Featured Homes

Modern Urban Living

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 16:45:00 -0800

Swan Paik’s Pearl District penthouse’s brick-lined walls stretch two stories high, with sightlines through 10-foot windows that draw in the twinkling buildings outside like part of the furniture. It’s a lovely setting, but hardly a cozy domestic tableau. When Paik, a director at Nike, bought the place 11 years ago, it was fine. She yearned for the feel of her hometown of New York, she says, for “an old industrial warehouse converted to living space.”

Soon after moving in, Paik became pregnant with Grace, and in the tradition of her Korean background, Paik’s mother, Isabelle, retired from New York City to help raise the baby. Though Isabelle was no stranger to urban living, the 1,900-square-foot one-bedroom loft’s open floorplan felt odd. “When I first got here, I asked, ‘How can you live in such a big space, or sleep without closing a door?’” she recalls. To create some privacy, Paik got a handy uncle to build two small bedrooms, one atop the other. Tucked into the back of the living room, with frosted plexiglass sliding doors, this box served as sleeping quarters for Isabelle and Grace.

Image: Lincoln Barbour

The renovated downstairs apartment creates a series of intimate spaces that gracefully intersect, from Isabelle’s “jewel box” of a bedroom (above) to Grace’s colorful kid space (left) to the shared office and dining spaces (right) that connect the bedrooms.

In the years since, the three generations lived happily under the one soaring ceiling. But with Grace, now 9, growing up and the addition of Paik’s partner, Rod Ewald, to the household, they needed more space. So Paik bought the 1,200-square-foot rental apartment below theirs and tapped Portland firm Dangermond Keane Architecture to create sophisticated new quarters for Grace and Isabelle while still keeping the feeling of one family together.

Isabelle and Grace are close: Grace calls her grandmother “Mama” and her mother “Mommy.” So the question became, says Christopher Keane, a principal at the firm, “How do we create a space where Isabelle is in the center that also allows Grace to have free rein?” At the same time, the architects didn’t want to ruin the grand volume by chopping it up with walls.

Image: Lincoln Barbour, Stuart Mullenberg

An elevator (bottom right, Barbour) lets Isabelle and Grace whisk from their modernist surroundings downstairs (top right, Barbour) to the main family space upstairs (left, Mullenberg), where Grace’s paintings, projects, and games decorate the loft.

The solution is both original and elegant. “What we ended up with is a jewel box for Isabelle that everything revolves around,” Keane says. The grandmother’s bedroom is set in the middle of the new space, slightly offset to preserve views of outside, with a lowered ceiling and intimate dimensions. Walnut steps lead to an interior balcony set directly above Isabelle’s room, which shares a wall with Grace’s bedroom at the back of the loft. A small sitting room, kitchen, and dining room fill out the rest.

“The space is active and kinetic, like a kid, while also being refined and thoughtful, like someone of Isabelle’s age,” Keane says. Though there are few walls, sliding doors and windows allow Grace and Isabelle to completely open up the space, or they can pull them closed for privacy. The palette is modern and minimal, with white walls, natural woods, and exposed brick surfaces. And as Paik notes with a laugh, “Grace fills a space with her personality, so that’s a lot of color right there.”

Connected to the rest of the house by an elevator, the new downstairs has become a natural extension of Paik’s original loft. Once a kind of stylish urban bachelorette pad, the home now revolves around family. On a winter night, Grace appears upstairs to join her mother for a lively round of Monopoly. Spicy hints of kimchi and Korean chapchae waft through the open space, and Isabelle floats between the kitchen and the game while Ewald strums one of his guitars from a perch on the couch. “We wanted a place where we could work and play and not be separate,” Paik says. “This was our opportunity to acquire more space and create something unique in the Pearl—and still all feel harmonious.”

Slide Show: Life Style Wish List

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:59:00 -0800

Ideas for an accessible home. Modern furniture for your modern home.

Back To Basics

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 10:09:00 -0700

Image: Lincoln Barbour

The pale blue Victorian holds a lifetime of Vicki Simon and Tim Cohrs’s treasures in light-filled and lofty remodeled rooms.

Wish List:
Restoring a Victorian home with recycled materials

The story of this house starts with its wood floors. Small dents betray dropped tools. Unfilled cracks run along its surface, and patched-together planks are reminders of rotted-out boards, too old to rescue. Despite the scratches and dings, the richness of the Doug fir glows as warmly as it did when the home was built in 1908—and Vicki Simon and Tim Cohrs wear that weathered past with pride. “I have a lot of respect for the original integrity of the architecture,” says Simon, an interior designer. “I like a story and a history.”

