New House, Old House

When I started this blog we were planning a new house to be built alongside the old one that we live in now. I originally thought we would just remodel the old house, but it is as unique as it is uncomfortable and when I realized that it would have to be changed completely if we brought it up to the building code, I embraced the idea of new construction. We decided we would keep the old house as studio and workshop and so the new house would not need to be very large. It should harmonize with the old house and most importantly, respect and enhance it's setting. This was over three years ago. I imagined using the blog to document the construction process, but found from the very beginning that it was just too scary to talk about. I love this place so much that no decision can be taken lightly. Also, I feel like I might be pushing my luck, reaching too far beyond the already amazing circumstance of living here at all. Still, spending the foreseeable future in the old house as it is wasn't going to fly, so we took a deep breath and began. Now that the new house is almost done I can finally talk about it.

We placed it on a ridge of rock facing south to the semi-open meadow out front and the wooded ravine in back. It is V shaped, with two rectangles set at an angle to each other, each with part shed, part gable roofs. The shed roofs have clerestory windows to scoop as much sunlight as possible into the interiors. Also, they mirror the roofline of the old house, so that both structures are related. The new house looks big and complicated in the drawings, but in life it is fairly straightforward. It is about 2000 square feet.

Mike slipped on a rock at the beach this fall, smashing his glasses, chipping a tooth and completely obliterating my beautiful camera, so I am reaching back for old photos of the house and other things until I can take new ones again. These are the sketches the architect drew when we were in the initial planning stages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Genny Stutesman]

I like the way your architect draws trees, hehe. Anyway, did you also plan on renovating the old house? Its value would increase, and that would be helpful if you ever decide to sell it! But I don't think you wanna sell it, do you? You left the house that way; it means that it has a sentimental value to you.

[Dana]

Yes, we need to do some work to the old house just to keep it from disintegrating. When we moved into the new house, the storage unit got emptied into the old one. We are just now getting all that stuff sorted and disposed of or stored. When the floors are visible again we'll start thinking about what we need to do. I do love the old house the way it is. It is truly unique.

[Richelle Jelsma]

What's the progress now Dana? I can tell how you love the old house. Genny would probably ask this now… what made your old house unique? Hehe, I started it for her. :D

[Dana]

Slowly, slowly I have reamed out the stuff from storage and moved my textile paraphenalia into the old living room and kitchen. Mike is making an old dresser and some plywood into a work table for me so my studio is almost functional. The old house was built as a studio by an art professor from the University of Washington in the early forties. It began as a flat-roofed box with floor to ceiling sliding glass doors on three sides. The fourth wall was a rock fireplace. For its time it was very avant garde, modelled I think after Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian houses, but built by the professor (Ruth Penington)and her father. After Ruth retired in 1970 she added a bedroom at one end, reached by stairs that are poured against the raw rock of the island. Ivy grows inside. On the other end she added a large living room, another bathroom and a tiny guest room. All the additions climb and follow the contour of the hill and have nearly flat rooflines and generous overhangs. Every room looks out across the rocky meadow to the water. It is a wonderful house.