As filmmakers, Anna Sandilands and Ewan McNicol’s life revolves around telling stories, whether it’s for high profile commercial clients like Airbnb, or in the making of documentaries via their production company, Lucid, Inc. So perhaps it comes as no surprise that when the couple were looking to relocate to Portland from Seattle, they landed in a building that had as many stories about it as iterations: an old corner store, a warehouse, and an ad-hoc residence.

Before: Front Exterior

After: Front Exterior

In 2017, the couple were in the process of looking for a property that could be turned into a home as well as a production facility for Lucid. During the search, they toured traditional housing where they might make an ADU/office out of the garage, and this corner store in North Portland was tacked on as a last resort.

“The realtor put the building at the very end of the day,” says Ewan. “We’d seen all these lovely houses, all in nice neighborhoods, but nothing struck a major chord for us. Then the realtor said, ‘Do you still really want to go see that place?’”

They did, and upon viewing, quickly assessed the building to be a “unicorn,” says Anna, despite ad-hoc remodels and a hodgepodge of finishes across its nearly 6,000 square feet. “The fact that it was once the corner grocery store, and we were still surrounded by a neighborhood and homes—that was really appealing to me,” says Anna, noting that a lot of similar industrial-style buildings tend to be in non-residential areas.

Before: Interior Storefront

After: Film Production Office

After seeing a similar industrial-conversion project in his portfolio, Anna and Ewan called architect Doug Minarik of Minarik Architecture for the ensuing transformation. The first challenge was getting more natural light into the new living spaces. “The building didn’t really have any exterior windows to speak of. So it was pretty compelling,” says Minarik.

Before: Interior Facing Front

After: Living Room

Minarik placed the production offices at the street front, where there were existing windows, leaving the rear portion of the building for the residence, including two baths and three bedrooms. Upon discovering some “funkiness” to the structure from the years of remodels, Minarik decided to “cut out a portion of exterior wall adjacent to the sidewalk, and move the wall inward about six feet,” he says.

Minarik then lined up the bedrooms along this wall, and specified very tall windows to maximize the light. “We pushed the glass up close to perpendicular walls and close to the floor and ceiling to get the light to come in and bounce off adjacent surfaces,” explains Minarik. A “skinny courtyard” between the building and sidewalk is bounded by a privacy screen, creating a buffer from the street.

Before: Interior Facing Rear

After: Dining Room and Kitchen

In the main living areas, a large opening was cut in the rear masonry wall to install a sliding glass door. “That was our one big chance to get a bunch of light into the space,” says Minarik. Then the existing skylights, which before only had plexiglass covers, received new units.

The next task was to make the building’s large scale feel more livable, which required playing up the volume in certain areas while compressing it in others to create more privacy. Minarik introduced “broad gestures”—like maintaining the exposed glulam beams—and balanced them with more “detailed moves.” The latter was expressed by framing external doors and windows in Douglas fir reveals that lay flush with the concrete floor. At the kitchen, an alcove around the stove creates more intimacy, as do lowered ceilings in the bedrooms and baths.

Since the project completed in 2020, Anna and Ewan have enjoyed commuting to the office in socks, but they’re also pleased with the outcome of their home. “When you make a documentary, you can only have a loose imagination about it because it’s not in your control in some ways,” says Anna. “Other than making those films, this is the one time that I can think of that we have had a loose imagination about something and it all came together in really exactly the right way.”

Before: Exterior Side

After: Exterior Side

After: Main Suite

Before: Rear Exterior

After: Rear Exterior

More from Minarik Architecture:

Before & After: A Portland Home Packs an Off-Grid Punch for $820K

Project Credits:

Architecture: Minarik Architecture / @minarik_architecture

Builder: Tall Firs Building Company

Structural Engineer: Miller Consulting Engineers