When the couple bought the 916-square-foot home in the Kenton neighborhood a year and a half ago, the flooring was hidden under a layer of marmoleum and walls and doorways were finished with off-the-shelf materials. “There was nothing historically accurate,” Simon says. Given her well-trained eye, she immediately recognized the potential of the home’s high ceilings and open layout. “As soon as I set foot in the house, I was in love,” she says. “I had a vision for it.”

Image: Lincoln Barbour

Simon put an ad on Craigslist for a “master craftsman who wanted to work with me every day to restore the place.” She got 70 responses and chose Rick Christianson and Adan Sotelo, “the perfect pair of carpenters who really cared about the job,” she says.

Over 10 months of remodeling completed last winter, Simon painstakingly reworked every inch of the house while she scoured local salvage shops for material. (Cohrs, a creative advertising director, tackled painting throughout, but otherwise left the interior to his wife in favor of claiming the garden.) Simon directed her team to heighten the doorways by almost two feet, and they replaced the base moldings with taller custom millwork to add a lofty sense of interior space. Simon found bits of discarded Victorian trim, and the carpenters pieced them together to surround all the doors. She replaced shiny chrome fixtures with old copper pipes and antique brass fittings, and dug up switchplate covers, door locks, and towel racks from stores like the Rebuilding Center, Hippo Hardware, and Aurora Mills Architectural Salvage.

Image: Lincoln Barbour

From the punctuation of the aqua towels and sink in the bathroom to drapery rods found at a flea market, everything in the house was hand-picked. Paintings by Simon, her mother, and her son, Tate, round out the personal mix.

“My motto is a quote from the book Pippi Longstocking: ‘The world is full of things, but somebody has to look for them,’” Simon says. “My house is pretty much the result of a lifetime of collecting.” She and Cohrs found their teak kitchen chairs while honeymooning in Bali. They picked up an old wooden tortilla roller on a visit to Santa Fe and unearthed ancient scrolled drapery rods at a Washougal flea market. Simon’s mother’s paintings hang on the walls alongside sketches created over the years by the couple’s now-teenage son, Tate, and oils Simon painted herself.

Despite its modest size, the house lives large. A clean color palette provides a quiet backdrop, and furniture reaches for the 10-foot ceilings rather than sprawling across the floors. Cohrs’s domain, an expansive garden of lush clematis threading its way around paper-white birch trees, also helps to extend the living area. “It’s not over-gingerbreaded,” says Simon. “It’s a clean, modern take on a Victorian.” Indeed, it’s a carefully curated but entirely relaxed home, with memories in every corner. “My style is about respecting the integrity of the architecture, while adding subtle sophistication,” explains Simon, looking around her home with a smile.

Image: Lincoln Barbour

Rooms like Simon’s home office (top) and the kitchen (left) come off as effortlessly harmonious. But look closely, and the meticulous attention to detail emerges—like the hand-painted, striped walls in the vestibule that could be mistaken for wallpaper.

Slide Show: Breaking Tradition

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 12:00:00 -0700

A SUNNY WINK of a front door punctuates the cool gray face of Risa Boyer Leritz and Nick Leritz’s home. Fronds of black mondo grass and a sleek concrete path usher visitors past a vivid orange table and chairs. Inside, a sense of serene elegance finished with a flash of color continues with sly pops of chartreuse and fuchsia set against a backdrop of neutral tones,...

Period Perfect

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:00:00 -0700

Image: Lincoln Barbour

The wraparound porch and two-story corner tower are hallmarks of the Queen Anne architectural style. The deep green of the exterior reflects the Victorian love of nature.

Image: Lincoln Barbour

Heavy, hand-stitched velvet curtains usher guests into the blue-accented dining room. “The color blue was supposed to aid with digestion,” says Audry.

EVERY 15 MINUTES, one of Audry and Chris Bond’s five antique clocks chimes its deep, sonorous tones throughout their home. In the corner of their foyer, a fox fur stole drapes lazily over a coatrack, and flickering electric lamps illuminate the pathway to the living room. Portraits of long-dead strangers framed in gilt hang from tasseled ropes, surrounding the kitchen’s 745-pound cast-iron stove that dates to 1899. Indeed, everything in this 1906 Queen Anne Victorian’s details harks back to a bygone time—even the ghosts. “Various people haunt the house,” Audry says. “We have cats and a turn-of-the-century nurse and a young man in his 20s. Every night, at 4 a.m., someone goes up the steps and past the bedroom.”

