Selected work,
with the details left in.

Project note

The site drops eleven feet from the street to the creek easement, which ruled out a standard stem-wall foundation and most of the buildable footprint. We stepped the house across three slabs instead, so the garage sits at street grade and the living floor lands eight feet lower, level with the tree canopy. Exterior is rough-sawn western red cedar on a rainscreen with blackened steel at the entry; the garden wall is board-formed concrete poured on site with the client's own Douglas fir forms. Because the creek buffer required a stormwater plan before we could break ground, we ran permitting and structural engineering in parallel with design and still opened the ground in April.

Foundation

Three-level stepped slab

Cladding

Rough-sawn WRC rainscreen

Notable

Board-formed concrete garden wall

Project note

The owners bought it for the rafters — clear Douglas fir, 4x10, on 4-foot centers — and almost everything else had to go. We jacked and re-shimmed the ridge where a 1990s skylight cut had let water into the beam pocket, sistered four rafters, and replaced the entire roof assembly with a vented over-framed system so the fir could stay exposed inside. The loft stair was rebuilt to code without widening the footprint by turning the run 90 degrees and borrowing eight inches from the kitchen. Rural site, no municipal water: we coordinated a new well, pressure tank and septic drainfield alongside the structural work.

Structure

Ridge jack, four sistered rafters

Envelope

Vented over-framed roof, R-49

Notable

Well, pump & septic coordinated on site

Project note

The existing 1958 ranch had a good roofline and a bad primary bedroom. Rather than push a box off the back, we extended the existing hip at the same 4:12 pitch and matched the roof plane exactly, which meant re-framing eleven feet of the original ridge. The new bath sits under a 9-foot clerestory that pulls south light across the ceiling without giving the neighbours a view in. Radiant floor on its own zone, a linear drain set flush to the tile, and a whole-house fan added while the ceiling was open. From the street you cannot tell where the house stops and the addition starts, which was the whole point.

Roof

Existing hip extended, 4:12 matched

Comfort

Radiant floor, dedicated zone

Notable

Clerestory daylight, no sightlines