to work space, this requires storage space for tools, jack, stands, parts, etc. Both overhead and movable task lighting are required. Both lighting and tools need regularly-spaced outlets. We will also need storage storage space for wheels/tires and other seasonal items. Car work can be dirty, so an in garage sink would be nice.

We will need space for cabinets, drawers, and other organizational aids to store supplies and tools. We may not install all of the cabinets we want at once, but it is important to design in the room for these things.

Looking forward, we want to be able to eventually install an electric car charging station. A normal household circuit is 120V at 15 or 20 amps. Large appliances (such as washer/dryer) might run at 240V/30 amps. Electric cars can use a larger circuit to charge more quickly. For example, Tesla's site lists home charging up to 240V/90 amps; and it has support for 440V commercial circuits (I don't even know if that is possible to get installed in a residential home). Getting a very high-amp 240V circuit run to the garage seems like a good thing to have done up front.

Even if it is not part of the main house and is a more focused space, the garage will have a big impact on the quality and enjoyment of our living situation; so making sure to think it through carefully before we start building is important.

Private Spaces: Second Floor

The second area (and second floor) of our house contains the private spaces. The activities located here are more personal: sleeping, bathing, dressing, and quiet activities such as reading, writing, crafts, etc.  There will also be storage and laundry space.  The second floor works well for all of these, as it is separated from the public areas of the first floor, and is "deeper" into the house than the first floor — you must cross through the public areas and go up the stairs (a transition) to get to the private spaces.  This provides a feeling of privacy and security.

Mirroring the first floor, the second floor must have an entry. Where the stairs enter into the second floor should be a landing or distribution area.  Unlike the first floor, where the open public spaces allow flow through each area, the second floor should have direct entry to most of the spaces (e.g., you should not have to cross through the master bedroom to get to one of the children's bedrooms).

Our bedroom (the master bedroom) will contain two functional areas: sleeping, and dressing.  In most bedrooms these areas are combined into one large room; we are considering having them a bit more separate, but we haven't decided for sure yet.  Clothes storage is part of the dressing area, but this does not mean we'll have a traditional walk-in closet; instead, we may look at built-ins along the wall which would conserve floor space while still providing plenty of storage.  One of the areas should accommodate some quiet activities that require light — for example, reading a book, or writing a journal before bed.

Attached to the master bedroom will be the master bath, with most of the normal pieces: shower, sink and toilet.  We will probably skip a bathtub, as neither of us use it regularly; instead, we'll just have a larger shower and still save space.  We do want two sinks so we can share the use of the bathroom.

The other main area for upstairs will be bedrooms for children (we want children; but we prefer to have only one major life change at a time, so we'll wait until the house is done).  Planning ahead for children can be a bit tricky, and the needs of children change over time; building in one particular way might not work even if we already had kids.  We're thinking about starting out with a shared room (with private bed alcoves) for when they are young. We would design it in such a way that it could be divided as they get older (especially if they end up being different genders).  This could possibly be accomplished with dynamic walls that allow us (or them) to join or separate the rooms as desired.

We think that the convention that adults should have elaborate master suites while children should have simple boxes is backwards. The rooms for the children should accommodate sleeping, dressing, play, homework and many other activities that we, as adults, would use the office or living area for. They will also need a bathroom, which will have a combined shower/tub, since it is much easier to use a tub when kids are young.

The laundry room will be upstairs, near the bedrooms, as that is the most convenient place to use it.  We will probably have space for both machine and hand wash (a large sink, for example), and machine and hand dry (racks and lines for drying).

There will be various storage upstairs — for linens, towels, clothes, kids toys, books, etc. Don't tell the kids, but we also want to design a small "secret" storage place into each child's room (different in each room, of course).

We will also have some space for pets upstairs.  Right now this is a pair of cats, and all their associated litter, water, food, toys, etc.  We would like a space that is semi-private for them to feel secure in; and that is easy to clean up messes (hairballs), food spills, litter, hair (i.e., not carpet!).

