Past Forward
A dowdy old box is reborn in contemporary black and white
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 BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Mike Doyle and Jill Lewis enjoy a morning coffee in the kitchen. "When we have friends over, we often eat right at the island," says Lewis. Custom cabinets surround a frosted-glass Ikea china cabinet.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES "My color baggage definitely tends to black and white, and I used red as a neutral," Lewis says. "Our love of Asian culture and design, that Chinese red is something we've always been attracted to. And people always said redheads shouldn't wear red, so I was particularly attracted."
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES The exterior is Corten steel, which rusts when exposed to weather. The patina protects the metal from further weathering. The upper surface is stucco. "Because of the building setbacks and the desire to keep a front porch, we decided to maintain that and put it upstairs as well," Lewis says. The wood screen provides privacy for the living room.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Doyle works in the home office, which cost about $350 to create. It's made of maple veneer plywood bolted together. The hallway is brightened with transom windows from Roosevelt High School. The couple got them at a second-hand building-supply store.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES "Even though having the kitchen separated from the dining room isn't the way we all live today, the house didn't just want to be that way," Lewis says. "The dining room and the beadboard surrounding it and all the trim, we couldn't imagine ripping it apart." The stairs are oak, but the fronts are translucent polycarbonate panels that glow when the basement light is turned on.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES The headboard in the master bedroom is from Interlam and is made from precut MDF architectural panels. Lewis designed the cabinet, made by Copernican Design. The fan is from G-Squared.
BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES The master bath, an ode to the Carrera marble the couple love, is an elegant display of Lewis' black-and-white palette. The sink is Porcher with Kohler fixtures. The espresso ceramic floor tiles are from Royal Mosa. |
So Architect Jill Lewis starts dating this guy in 2000. And he has this little house on Queen Anne Hill. It was old, built in 1910; two-bedroom, one-bath Craftsman. One day he says to her, "My house really needs a new roof."
Lewis, now wife of the guy, Mike Doyle, offered advice carefully. "Gradually I explained that it may unravel a little bit. That if we were scraping the roof, which we would have to do anyway, we could go straight up."
More dates were had, and plans were drawn. In 2003, six months into what became a remodel, rings were exchanged. In 2006, the beaten 1,200-square-foot box with two bedrooms and one bath became a sleek 2,400-square-foot contemporary with four bedrooms, three baths and a play room. In February 2007, their family of two became three with the birth of daughter Georgia.
It all sounds quite tidy. But it was not. Never is.
"Mike is very interested in design, and he was not a partner who said, 'Whatever you want, honey,' " Lewis says. "I did five or six traditional designs — for Mike. But they felt so insincere. I slipped in one contemporary view, and he liked it."
Like many home owners, they had a big dream and a tight budget. So the couple did much of the work themselves, figuring that helped save about $100,000 on the $400,000 remodel.
Intellectually, Lewis knew exactly what they were in for — the Lewis who is a principal architect at COOP15. Except it's different when it's your own. And you are architect, landscape designer, client and laborer.
"I hope raising a baby is easier than laying tile," Lewis says.
"I always tell clients don't try to live in the house. And we did, through most of the remodel. We were living in one bedroom. We had a microwave in there, the TV, all of our clothes. It was disgusting."
They finally did move out and soldiered on with Lewis' elegant plan for a contemporary cloak over the tattered Craftsman, one complementing the other (and the others in the neighborhood). A melding of the old and the new.
Advice to build on
Mike Doyle and Jill Lewis got the most from their budget by doing much of the work themselves. When asked for his advice on such a project, Mike Doyle had lots to say:
• Ask for advice. Contractors are very helpful. They gave us homework every weekend to move things along and help us save money.
• Buy or rent the right tools to save time and yield better results.
• Set short-term goals to work toward and then take a short break. We had an open house to celebrate "half way" and to help explain to our friends where we had been for the last nine months of weekends and to our neighbors how much longer it might be before we got to the landscaping.
• Set aside contingency funds. Expect some mistakes if you are doing things yourself. Allow time and budget to correct them.
• Caulk can be very helpful in an old house where nothing is square!
• Research, research, research. There is so much information and advice out there, as well as so many cool new products and materials that allow your product to really reflect you.
Now, the first floor is the old house — living and dining rooms, kitchen, play room, bath and guest room. The second floor — two bedrooms for kids, master suite, office and sitting area — is also contained in the old footprint, except for a bump-out landing at the top of the stairs.
The home has become a classic backdrop in white (walls) and black (stained oak floors and kitchen cabinets) "against which we introduce the pieces of modern furniture we pick up here and there," Lewis says. But the black and white is never dull, never just a blank canvas. The upstairs bath, for instance, is a showstopper with a Carrera marble counter, black floor tiles and glossy white embossed wall tiles.
The pair used Ikea as budget putty and put their big money on the features that really mattered to them. Take that Carrera, for instance. Lewis, who had worked in Italy, loves its crisp white field and black feathering. It isn't cheap or practical, and Lewis advises clients not to select it. But the couple used it in both the master bath and the kitchen.
While Lewis dreams in contemporary, Doyle, who is CFO of Expedia's Asia Pacific business, has a fondness for the past. And, so, also in this newly streamlined home with Asian accents are three old high-school transom windows. They are now hallway clerestory windows. Rusted old ceiling tins from the 1888 Mottman Building in Pioneer Square make a contemporary art piece near the office.
It was Doyle who could not bear to cart off the crumbling old fireplace. So they deconstructed it, scrubbed off the mortar and stacked the blocks for reuse.
"Mike and I have one foot in the old and one foot in the new," Lewis says.
And now, a home to match.
Rebecca Teagarden is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. Benjamin Benschneider is a magazine photographer.
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