A door to the toilet for the pleasantness of everyone involved
We met with architect Michael McNamara this week to move along the design discussion focusing on issue related to the studio/second bedroom, kitchen and bedroom.
In the following video, we are discussing issues related to the bedroom and master bathroom layout. In the next week, Michael will be starting to fill in the details here.
There was discussion of doors. Due to the design of the house, where a foot drop down to the bedroom on one side exists, we will not put a door to the bedroom, nor are we planning to have a door to the clothes closet and shower area. It will just be the water closet (toilet) area that will have a door for what Michael refers to as “for the pleasantness of everyone involved.” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Further updates… the plan now is to clear the land in the next month. This will be a radical change to both the lot we are building on but also the lot of the house we are living in right now which is adjacent to the empty lot. Some trees that were planted 40 years ago as small “shrub” plants are now 60 feet tall. Many will be coming down. It’s going to feel very different and be a mess for a little while.
Stay tuned.
NOTE: if you’d like to see images of a house Michael McNamara of Blue Sky Design recently completed on San Juan Island, Washington, you can see them at this link.
Our living room in 1971
This photo is of me, burning grass on the exact spot where the living room of our new house will sit.
What’s 40 years?
Nighty-night: The Perfect Bedroom
By Darren Bond
What shall we say of the bedroom? By which I mean the master bedroom. Really, the second bedroom will come a bit later. It has a different function.
Wanting a new bed to replace a couple of aging mattresses, we recently took the opportunity while moving to get a new one. Does anyone not buy a king-size anymore if they have the space? We’ll need the space: Kepler, our Schnauzer, innocently pushes me to the edge as it is.
View or no view? It doesn’t seem such a priority and so if there are tradeoffs in layout, this room can be where the light is least and a garden is just out the window.
I personally need the room to be wide enough that changing the fitted sheet can be accomplished without banging my hand on the side table.
TV in the room? I don’t think so.
Chairs for reading on a dark and stormy night? Perhaps. John likes this notion. Me, not so much, but that’s perhaps something that will change when I’m not staggering to bed like a corporate zombie and will find that fiction is a source of joy once again. What would this little space look like? A corner nook?
Closets: not needing suits means less-required space. And, I don’t want to have it look like my parents’ bedroom closet with seemingly every blouse and shirt ever bought stuffed ever tighter, just in case… (what?)
Still, we have always enjoyed the supreme organizational simplicity of a California Closet for pants, shirts, socks, belts, etc. “A place for everything and everything in its place.”
Winter clothes can possibly be kept in the second bedroom, so it needs to have the extra storage space to handle the seasonal runway attire. Extra blankets can be kept there, too.
En suite bathroom: yes. It doesn’t need to be more than a shower rather than a tub. We saw a cool one without the need for a shower door in Barcelona and there was kind of invisible drain.
So, all in all, this can be a quiet, unassuming room.
Thoughts, anyone?
I Have Always Wanted To Live In My Own House
By John McLachlan
In my post Ten Romantic Reasons For Living Out Beyond the seventh reason I gave was that I’d always wanted my own house.
I grew up in a house in the suburbs. I liked it. It had a great back yard that included a creek and a forested area. I would play for hours there. When I grew up I started living in condos which have been, in general, quite good but my fondness for them is coming to an end.
One thing I don’t like about living in a condominium is the communal aspect. Even in nicer buildings it’s amazing to see how some people treat their (our) property. Also, it seems like eventually, things get run down and it’s not so easy to get consensus for repair. Other issues include sound from other suites and the general din of living in an urban setting.
This may sound like I’m contradicting my headline for this post, but for years, I’ve never had the desire to have a house of my own. The primary reasons have been that I didn’t want to care for a house (a lot more is involved than in an apartment) and I didn’t want to live in a suburb where most houses are. Additional reasons are that it is extremely difficult to get a house design I like in a neighbourhood I like in a price range that I like.
I have however, always wanted to have a house designed with custom features and built from scratch. I’ve rolled this idea around in my head for years but always gave up on it due to cost and location.
The situation has changed. Due to a shift in priorities as a result of age, for one thing, and the ability to now work from a more remote area—for both me and my partner, Darren—and the gift my parents gave to us of a piece of property they bought back in 1969, it’s now possible.
Essentially, we’re ready.
We will be building a small but unique house designed by local architect Michael McNamara that will fit in with the landscape, be quite “green” and be built by his building partner, Tim Wyndham whom I’ve known since I was a child.
