Architect Couples At Home

Sheets of hot-rolled steel were used as exterior cladding—as well as for parts of walls and countertops indoors—to heighten the industrial effect. “When hot-rolled steel comes out of the factory, it’s a very even-toned, blue-gray color,” Han says. “But we wanted to have a pattern. So we stacked the sheets of siding outside in the rain, and let it sit there so that the water would create texture.” Putting up the siding was messy, since each sheet had to be carefully dried before installation and then covered with a water-based clear coat to prevent surface oxidation. The result, though, is a quietly mottled surface that Mihalyo says “looks like slate” and will change color over time as dark brown tones begin to appear beneath the basic steel gray. Like the circular windows that seem stolen from the airplanes flying over the house, the steel siding is an architectural element made possible on a small budget only by Han and Mihalyo doing it themselves. As Han exclaims, “Can you imagine specing this out for a contractor?”