garden inspiration

Like many people, I'm drawn to gardens for their calm serenity and their beauty.  I love texture and color and 1/3 of the photos I take are landscapes and gardens.  In preparation to designing our garden, I pulled together a bunch of my photos and created an inspiration book.  The individual photos can be found on my flickr site.

I had originally planned to hire someone to help me with the install of the garden.  I had a rough idea of what form the garden would take, but not the specific plants.  But then I realized that the garden is something that will be constantly evolving over our lifetime of living there, so it doesn't have to be perfectly done right away.  Therefore, I can do a little bit here and a little bit there and learn more about gardening as I go.  So I've been reading a lot of books and studying my photos more closely and making lists of the plants I want to include.

I've also been visiting our local Japanese Garden at different times of the year. We are lucky here in Seattle to have so much greenery all year round.  The Seattle Japanese Garden and the 230 acre Washington Park Arboretum are just a 5-10 minute walk from our property.

introducing CHAPUCAS

This is probably the most daunting design project I have ever worked on…the design of our own home. Having my husband and myself as clients is a lot harder than one would think. How do I get all those cool ideas I have been wanting in a house into a cohesive design and within budget? All of our decisions are based on balancing our, at times, conflicting priorities.

PRIORITIES

• A home we will love - cool, beautiful and comfortable
• Lots of natural light
• Stay within our budget
• Energy Efficient
• Healthy, Low Maintenance & Environmentally Responsible interiors and exteriors
• A house that fits into the neighborhood

 

DESIGN PARAMETERS

• The lot size is 40’x120’ with alley access, 20’ front yard set back and 16’ rear yard with 5’ side yard setbacks. 
• Open up to the southern exposure along the long side of the lot.
• Attached ADU (accessory dwelling unit, aka mother-in-law unit)
• Main living space on the second floor with separate bedroom
• Connection to the outside on the second floor
• Garage big enough for the Mini Cooper, motorcycle and all of Neil’s tools and work materials. 
• Home offices for both of us

DESIGN CHALLENGES

• Display my extensive book collection without overwhelming Neil’s minimalistic sensibilities.
• A large enough home to entertain in, but small enough to be intimate for just the 2 of us.  The right size home.
• Maintaining privacy within a city environment while bringing in lots of natural light
• Create 2 dwelling units that are separate, but have an indoor connection

The main space is really what the whole house is designed around. I wanted lots of natural light and ventilation. A room that is both intimate and spacious. A room where the bookshelves and cabinets are built in and become the walls and the TV can be hidden with moveable panels. The house is designed around how we live and want to live.

FOR CURRENT CONSTRUCTION

 PHOTOS CLICK HERE

tools of the trade

I'm back!  I know it's been awhile.  Life has been moving on and we had put off building our next house till (hopefully) now.  Sketching and dreaming about it for 2 years, I finally started to draw it up in Cad over the winter.  Using ArchiCad on a MacBook Pro, I've been able to design the house in 3D.  Starting with our program requirements, lists of desires and site opportunites, I worked out a preliminary plan and then experimented with different forms and roof types.  Going back and forth between sections, plan and model and lots of sketching on trace paper, a "Schematic Design" was reached and now we are in "Design Development". The basic house shape has been determined, but now comes the flushing out of details, materials and refinement of windows and structure.  So stay tuned and I will begin to share our process all over again!

happy new year!

I woke up this morning dreaming about our next house. We are not sure when we will actually build it, but I have started to design it. Some of my first thoughts are how I want the space to feel. Open, airy, spacious yet cozy, warm, light filled, efficient, comfortable, inspiring, beautiful. How to make a home feel like your favorite old sweater while at the same time the feeling when you put on that new outfit you look fabulous in. To wake up everyday smiling. I actually do have that in our place now, when I wake up with the sun and not the alarm.

So through the gate I go and I'm looking forward to sharing my process again...much in the beginning is drawing inspiration from the world around me.