Once we’ve moved in, it will be an adjustment for us to be looking after a house. We won’t be able to simply shut the door and go away, but I think it’s going to be worth having something we love living in as we are living out beyond.
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Image above is of Darren Bond looking at a doll’s house designed by our architect, Michael McNamara for a fundraiser on Hornby Island, British Columbia in 2010.
The Perfect Living Room
John's parent's living room in their first house after getting married in 1950
By Darren Bond
Ah, the centrepiece of the home: you need to get this right or there’s no point in going on.
Let’s see. What do experts say.
Too big and people avoid a room. They want something more intimate. Too small and you can’t have company over. Is it part of a single open kitchen/dining/living area? What about a working space/office: is it part of this or separate?
Numerically, we’re thinking that it should sit six comfortably with some room to add in extra chairs when the Christmas crowd is over.
Clearly, the view plays a central role and so the exposure to the water is important. We won’t be right on the water, but just up a slope and will be able to see above and between two summer homes.
A patio or a deck or a verandah? It depends how high up in the air it is. Since we’re on a hill it remains to be seen how the overall placement of the house turns out. Given the amphitheatre / bowl shape to the property, there could be the intriguing placement of rooms at slightly different levels (but then we’re dealing with the dreaded issues of stairs, again).
Assuming some space outside beyond the living room, how big should it be? How many people should it support? Is there where the BBQ should be, or is that perhaps better placed closer to the kitchen? Presumably Michael McNamara will have the appropriate proportions for all this. Even in the summer here, there can be a slightly chilly breeze coming in off the water, so some kind of windbreak would be nice, although we think an area in the back may help serve the purpose for having a protected area for entertaining depending on the direction of the wind.
Window treatments is a puzzlement; an overhang help protect from direct light but makes it bit darker than desirable in the winter months. Awnings are quite a rarity but perhaps they have their place. We’ve seen retractable models in magazines but that seems like overkill and possibly out of our price range.
I want a piano and acoustically the room needs to be able to take it to avoid people having to resort to pillows to muffle the forte bits. Maybe I’ll give recitals (after I’ve practiced for a few years to try to recover any technique I once had). John can serve hors d’oeuvres and chilled martinis. Will the assembled guests spill out onto the deck? Will they spill on the carpet?
The ceiling could well be somewhat domed given the kind of curved “green” roofs that Michael often does. This would help dissipate the sound, but we’re cognizant that what can seem impressive can be cold. People are apparently attracted to cozier, more intimate spaces. Plus, given that it will be just the two of us most often, it needs to be a room in constant use rather than the Eagles Hall.
Ah, the flooring. We’re thinking tile throughout. With radiant heating. Maybe a carpet here or there, but I’m keen to avoid materials that invite creatures that invite my mild asthma. Grey? Probably. Grout? No (or minimal if necessary). Shade: medium, I’m thinking. It would be nice to use local material, if possible.
Living at about the 50-degree North latitude mark, fireplaces are pretty much required, and who doesn’t like a fireplace. Once derided as evil ecologically, they now come very well regarded in this respect. However, will it look a little too hermetically sealed and defeat the whole purpose?
Also, since we will likely combine the kitchen, dining room and living room into one long room, perhaps the fireplace can be a two-sided design and act as a separator. We would need to be careful, though, not to have it too close to the dining room and having some poor soul melting through their Baked Alaska.
Now, to the issue of the office. Is it actually part of the living room or separate? Not so long ago it would be an easy answer: separate. We had books and desks and shelves and hardware. Over time, though, with digital this and digital that, we’ve gotten rid of our CDs, DVDs, files, books and just about everything except for a laptop, an iPad and a phone. So, rather than creating a whole separate room, why not integrate it into the common living area rather than being banished?
One thought that’s come to us is a kind of “around the corner” spot with something like a half-wall or screen – almost in a Frank Lloyd Wright kind of way – that combines the best of both. On the other hand, there might still be good reasons to have a space that’s completely shut off.
This, then, introduces another room, and a topic for another post, on the “second bedroom.” Can it be a single room with dual function, or is neither a satisfactory solution. You’re either sleeping in an office or working in a bedroom.
Anyway, as with all rooms, much to think about. I’m sure I’ve missed some important considerations. Lighting, for example. Wall space for artwork. TV? (We don’t subscribe, but we do have a flat screen for watching movies. Can it be hidden or integrated somehow in a clever way?)
