new home

Cedar on the porch’s deck, walls, and ceiling provides a natural counterpoint to the addition’s corrugated black metal cladding.

The shed-roof clerestory pop-up mimics the pitch of the original home’s roofline.

The renovation updated a pair of staircases—one to the basement, one to the upper level—from their steep, unsafe angle to one that is now up to code. In the dining room, the pendant by Hans-Agne Jakobsson is from Karoline’s family cabin in Germany.

Homeowner Isaac Hase installed custom cabinetry from Wisconsin cabinetmaker Woodcraft Specialties.

Homeowner Karoline Lange’s family has been known to joke about the choice of cedar for cladding the porch. “My brother said, ‘Oh, that’s perfectly Karoline. It’s a giant sauna,” she says with a laugh. (She’s a member of the 612 Sauna Society, a mobile sauna co-op that moves around the Twin Cities.) “But that warm cedar feel and smell has such a homey, feel-good vibe.”

One renovation request, homeowner Isaac Hase says, “was having a place to drop your shoes.” At the mudroom end of a run of kitchen cabinets, you’ll find another feature the couple asked for. “We wanted to have a dedicated, visible place for our little stash of cookbooks,” Karoline says.

Despite the space’s relatively small size, its galley layout, with countertops on each side, easily accommodates multiple cooks.

Quartz countertops and two-by-eight-inch subway tile with tan grout (on the backsplash) complement the tone of the birch cabinetry and ash shelves in the kitchen.

Austin and Kotono Watanabe flew from vacation back to Minneapolis with the Noguchi lantern from Ozeki, a manufacturer in the Gifu Prefecture of Japan near Kotono’s hometown of Ibigawa, as a carry-on.

The breakfast area sits directly beneath the clerestory window pop-up, or scoop.

Keep founders Austin and Kotono Watanabe revived a compact home in Minneapolis with a dazzling kitchen, an all-electric upgrade, and a clerestory “scoop.”

Floor plan of Reynold's Road by Side Angle Side

In theory the renovated home is designed for entertaining, however at the moment the couple are so busy with their respective careers that the home hasn’t hosted many parties as of late: “We’re kicking ourselves all the time for not being more social,” says Steph. “That’s a goal of ours.”

“We designed this home so that we can be here forever,” says Steph. Accessibility features include a ramp leading to the front door and showers with small curbs. The materials selected for the deck and roof intentionally have 40-year lifespans, while gutter protectors eliminate the need for cleaning: “There will be a point where we don’t need to be on ladders cleaning out gutters,” adds Steph.

“I believe in simplicity and natural materials,” says Steph. “In our home, what really pops is our things: our furniture, art, and books. And in my [Tiny Grocer] store in the same way what really pops is our products.

“One of the early inspirations was Donald Judd,” says Arthur. “That’s not where we ended up, but there was a time when every choice was ‘What would Donald Judd do?’ and usually the answer was the most minimal thing possible.”

The steel windows were crafted by a local fabricator rather than a brand-name manufacturer to help cut down on costs.

Steph and Margaret passed on buying new furniture for the home, save for one coffee table. Consulted by their friend and interior designer Mark Ashby, that decision allowed them to spend slightly more on high-end finishes like soapstone counters, brass cabinet pulls, faucets, and tile. Overall they spent $103K on finishes, which includes drywall and painting.

$TK