After working on a few house flips for a real estate firm, architectural designer Grey Shaeffer was looking for a new creative outlet—and she found it in her own backyard. In 2018, the designer started drawing plans for an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) and office to be built behind her home in Portland, Oregon.

The project offered the opportunity to play with materials that she’d long admired—“materials that I would love to have used on a number of projects, but because of financial and other constraints, it wasn’t a possibility,” says Grey. “The project is small, but it incorporates a lot of thoughtful details and quality materials.”

Grey positioned the 360-square-foot ADU at the rear of the property. At just 12 by 30 feet, the interior floor plan was kept simple—the entry opens to an eating/dining area, which is flanked by a bathroom on one side, and a bedroom on the other.

The flooring in the living room and bedroom is Oregon Lumber’s Worthwood Solid End Grain, which is made from recycled Pacific Northwest woods and sawn-cut lumber. “A lot of people use it in commercial applications, but I thought the longevity and warmth of it made it really nice,” says Grey. “I didn't find it to be that much more expensive than other flooring—It was a little over $13 a square foot, and it was already pre-finished, so I just kind of laid it down in place.”

Efficiency was key, and Grey made sure to incorporate plenty of storage, while keeping other uses in mind. “The kitchen countertops are higher than average, so that they can also be used as a standing desk,” says Grey. “And then I have a six-foot-long closet in the bedroom—sliding doors reveal a little desk/work nook.”

High-quality, tactile finishes give the interior an organic yet pared-down feel. For the kitchen backsplash and counters, Grey applied unglazed stone tile from Japan. “It’s this really beautiful handmade tile, in an almost raw style,” says Grey. The designer matched it in the bathroom with Ohio-based Seneca Tiles’ Quarry Pavers, which are cut one at a time to celebrate the handmade process.

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Grey DIY’ed the finishing touches. In addition to selecting the right patina for the bathroom fixtures, she built the dining table, stained and finished the CVG Douglas fir cabinets, and sewed the leather drawer pulls.

“I have such a hard time with drawer pulls, because I always think they make a space feel busier than it needs to be,” says Grey. She wanted these pulls, cut from leather strops used to sharpen razor blades, to be integrated seamlessly with the cabinetry. The leather is mounted flush to the cabinet doors and drawer edges, “so there’s nothing sticking out where it doesn’t need to be,” says Grey.

A separate building—a tiny tree house office—marks the realization of another long-held dream. “I’d always wanted a tree house back there,” says Grey. “When I first started studying architecture, before I even went to architecture school, I went to the World Treehouse Association conference down in Takilma, Oregon, at the Out ‘n’ About Treehouse Treesort.”

While, pre-pandemic, the ADU proved to be a wonderful spot for Grey’s mom and guests to stay, the project’s most surprising result has been the effect of the new buildings on the yard between them.

“It almost creates a courtyard in the backyard, with this nice green zone in the middle, which feels very protected from the neighbors,” says Grey. The entire lot is the standard Portland size, just 5,000 square feet in total. “We have no driveway, so just that little bit of yard was so important to protect and envelop, to make like a little nest.”

Related Reading:

Why Now, More Than Ever, the ADU Is the Future of Home

16 Unbelievable Tree Houses We’re Pining Over

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Dave Spitzer & Kendra Shippy, DMS Architects

Architectural Design + Interiors: Willa Work / @willa.work

Builder: Thomas Juon

Structural Engineer: Archer Engineering

Photo Stylist: Laura Housgard

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A Portland Designer Revamps Her Backyard With a Peaceful ADU and a Tiny Tree House