The Bonds weren’t always antique aficionados—nor were they friends of ghosts. In fact, Audry had to be talked into buying the home. “I hated it at first,” she says bluntly. When they were house hunting, her dream was a larger version of the 1927 Spanish Colonial–style home they were selling, but the price was right and the neighborhood (just off of SE Belmont Street) was appealing. They also appreciated the fact that little of the Victorian’s architecture and layout had been altered, leaving them with a well-preserved slice of time to work with.

Though the kitchen had been remodeled in a tacky, ’70s style and all the woodwork was painted white, everything else was original to the 1,800-square-foot home. “We’re the 17th owners of the house,” Audry explains. “At one time, it was owned by a church to rent for a dollar to poor families.” But the first week in their new home, Audry ripped down the vinyl floral wallpaper from the living room walls, and immediately realized the potential of the space. “I started seeing the beauty of the wood and understanding what this house means in terms of Portland history,” she says. “It just has so much character.”

Image: Lincoln Barbour

The Bonds’ living room is a perfect example of Victorian style, with its layered textiles, rich colors, and antique furnishings, like the upright piano made of rare Cuban mahogany.

They gave away their furniture—Scandinavian contemporary pieces in pastels—and started anew. Neither Audry nor Chris had any background in historical renovations other than a passing interest in antiques, but they immersed themselves in Victoriana. “We’re both meticulous people,” says Chris. “So we didn’t want reproductions; we wanted the real deal.” The couple spent weekends trolling vintage stores and poring over photos in books about designers of the early 1900s, like Charles Eastlake, Christopher Dresser, and William Morris.

“Layering objects and furniture on top of each other was very common then,” Audry says. Also popular: “heavy, dark, saturated colors, and materials like velvets and damasks, and wallpaper on the walls and ceilings.” Things weren’t just pretty; they were also practical in the early 1900s, when people didn’t have space or money to waste. “The Victorians were the original recyclers,” says Chris—hence the quilts made of repurposed scraps of fabric, the heavy wood furniture built to last generations, and even framed art made out of human hair next to their piano.

Image: Lincoln Barbour

From public spaces like the entryway to the more intimate collections of pipes and first-edition books, everything in the Bonds’ home is an immaculate reflection of Victorian tastes.

The living room is a perfect microcosm of the era’s aesthetics: papered in hand-silkscreened wallpaper by Bradbury and Bradbury, with antique-style lighting that provides a dim, flickering effect. A cross-stitched cover on top of a corner chair acts as an antimacassar, protecting the fabric from pomaded (or in modern parlance, gelled) hair, while showing off a lady’s embroidery skills. Even a vase of orchids and framed family photos are indicative of that era. Audry, a talented seamstress, loves the tactility and texture of Victorian decorating, so she sewed pillows and curtains throughout the home.

Still, subtle hints of modern life do creep into the house. Audry and Chris work outside the home—he’s a consultant at PGE, and she works in accounts receivable. Though she sews and collects first editions of classics, and he enjoys smoking pipes, he also plays in three bands, and she practices yoga. Modern conveniences are hidden in the house, from a small Bose stereo to whole-house air conditioning to a Miele refrigerator tucked behind wood paneling in the remodeled kitchen.

The overall vision is nonetheless one of immaculate attention to Victorian style, of which the couple is justly proud. Unlike those who treat their period homes as museums, “we really do live here and use everything,” says Chris. “We still have modern amenities, but it’s a period restoration, and the Victorian feel makes it more fun.”

Image: Lincoln Barbour

LEFT: The recently remodeled kitchen shows off the period copper hot water tank and a massive stove while hiding a dishwasher and fridge behind custom wood. cabinetry.

RIGHT: Even modern-day conveniences, such as the telephone (outfitted with voicemail) and a no-soliciting sign out front, are antiques.

Ocean Theater

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:00:00 -0700

Image: Bruce Wolf

FORMER PRO BASKETBALL player Dennis Awtrey lived in (and played for) Philadelphia, Chicago, Phoenix, Boston, Seattle, and Portland. But it took only a couple of visits to the Oregon Coast to persuade him and wife Peggy to move there—specifically, to the quiet beach town of Neahkahnie. As the couple searched for just the right house to accommodate Dennis’s retirement, their frequent entertaining, and Peggy’s paralegal telecommuting, they instead found a lot that Dennis still sighs over when he recalls seeing it for the first time: a tiny shelf on the plunging slopes of Neahkahnie Mountain.

