COMPACT & SURPRISING
 

	Much of this compact Whidbey Island home focuses living, dining and cooking in the great room.

Whidbey Island
Architects: John DeForest and Lydia Marshall of DeForest Ogden Design Office
Builder: Kamera/Gilles Carpentry
Construction cost/size: $306,000/1,235 square feet; one bedroom, one bath

The intent: To fulfill fabric expert Linda Beeman's request for a house that's "an homage to antique textiles, to be eccentric and have a lot of visual surprises." The architects took pains to site the house along the five-acre property's natural pathways, which loop in and out of light and forest on South Whidbey Island. The house itself is compact and multifunctional: one story, one bedroom, one bath, an open living/dining/kitchen area and an entry closet that (thanks to a stacked washer and dryer) also functions as the laundry room. The architects also purposely gave Beeman dark living spaces (to preserve her antique textiles) as well as light-filled areas in which to escape winter's gloom.
 

A metal roof and fiber-cement siding were two of the money-saving materials that helped keep the home's cost down.