The Context:
Jesse and Betsy searched for two years for the dump of their dreams: a dirt cheap, homely 1960s ranch house within walking distance of their kids’ neighborhood school and close enough to downtown Portland to ride bikes into work. The hope was that they could renovate it into an affordable, high-style and extremely comfortable home for their family. As an architect and fiber artist respectively, their creative vision was clear enough to wade through the endless rough and sense the glimmer of a diamond that lie deep inside that forgotten home at the end of Madeline Street.
The Response:
The house has a striking presence in a neighborhood that hasn’t seen any new construction in a few decades, but sets a quiet-colored tone with its dark stained hemlock siding and its salvaged slate base and chimney. Just past the Euro-brown entry door, the mudroom buzzes with vigor from the vivid blue wall flowing with birch plywood off-cuts/coat hooks (Credit that one to the textile expert of the family). As you turn into the living room, a sexy, curved plaster ceiling billows and heaves in all the right places to define the comfy kitchen and dining room. It quickly rises to twelve feet over the proud and sunny main living space where the custom steel fireplace surround visually locks you in. Turns out it’s worthy of such attention, being that it’s the family’s only source of heat in this amazingly energy-efficient home.
The 1,100 SF footprint was expanded to 1,900 SF on a budget of just $85 / SF. The only footprint additions were a compact 2-bedroom volume upstairs for the kids, and the refinished breezeway, now part of the heated envelope.