The Awtreys’ lot can be found in the brushwork of many a painting of the mountain by Oregon artists. In the 1910s, when Portlanders could hop a train from downtown bound for the coast, Neahkahnie and Manzanita became a magnet for Stumptown’s emerging culturati. Portland Art Museum’s director, Annabelle Crocker, had a house, as did Multnomah County library director Mary Frances Isom (which library employees can still sign up to use). Portland’s then-most-important architect, A.E. Doyle, designed a studio/house for prominent artist/teacher Harry Wentz just steps away from the Awtreys’ lot. It became a key inspiration to a young Pietro Belluschi and John Yeon, who hatched the Northwest Regional style of architecture.

Image: Bruce Wolf

The shared living space for the Awtreys and their guests.

The Awtreys knew little of that history. But the site and simple grace of Manzanita and Neahkahnie inspired them both to build a bed-and-breakfast and to think carefully about who should design it. A glimpse of a Lopez Island house overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Sunset magazine fostered another dream: hiring its architect, James Cutler of the Bainbridge Island–based Cutler Anderson Architects. But given his résumé (Cutler is widely known as a codesigner of Bill Gates’s Medina, Washington, compound, plus other iconic homes in places as diverse as the Napa Valley, Majorca, and Australia), they dismissed the idea—until a friend encouraged them to try. One phone call and one transfer later, and Jim Cutler was on the line.

Image: Bruce Wolf

The Awtreys in their den.

From famed houses to über-sustainable Seattle public library branches to the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building now under construction in downtown Portland (a major remodeling of an office high-rise he has led in collaboration with Sera Architects), Cutler’s designs aren’t driven by style; they’re all about site. The Awtreys’ land instantly captivated him, too, with its views of the gently curving beach to the south, the deep ocean horizon to the west, and local surfing hot spot Smuggler’s Cove to the north.

“That place is ferocious,” Cutler says of the wind and rain that can pummel the cliffs. But the steepness, he quickly concluded, allowed for a house completely protected from neighboring properties. “It had the potential for spectacular intimacy with the ocean,” he says.

Image: Randy Gragg

Neahkahnie Mountain

The Awtreys wanted their B&B to offer plenty of openness when rooms were filled with visiting family or guests who wanted to socialize, but privacy for visitors who craved it. For Cutler, a key driver was transforming the brutal weather into “entertainment” by making a setting so safe and solid it wouldn’t even so much as creak in the wind. “You want a building that feels like it’s really dug in,” he says, “so you can feel warm and comfortable and actually enjoy the storms.”

Cutler’s solution is as rugged as it is simple: five stout concrete walls that divide the building into zones—two B&B units, the entertaining/dining rooms, and the more private complex of kitchen, den, and master suite. Every other feature of the house is articulated in little more than wood and glass, creating a transparency that allows views to the ocean from almost every room. A low-pitched metal roof slopes toward the sea, as Cutler describes it, “like a baseball hat pulled down to protect your face from the rain,” with the only break being one dormer, rising like another brim for the master suite’s ocean view.

{page break}

Image: Bruce Wolf

The master suite enjoys spectacular views of both the ocean and a creek below.

As with all Cutler designs, the grace lies in the procession into and through the house. The entry path from the parking area to both the B&B units and the front door is pulled back from the cliff edge, so the ocean can only be heard. When the landscape matures, the entry will be tunnel-like, with lush ferns at foot and tree bows overhead. The foyer is so small it feels almost pinched. But turn the corner into the main rooms, and the view explodes. So, too, with the cleverly designed B&B units, where the suites offer their expansive vistas both from the bed, and, if the bathroom’s shutters are flung open, from a two-person soaking tub.

Image: Bruce Wolf

Cutler’s “compression” of the entryway, which leads to the “expansion” of the views.

Cutler believes no feature is too large or small for painstaking consideration or to be fully revealed. The roof’s exposed eaves reveal intricately cut truss ends held in place by galvanized pipes. The drywall is pulled back from the ceiling and floor to expose the finished studs behind. The door levers are a smooth laminate of brushed steel and wood specially manufactured by Reveal Designs in partnership with Cutler. The concrete walls—board-formed with eight-inch rough planks in tan and green tints added to the mix—are almost entirely visible, inside and out. Both rugged and warm, Cutler notes, “The concrete shows that human hands made it.”