What does your experience tell you? Tell us.
Keep out or stay in
Fence
By Darren Bond
Fences: is this the ultimately boring topic?
No, think about it. They recently spent a billion dollars on a meeting of twenty people over a couple of days in Toronto so fences must play an important role.
Granted, our stuff will amount only to some fruit, vegetables and a cute little Schnauzer, but, still. Those rogue deer could start wearing all-black disguises and then where would we be?
Webster’s says it’s a “defense, protection; a barrier, as of wooden or metal posts, rails, wire mesh, etc. …”
I’m not sure they’ve thought through the aesthetics of their examples, but, having made my point, there are numerous options to think about. Setting aside the wire mesh – hmmm, not so fast, what about the strawberries – let’s think about the scenarios.
Noise: at the top of the property (our sloped lot being roughly the shape of an amphitheatre) is the main road that leads down to the ferry landing. During busy summer months, the line-ups of cars waiting to get on can snake up the hill, right outside our door. Part of Michael McNamara’s layout, I’m guessing, will be to set the house down far enough to be a bit hidden and to let sound waft over the top of the roof. Nevertheless, it would be nice to stop as much sound as possible from getting through in the first place.
Now, the most obvious solution would be one that is quite common: the wooden fence. I’ve seen places with tightly-placed vertical boards. I guess I like it, but they tend to bend and lean over time and need maintenance. I’d like something more rigid, but perhaps that gets costly.
What I’ve seen that turns my crank is in France where it is quite common to have high “walls” (that’s a fence, right?) of, what, plaster? Would a wall of concrete be appropriate? It could be made a bit decorative and perhaps have evergreen shrubs planted in front to avoid the prison-camp look.
Tendrils: what’s the use of installing a canning room if the previously-mentioned deer have had their way with my fruit? Our property, not surprisingly, has four sides. How do we “protect” ourselves and still have a view? Is this where the wire mesh comes in? Does it have to have curly-cue razor tops for ornamentation?
Wind: this morning, for example, the breeze was still a tad chilly, even though it’s the middle of July, so we had our coffee and cookie snack on the back deck rather than the front verandah. A courtyard has entered our minds as a nice architectural touch, and functional, too.
Heat: related to the wind issue, I’ve always remembered the walled gardens of English Victorian homes as a great way to generate extra heat to allow things to grow in a bit of a micro-climate that otherwise wouldn’t do well. (I will still need the hired help to bring the bounty up through the butler’s pantry slash mud room slash utility room.) Would this be an eye-sore and look like some kind of enlarged outhouse or bath-house?
Harvesting: I was enthralled the first time I saw the flat “espalier” fruit trees. How cool and functional is that. Looking at Wikipedia, it would appear that all kinds of trees are candidates. Who needs or wants to climb up a ladder (I have a phobia about them ever since putting my foot through one, climbing up to clear snow off the roof)? Also, I just saw a reference for a Belgian fence, which seems to be using pleaching (weaving, plaiting) for interlocking espaliers into a fence. Wow.
Supporting: will I want climbing roses? Or, do I need to stick to the principle of native plants and let bushes of native Nootka roses suffice? Hmmm, perhaps the fence up at the road could be supportive of Nootka roses.
See? So many considerations, and I haven’t even touched upon the secret gardens concept.
Also, upon revision, I notice I haven’t even mentioned neighbours. Don’t fences make good neighbours? Well, we won’t really have any. On one side are non-resident people and, in any case, there are trees between us. On the other side, there’s a forested lot and those folks have indicated that they’d like to leave it as is as long as they own it. And they’ve owned it for decades.
So, the topic is wide open at this point.
What’s your political bent on fences? Have you seen one that knocks your socks off?
The big conundrum: Mud room or utility room or butler’s pantry or…
John McLachlan with Kepler
By Darren Bond
Moving on, or out, from the kitchen, what makes the perfect mud room?
I guess the first question is: is this the proper name for it? What we’re thinking of is the room that’s between the garden and the kitchen. Perhaps it’s a utility room. Hasn’t it also been called the butler’s pantry? My sense is “mud room” but John’s thinking “utility room.” The great debate is on!
Okay, so thinking about functionality first, then coming back to the name…
Pantry: in our last place, there was a small room off the kitchen with nothing but floor to ceiling shelves. It was perfect for various items like tinned goods, cleaning products, large cooking pieces such as the Christmas roaster, bags, recycling, wine bottles, sugar, flour, etc.
