Suzanne Stefan rides a housing bubble that bursts many times each day. Stefan, a cofounder of Seattle architecture firm Studio DIAA, combined light, sound, and materials to create a bright, 650-square-foot floating home on Portage Bay (the eastern arm of Lake Union) that reverentially reflects its idyllic surroundings. Bright, but not dazzling, as glare, contrast,…

Turning south from Highway 28 midway between Wenatchee and the Gorge Amphitheater begins a weaving descent down to the Columbia River that brings back memories for many — some going back decades. The unmistakable vistas overlooking this stretch of the Columbia, set against a 500-foot basalt cliff, imprints an image hard to forget. And yet,…

You’d be forgiven if you thought the ideal color to describe Seattle is “gray” — at least for eight months of the year. That’s certainly not how paint brand Lick! sees it. The cult favorite home-décor brand chose Seattle as one of only five cities for its new collection of U.S. City Palettes — a…

Interrupting their travels to build a vacation home from scratch was the last thing on the minds of Sherri and Ali Anissipour in 2019 when they went on an anniversary holiday to Suncadia resort, located about 90 minutes east of their Seattle home. “We wanted to travel the world,” Sherri says, “not go to the…

“Treehouse” by Floisand Studio Architects returns to glory a Ralph D. Anderson home that had lost its compass. Nick and Rachel Lenington purchased the 1970 Mercer Island home in 2010, attracted to the quiet neighborhood because of its midcentury vibe, big, west-facing windows, and abundant wildlife. An advertised water view didn’t really pan out, but…

Raised on an off-the-grid ranch in southern Oregon, Mandy Lozano took a don’t-fence-me-in approach to renovating her kitchen in Seattle’s Squire Park neighborhood. She sought to balance a respect for the 1900 Victorian’s heritage with a genetic predisposition toward creative license. “I don’t care for modern technology that much, and I don’t like fussy or…

Rade and Eli Trimceski didn’t set out to save the planet when they commissioned their new home in Ballard, but the planet sent its regards anyway. Designed and built by First Lamp Architects of Seattle, the project was named the Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS) National Home of the Year in 2020.  Billed as “the…

We live in a world full of hacks, loopholes and workarounds that often lead to more work and dead ends. When my wife, Kristy, and I discovered a way to live mortgage free, it seemed too good to be true. There had to be a catch. Six years later, we are still living out that…

The Columbia Congregational Church was harshly thrust into an uncertain future in the secular world.   It was founded in 1891, two years before the Columbia City neighborhood. The densely forested site was ringed by marshlands and served as the gateway to the untamed Rainier Valley. At the time, it was a common practice to donate…

The Bacon family had spent six months slogging to unimpressive open houses around Seattle when, in October 2017, they finally stumbled on a hillside gem in Magnolia. It was designed by a prolific architect who loved the home so much that he spent the last 55 years of his life there.  Lisa Bacon knew their budget…

For nearly two decades, Brandon Ebel dreamed of building a compound in a modern steel and concrete style.  He found a steep double lot in Magnolia with a plateau featuring a satisfying 360-degree view of Seattle, but he faced a conundrum: How to integrate a contemporary 5,500-square foot house into a well-established neighborhood of traditional,…