Surprisingly, despite all his tony landmark commissions, Cutler says he takes 90 percent of the house commissions offered him. “The clients who call,” he says, “generally know our principles. The budgets can range from “the millions to $500,000.” The smaller square footages (the Autreys’ was only 3,100 with the two B&B units), he adds, are “way more fun, because they can be more lyrical.”

The Awtreys chuckle that they “had no understanding of how radically different this house was.” Dennis recalls an early epiphany when he realized the contractor had to sort through hundreds of 16-foot two-by-fours to find ones that were straight and clear enough to look good exposed. Peggy remembers sending the architect worried interrogations about details she didn’t like after visits during construction. Cutler’s friendly reply: “Don’t worry. It’s going to look great.”

Image: Bruce Wolf

Glass interior walls keep the house open and airy.

Dennis’s high-design appetite had always been for cars: a Porsche Carrera RS and a trio of Ferraris—a 1971 Daytona Spyder, a 1958 250 GT, and a 1967 330 GTC. With unexpected delays due to B&B permitting, unplanned costs for stabilizing the hillside, and their original contractor going bankrupt during the recession (Dennis himself oversaw the B&B’s final phase), he quips that he traded in the cars for the house. “Your life has different phases,” he shrugs, describing a typical day of watching storms passing, eagles soaring at eye level, and deer sipping at the adjacent creek. The B&B, the Awtreys say, is a good way to combat the coast’s isolation, and also an opportunity to share.

“There’s only one other place in the world you can stay in a Jim Cutler design,” he says with a grin, “and that’s in Ketchikan, Alaska.”

For more information on the Awtrey House bed-and-breakfast, visit awtreyhouse.com.

High Craft High Rise

Photo: Courtesy SERA Architects

FOR THE EDITH Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, now under reconstruction in downtown Portland, James Cutler applied a similarly bold, meticulous approach to form and craft as he did in the Awtrey B&B. Working with Portland’s Sera Architects and the world-renowned Portland-based curtain wall manufacturer Benson Industries, Cutler developed the building’s curving, cantilevering, west-facing sunshades. Designed to block more than 50 percent of the building’s solar heat gain, the simple, square “reeds” are arrayed into seven repeating patterns for a random, organic feel. A mix of evergreen vines—among them, Silver Vein Creeper, Chocolate Vine, and Madison’s Star Jasmine—will climb as high as 40 feet to, as Cutler describes it, “wed the building to the ground.”

The same board-formed concrete Cutler used to such striking effect in the Awtreys’ home will appear at the base of the building and in the plaza. Cutaways of the old concrete floors will send daylight streaming between the original giant beams into the gym, meeting rooms, and dining hall in the basement.

“It’s a remodel,” Cutler says matter-of-factly. “We’re exposing the work of the people who made it—the sense of history and time and humanity.”

Slide Show: Life Style

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:00:00 -0800

ON THE INDUSTRIAL EDGE of the Pearl District, Kenton McSween and Marywynn Ryan’s condo is the picture of urbane elegance. A crimson chandelier of entwined antlers twirls in the air above the white marble top of a Saarinen tulip table. Antique wood-framed mirrors catch the fading light, as do a pair of cats stretching ou...

Slide Show: Urban Escape

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:00:00 -0700

A SHORT STROLL FROM ONE OF Southwest Portland’s particularly chaotic collisions of chain stores, a quaint road winds into a quiet forest of green. Ash, fir, pine, and maple trees weave together into a dense canopy with fern fronds below. “It’s amazing,” says Chris Hotz...

Rich Living

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:31:00 -0700

Image: Lincoln Barbour

From the outside, the Clinton Condominiums is a streamlined building wrapped in Cor-Ten steel and walls of glass. On the inside, the condos are simple, walnut-floored white boxes, gleaming with sunlight flowing through oversize windows. Sparse and bright, designed by local wunderkinds Holst Architecture, they’re the ultimate in urban loft living. But when Andy Ricker moved in, he wanted to infuse some personality into his place—to make it a little less predictable. “You’re in this big modern space, and you’re going to have all this modern furniture?” he says. “Plus, everybody’s got the same shit—it’s too much.”