Laundry: is this where the washing machine and dryer should go? Or, should it be right next to the master bedroom? Given that it will likely be a one-level home, and fairly compact at that at around 1,500 square feet, perhaps it doesn’t matter so much. On a more fanciful notion, John has suggested a laundry chute down to the basement and put them there. Hmmm.
Dirty dog: I know a Schnauzer that gets dirty and grassy paws during his thrice-daily walks. Hornby Island isn’t exactly sidewalk heaven. What would be perfect, we think, is a low-to-the-floor washing stall to easily rinse him off. He has learned the word bath and trots right into the bathroom and gets ready to be lifted in to the tub. Maybe he could be trained to pull on a cord and do himself? (Note to Judy: another opportunity for a drain in this room!)
Vegetable prep: I’m romantically assuming I’ll have bright orange carrots with bushy green tops and potatoes with marvelous chunks of dirt attached. I’m imagining a sink area with sharp knives and composting. From there they can go in to the kitchen and into the fridge.
Dirty shoes and boots: we don’t want this room turning into the main entrance, and I suspect it won’t if it’s somehow down around the corner of the house, but you can’t be coming in from the garden or beach and not need a place to put footwear and rain coats.
Freezer: in addition to having the opportunity hopefully to freeze our bounty, there will likely be the need to buy larger quantities of staples from “in town.”
It could be that this room is getting too multi-purpose and busy. Perhaps more thought is needed on two fronts: the dreaded basement concept and the main entryway/foyer. What about canning? What about a root cellar?
To Wikipedia for some assistance, here are a few definitions of key words (wow, they have a whole set of architectural terms).
An entryway is a hall that is generally located at the front entrance of a house. An entryway often has a coat closet, and usually has linoleum or tile flooring rather than carpet, making it an easy-to-clean transition space between the outdoor and indoor areas. Many houses do not have an entryway; in these the front door leads to a foyer, or directly into the living room or some other room in the house.
Most houses with main-entrance entryways are located outside the United States, as most modern American houses lack them. However, many suburban American houses have a mud room, a casual entryway to a secondary entrance, which often includes the laundry room. A mud room can be a useful addition as it helps to keep the house clean.
How about:
A pantry is a room where food, provisions or dishes are stored and served in an ancillary capacity to the kitchen. The derivation of the word is from the same source as the Old French term paneterie; that is from pain, the French form of the Latin pan for bread.
In a late medieval hall, there were separate rooms for the various service functions and food storage. A pantry was where bread was kept and food preparation associated with it done. The head of the office responsible for this room was referred to as a pantler. There were similar rooms for storage of baconand other meats (larder), alcoholic beverages (buttery) known for the “butts” of barrels stored there, and cooking (kitchen).
In America, pantries evolved from Early American “butteries”, built in a cold north corner of a Colonial home [more commonly referred to and spelled as "butt'ry"], into a variety of pantries in self-sufficient farmsteads. Butler’s pantries, or china pantries, were built between the dining room and kitchen of a middle class English or American home, especially in the latter part of the 19th into the early 20th centuries.
So, help us out here. What the heck is this room? It seems pretty important and functional.
What makes the perfect kitchen?
Getting down to brass tacks: what makes the perfect kitchen?
Perhaps it’s a bit early for this level of detail, but Michael seems to want/need to know specifics because it ties directly into how you want to live. As he asked us early on: do you live to eat or do you eat to live?
Easy answer: we live to eat. Which is to say, the kitchen is an important room.
The first thing that pops into my head is wanting two ovens, probably wall mounted. Not that it’s happened too often in the past, but it can be irritating when you want to cook two different things at two different temperatures at the same time. Think turkey dinner.
The second thing is the dishwasher. Typically, the “whisper quiet” claims are only true compared to a freeway. However, in our last two places, we went with the Miele brand and it truly was a joy from a sound perspective. Also, it had the greatest ability to clean and had a top flat tray for the cutlery. Brilliant use of space!
We went to the Miele showroom and were awed by all of the appliances. However, two things are scaring us: the price and the serviceability on a semi-remote location. We’ll have to check out other manufacturers and see if the same attributes can be had that counteract those concerns. Perhaps Kenmore could do the trick?
