House: additions

A pergola tacked onto the rear facade darkened the home's interior, and the indoor/outdoor connection was disjointed.

A dated brick pattern lay under the pergola.

Luc gets creative in the tearoom, which includes a small play area for the children. The walls of the space exemplify the simplicity of the new structures: Electrical and lighting components are run through the ceiling and floor, leaving many exterior walls unencumbered and free to hold floor-to-ceiling windows. On the raised platform is a Soleil lounge chair by Emu.

Located on the second floor, the living room hovers above the lower deck.

The south-facing facade looks out towards the forest.

A rear deck is nestled behind the central cabin, flanked by the sleeping quarters. Inside, the dining table sits beneath a single hanging lamp.

Before the renovation, the attic was a cramped, cluttered space—a feeling reinforced by the presence of a brick chimney that was later demolished and the relatively low 7.2-foot ceilings.

In the master bedroom, a small, cramped closet was replaced with a wardrobe that is partially obscured by a slatted wooden screen that was built by Metalworks & Design Studio of Seattle. "The idea was you see through it, so in a sense it doesn't feel like a small space," Smith says.

In the master bathroom, the Smiths worked with a Boston-based company, Artaic, on the mosaic tile.

An added benefit of installing the skylights was adding headroom over the day beds, Smith says.

Smith designed the custom cabinets, which were fashioned from medium-density fiberboard with a white lacquer finish. There are three drawer heights. "The faces are consistent but some, when you open them up, are triple-height," Smith says. "So that helps with things that are really large, like sleeping bags or camping stuff or whatever. They're three feet deep, so it goes into the knee wall, which is really handy. So you get lots and lots of storage."

Bamboo flooring and custom built-ins—fashioned from medium-density fiberboard with a white-lacquer finish—brightened Gavin and Sheila Smith’s 650-square-foot attic. Gavin Smith designed the blackened-steel balustrade, which has cable inserts and a walnut handrail.

“We could lift up very easily the walls, the fittings, the shelves, the light fixtures, everything. You couldn’t have made this with wood or even steel.” —Peter Rose, architect

The bungalow before the renovation.

The addition, which has cypress paneling and a metal roof, is united with the renovated 1920s bungalow via a glass pavilion.

Use your imagination. A Portland architect went for the "ugly duckling" house that wouldn't sell (a plain Jane ranch house in the leafy enclave of West Hills), saying, "A tight budget forces you to look at things you normally wouldn’t, and use your money in more creative ways. We bought the smallest, cheapest house in a nice neighborhood and turned it into this funked-up modernist thing by creating a workable composition while keeping as much of the original as possible. We couldn’t have gotten the total package we ended up with otherwise.”

The dramatic curving glass of the second floor addition quickly recalls the original first floor's rounded edge; streamlined curves such as these are a defining characteristic of Art Moderne architecture. PPG IdeaScapes supplied the curved glass itself.