The widely acclaimed restaurateur behind Pok Pok, Ping, Whiskey Soda Lounge, and, most recently, Pok Pok Noi, Ricker had been living across town in a 450-square-foot condo with a nearby freeway and juvenile detention center as its backdrop. “I bought the place over there to be farther away from Pok Pok, because I felt like it was consuming my life,” he says, continuing with a laugh, “and it was. But then I realized I don’t really have a life.” So he gave in to the inevitable, and bought this condo on SE 26th Avenue and Division Street, just six blocks from his flagship restaurant. Though he was pleased with the location and his unit’s eastern exposure, which lets him lie in bed and watch the sunrise, he had some issues with the layout. Oversize bathroom doors blocked the main entry when open, an electrical box took center stage over the bed, and the bedroom layout forced Ricker to sleep with his feet facing the windows.

Image: Lincoln Barbour

The raw edges of the kitchen are softened by the massive felt wall that Hess designed in Ricker’s bedroom, as well as by the warm glow of lights, books, and decorations scattered throughout.

A resolutely practical person, Ricker wanted his place to be easy to come home to after 12-hour days at his restaurants. To create a custom mix of functionality with his own quirky aesthetic, he turned to designer Andee Hess of local firm Osmose Design for help.

Hess and Ricker had met years before on a design project (Ricker was a professional commercial painter in a previous life) and been good friends since. A virtual nomad who travels for months at a time in Southeast Asia hunting down new recipes, Ricker made it clear that he wanted “what amounts to a really nice hotel suite—very low-maintenance and easy.” As the almost-bare cupboards attest (a glimpse inside one reveals a lone bottle of fish sauce surrounded by paper plates), Ricker’s not home all that much—nor is he fond of clutter.

{page break}

Image: Lincoln Barbour

Pinup-girl wallpaper from Flavor Paper mixed with a stainless steel sink reflects Ricker’s rock-and-roll side in the bathroom

The condo came with a galley kitchen, but Ricker brought in a massive food prep table as a dining-cum-cooking surface—perfect for either large groups of friends or a dinner alone poring over his cookbooks. Hess custom-designed and installed a wall of industrial felt in the bedroom to create layers of texture that she describes as “tactile, but sharp and masculine,” to add visual interest and insulate for sound. Where closets used to be now stand a bed and a wall of built-in bookshelves. A sometime-musician (his current band, the Quags, just cut its third album), Ricker hides his collection of guitars inside cabinets over his bed.

Since space was at a premium in the 880-square-foot studio, Hess maximized flexibility. A series of sliding screens divide spaces, revealing one large room when Ricker is by himself, but allowing for easy partitions and privacy when guests are over. Because the bed is just steps away from the kitchen, Hess created a latticework screen out of walnut ply between the rooms. The pattern, derived from Southeast Asian motifs, was laser-cut—blackened marks remain, giving off a faint whiff of burning wood, appropriate for a chef who specializes in grilled Thai street food.

Image: Lincoln Barbour

Sliding teak screens imbue the condo with the style of Thailand, while a salvaged, cut-up mirror inset on the living room wall brings in light with a vintage thrift-store feel

A white plastic cellular panel topped with painted fiberboard sheets became a slick system that screens off the bathroom and closets. Light glows through all of the screens, keeping the rooms feeling open despite the sliding dividers.

All in all, it’s an eclectic mash-up of styles: a retro, ’70s vibe mixed with an industrial aesthetic, with a little bit of Thailand tossed in. A vintage Eames shell chair sits next to a bright red industrial locker from Ikea in the bedroom. The side table in the living room was custom-made in Thailand of salvaged teak, and is surrounded by a groovy brown lounge chair found online at local store the Good Mod. Card-catalog cases hold cassette tapes from Ricker’s old bands (five and counting), and Hess dug the large metal casts over the couch (from local metal foundry ESCO) out of her friend’s shed. Ricker and Hess carefully handpicked everything; pasted prominently across the microwave, a tongue-in-cheek sticker proclaims “made to order” in Thai.

It’s a complex stew of moods, all served up in a practical manner—a fitting metaphor for Ricker’s cooking. “We accomplished something you can’t quite put your finger on; it’s not something you’d find in a style book,” Hess says. “If you have someone with a rich lifestyle in terms of stories and history, it’s really exciting to be able to extract that.”

Slide Show: Bathroom in a Box

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:00:00 -0700

SHARING A SINGLE BATHROOM among many people is a common hardship in older homes. The list of inconveniences runs long: smears of toothpaste from eager toddlers, meager medicine-cabinet space, sparse hot water for those last in the shower. Add houseguests to the mix and it’s a sure recipe for family drama. “When we bough...