Inspiration: Black & White

One of the simplest design elements to play with is contrast and color. A mix of black and white elements can look sleek and elegant*. Some modern designs will go for an all-white look, which does look very modern; but is usually too sterile, or too distracting in the absolute perfection of all that white surface area. Mixing in black provides contrast to help define elements, to give the eye variety, but also to make it look more natural or normal. Black and white are are also basic tones to work with — they can mix with a variety of other colors and materials, they can easily serve as a background setting for other elements, and they don't need to draw attention if used correctly.

In the pictures below, there are several things to notice. Black & white can be used just for individual pieces of furniture, or for whole rooms.

The combination of black and white may be used strictly, or it can provide a foundation on which other elements can build.

Very few natural materials are purely black or white. However, many natural materials can provide shades of black and white. This provides variety of material and color, while linking everything together through this simple choice of colors.

* Note: Erika is totally not inspired by black and white. She thinks it's okay if Jeff finds them inspiring, but she will be writing her own color inspiration post once she gets around to it.

Images from:
Elysium 169 House
Vivienda 19 House
Villa Amstelveen
Book Shelves by Acerbis

Public Spaces: First Floor

Our first region is the "public" region. Since we are designing a home in the community, it is worth pointing out that these are the "private public" regions of our home, not the shared community spaces. We will talk about those later.

We want the public region to be the heart of our home. This will be where we conduct many of our day-to-day activities and welcome and entertain our guests. These spaces include the entry way and areas for socializing, dining, cooking, and entertaining (i.e., media usage).

The entryway is the most public area of the home and the place where people enter and leave the building. It is rarely designed as its own room in contemporary homes. In fact, the area as a whole is often sorely neglected; in many homes it is little more than whatever space was leftover near the door with a closet thrown in for storage. However, the entry way is important both functionally and socially. It needs to pack a lot of functionality into a small space. It should connect well with the rest of the public area, both carefully revealing the home and welcoming visitors into it. We will likely have our entry open into the living area or some space between the kitchen and living area.

We want the social, dining, and cooking areas to be closely integrated, so we plan to have a fairly open plan that includes the kitchen, dining area, and living area. These areas will not have walls between them, but they will be differentiated by changes in flooring type or height, ceiling height, room shape, furniture clusters, and for the kitchen, the appliances and counters. We are inspired by the Farmhouse Kitchen pattern. This does not refer to the decor of the space but rather to the connection between the spaces.

The living area will be focused on socializing, not media usage, so there will be no display screen. The focal point will probably be a view through a window. The emphasis will be on interacting with other people — chit-chat, serious discussion, board games, etc. This area will hopefully be connected to a patio where we can move our socializing when the weather is nice.

The kitchen should accommodate the two of us cooking and baking together. It will have to handle prep, cooking, baking, clean-up, and serving — for simple dinners for the two of us; for nicer dinner parties; for our weekly potluck with friends; for parties where there is not much cooking or baking, but lots of food set out for snacking; and for special holiday gatherings with tons of food and people. It should be well-placed to serve both the dining area and living area.

The dining area should be able to hold a table big enough for a large group of people (at least a dozen), and it should be well-placed to serve or dish food from the kitchen. We do not feel the need for a formal dining room, and are happy to have it open to the kitchen and other areas.

We often entertain with the aid of digital media, but integrating a TV into a social area is difficult. Although these two activities are often combined in contemporary homes, they have different goals. For entertainment, you want everyone focused on a single point — the screen. For socializing, you want everyone focused on each other, which usually means some form of a circle or other convex shape. Additionally, when both activities might be happening at the same time, isolating the entertainment area (and its attendant noise) provides a benefit for everyone.

We plan to have a dedicated media room that can be better acoustically and visually controlled than a common room, and can have a more focused setup that helps optimize the number of people who can comfortably consume media together. This allows us to optimize the living area for socialization, in turn. Some ability to link the two would be nice — perhaps via french doors or a moveable wall, but that is still speculation at this point.