Stove: it seems time to take the plunge and go for induction rather than electric or gas. It’s a flat surface and the cooking is as rapid as gas. It doesn’t get hot except for the special pots that are required. Apparently the amount of energy required is much less.
Fridge: don’t really have too much love for any one particular kind that we’ve seen. We had a big SubZero at our last place and it was okay. We should be able to save a few pennies there.
Asking people what they would like in a kitchen, my sister, Julie, chimed in with counters that are at various levels depending on the function. For example, when you’re chopping vegetables, you want it lower. She had a couple of other scenarios which I forget now…
Sinks: John prefers ceramic over stainless steel. I’m easy either way. Having a sink out in the utility/mud room is important for cleaning vegetables from the garden before coming in.
Island: probably, for company to sit at and chat.
Floor surface: probably stone tile including the radiant heating.
Once again, lighting is an important consideration. There’s nothing worse than working at the counter with the light beyond you and casting shadows. At the place he’s just finishing, Michael has designed in a narrow skylight right above the counters. Great idea! As well, for when it’s dark out, he’s a stickler for lots of well-placed and direct lighting.
Cabinetry: we’re considering whether to have them custom built by Michael or install something pre-manufactured, such as IKEA. Need to consider further.
I loved the pantry in our previous condo, and this will be a strong element of the utility room. More on that in another post.
Over to you: what’s one thing that you have and love, or wish you had, in a kitchen?
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Photo: turkeychik in Flickr
First Meeting with Michael McNamara
Image of cabin designed by Blue Sky Design (Michael McNamara) nearing completion on Hornby Island
Today we saw Michael McNamara’s current project that is nearing completion. (Michael’s company is called Blue Sky Design.) It’s a “cabin” that’s a scrawny 1,800 square feet. Situated on an absolutely brilliant spot overlooking the water called Grassy Point, you can immediately see how Michael creates a piece of work that is completely synchronized with the setting. It’s got a gorgeous rounded living room with a pointed ceiling with beams and a large centre post. An outside deck leads out to the grass and on to the rocks and ocean.
Given that this is about the size we’re thinking of, it gave us a pretty good idea of scale and cost. Now, it was designed more for an extended family descending on it en masse rather than a year-round home, but there were a number of features that resonated with us from which he could then know what we like and what we were less enthused about.
Afterwards, we went back to his studio and chatted for a good 90 minutes on overall thoughts about priorities and how it could fit with the sloped lot we’ve got. Without wanting to become pesky clients who are trying to tell the architect his job – and telling him to tell us to shut up if we’re being too prescriptive – he seemed keen to know things like:
- prefer one level, but like to have the odd two or three-step dividers to spaces such as an office area or the living room
- a good entry “hall” so that people aren’t bunched up trying to get their wet shoes and coats off
- the living room needs to stand up to a six foot grand piano!
- lots and lots and lots of consideration on lighting and lights
- a great kitchen that has some kind of mud-room / utility room between it and the vegetable garden, which also has a low-level tub for washing dogs’ dirty paws
- the main bedroom could have a little reading area and perhaps this is where the TV screen would go (we don’t have TV but we do like to download the odd movie) and this could keep it out of the living room
- the second bedroom can be fairly compact; we don’t want to waste space and budget on a room that sits empty most of the time
- we like the green roof idea
- we want a big cistern for collecting water, so there could be a lower level (also for the car?)
- we want a nice big deck with a barbecue for entertaining y’all
- the grounds lend themselves to some terracing and Michael suggested notions of secret gardens that wind down to the lane and across to the existing cabin.
And on it goes. When he’s finished his current project and finishing the design for another house, right next to the one we saw at Grassy Point, he will be ready to work with us in earnest, probably mid-July. I’ll be sure to book my holiday time then and we’ll have refined our thinking even more.
For now, about 9:30pm, there’s a gorgeous sunset happening over Vancouver Island. The fire is turning to embers. John’s eyes are drooping. Kepler is asleep.
Visiting Our Architect
Darren on the deck of a cabin designed by Blue Sky Design (Michael McNamara) and built by Tim Wyndham and crew on Hornby Island.
A quick video update below about our visit with Michael McNamara, the architect for our house. We met him at a cabin he designed and which, is about finished on Hornby Island before heading to his studio. The photos are of the 1,800 square foot cabin on a beautiful point looking on to the Gulf of Georgia.
Some of the ceiling detail in a cabin on Hornby Island designed by Michael McNamara.