A guest room is a semi-public space. It does not quite belong in the private family spaces, but it should not be open to the rest of the public space. An office is also a semi-public space. It should allow isolation when needed, but we will often want to remain connected to the public areas of the home while we are using it. To address both these concerns, we plan to have an office that can be converted to a bedroom on the first floor. Having the guest room and a full bath on the first floor will also be useful as our relatives get older. It will give us the option of moving our own room downstairs as we age.

Finally, there must be some access for the stairs to the upper level. This will likely be towards the back, away from the entry and (at most) on the very edge of the public spaces. There is a balance needed here between being a dividing line to the private spaces that keeps away visitors, but also welcoming residents to the more private areas of the house.

Next we'll move on to the upper floor and private spaces.

Introduction to Spaces

Designing a home can be an overwhelming process. The key thing for a home designer to remember is that you are designing a home for you. The best way to start the home design process is to think about your life and needs. What do you do? Consider both day-to-day and special activities. How are these activities related? Which ones naturally fall into groups? Think about how these activities are grouped in your life. This may differ from traditional groupings. How do these activities map onto rooms? Which things must/must not/could share space? We are going to skip the boring details of our activities (brush teeth, feed cats, host friends for games, etc.) and start at the end of this process. At this point we are still very far from a complete design, but we have an idea of the different regions our home will contain.

At the highest level, our home has four regions: public, private, vehicle, and common (i.e., community). These map roughly to the first floor of our home, the second floor of our home, the garage, and the outdoor areas and community house.

Obviously, these areas are not all within the physical bounds defined by our walls. One of the great things about this project is that we get to be involved in the community design process from the beginning. We will not have as much control over the common areas as over our own building, but we will be able to realize advantages that come from sharing amenities.

Over a few posts, we will describe our goals and nascent ideas for each region.

Inspiration: Modern Design

This is the first in a series of posts on various sources of inspiration for our design.  We're going to link to plenty of pictures we have collected over time, and try to explain why they are interesting and what exactly has influenced us about them.  We're going to start out with an overview of modern design, as that is one of the most general and broad influences, while everything else is more refinements of this.

The homes in Taltree will have a modern design aesthetic. Modern design aims for simplicity of form, with very little ornamentation. Modern design is generally recognized to have originated in the early 20th century, gaining prominence in the mid-20th century. Some of the most well known modern architects were Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Modern design is characterized by clean, straight lines and straightforward designs. Modern homes often have flat or shallow roofs in climates where that is appropriate.  The beauty of the design comes from emphasizing the form or structure of the building.  Materials are chosen to be both useful and beautiful at the same time.

Modern buildings often use large expanses of glass and industrial materials such as steel and concrete. The general availability of these materials coincided with the rise of modernism and greatly influenced the designers. Large panes of glass are used to provide large, uninterrupted windows. Steel (and now aluminum and other metals) can be used for simple window frames, stair and balcony railings, countertops, and other elements. Concrete can be used for floors or whole buildings.

The original modern architecture is considered austere by many. Especially in a home, the use of industrial materials and the lack of ornamentation can make a building feel cold and unwelcoming. Some of this reputation is undeserved. Architects like Wright used wood and other natural materials to introduce warmth into their homes. However, it cannot be denied that modernism also led to some atrocious concrete and steel monstrosities.

In the Pacific Northwest, contemporary modern architecture has embraced the use of natural materials, especially those, such as cedar, that can be found locally. Treated but unpainted woods have good resistance to moisture and sun and can be used for exterior siding. Light-to-medium red-colored woods are often used in the interior — for flooring, siding, railings, etc. Pacific Northwest modern design often uses butterfly roofs (a slight slope inward, so the 'peak' of the roof is really the lowest point) and single slope roofs. Both of these designs work well in the northwest where we need to accommodate drainage for the frequent rain but do not need to be able to handle a large dynamic load due to snow.

A well designed modern home is elegant and restrained without being austere. Despite the lack of ornamentation, a well built modern home requires precision and craftsmanship. Modern homes will generally look unique, but not out-of-place. While the aesthetic will not appeal to everyone, we look forward to having a beautiful, unique modern home.

Pictures from:

• Queens Park Residence
• Concrete House
• Dyes Inlet Residence
• City View Residence