A Born-Again Bungalow -- Surprising Colors And Materials Make This House Fun To Be Around

IN 1927, A CITY INSPECTOR visited a modest clapboard house in Greenwood and filed a report claiming the structure wouldn't make it through another decade.

Sixty-five years later, that house is not only standing, it just received a new lease on life, thanks to owners Anne Janisse and Bruce Schauer and architect Mark Millett of Seattle's Millett Associates.

When Janisse and Schauer purchased the one-story house nine years ago, the 1,000-square-foot interior was a knot of doorways and ill-conceived decorating ideas. (Would you believe floral and burlap wallcovering in the same room?) The front door split the living room down the middle, and the kitchen was so small the oven blocked part of the doorway.

But the house had its charms, too, including high ceilings, sunny rooms, a stunning bowed fireplace and a spacious yard. Not to mention a rock-bottom price: less than $60,000.

"We didn't have a lot of money, so we were fairly limited," says Janisse, a garden designer. "We never expected to walk into a place and move in, as is. I've never found a place like that nor do I find those places very interesting."

At first the couple made just cosmetic changes, painting the interior and exterior, refinishing the floors, adding a deck in back, and turning the ramshackle garage into a painting studio for Janisse. Eventually, however, they tired of the cramped quarters and inadequate kitchen, and gave Millett a call.

"Mark was able to take very small spaces and orchestrate them in an innovative, fresh way," says Janisse. "He didn't seem to be interested in slick surfaces or fancy materials, which appealed to me. I'm not interested in beige marble."

Since the existing house was totally lacking in character, Millett and staff designer Theresa Freeman felt free to take some liberties with the addition. They designed a boxy, flat-roofed second story that straddles the original structure like a saddlebag. To underscore the contrast between old and new, they covered the addition with a shimmering skin of galvanized steel, a material Millett has used in other projects (such as the Gravity Bar), and one that the owners also admired.

To accommodate a staircase, the architects added 5 feet to the east side of the house and skewed both the metal and clapboard walls to heighten the disparity between the two.

Millett admits that part of his goal was to have fun - to mix materials and imagery in ironic ways. "There's always a potential in a remodel to have this sort of tongue-in-cheek playfulness between the two parts," he says, "whether you take some of the materials of the old and put it on the new, or take some of the forms of the new and put it on the old."

For instance, Millett had the original 1906 windows replicated, painted yellow and red like on a Kansas farmhouse, and affixed to the addition's sheet-metal skin. A similar juxtaposition occurs in front, where a cockeyed steel bay protrudes from the clapboard siding like some alien straining to break free. The front door is crowned with a metal armature - suggesting the ghostly outline of an old-fashioned porch.

The playfulness doesn't end once you cross the threshold. A black-and-white checkerboard dances across the entry-hall floor, culminating in a staircase boasting sunny yellow treads. The basement stairs beyond are painted a vibrant grass green.

The renovated kitchen sports cabinet doors fitted with ribbed glass (a material Janisse admired at Barney's), a wall and refrigerator covered with sheet metal, and countertops made from poured concrete. The concrete suggests the look of granite or marble at a third the cost, although it stains easily and requires regular sealing. Still, the owners admit the blemishes are part of its charm. "I like the fact that it's not perfect - just like my cooking," Janisse says.

She has an intuitive flair for color, favoring rich, saturated shades others might shy away from. "I'm interested in how colors work together, but I'm not interested in matching anything," she insists. "People get too hung up on matching, or what's tasteful, or what's the right thing to do, rather than what they like."

She painted the kitchen ceiling school-bus yellow, and treated a free-standing wall to a pungent coat of Husky purple. Though the combination may sound garish, the two are so perfectly paired they bring a refreshing vigor to the room and a smile to the face.

Janisse painted the master bath upstairs a brilliant teal. Theresa Freeman designed the sheet-metal shower stall and a vanity crafted from plumbing pipes topped with granite. Janisse found an ornate mirror at an architectural salvage shop, painted it gold, and hung it over the vanity.

She and Schauer, the manager of a King County library branch, enjoy browsing secondhand stores for unusual items. For instance, their living-room coffee table was originally a washtub stand. It hung from the ceiling of the neighborhood hardware store for decades, until the couple bought it and topped it with a sheet of wire glass.

A side table nearby once held dentist's tools; another served as an aquarium stand. The rod leaning against the wall is actually an old oil-tank dipstick. A trio of vintage shoe trees hang beside it, above a lamp Anne made from copper plumbing parts.

Janisse and Schauer's biggest passion is old toys. The desks in their office are brimming with miniature racing cars, snow domes, a Ouija board, and assorted kitsch. An old mechanical riding horse anchors a corner of the dining room, and an assortment of bowling balls grace the kicky floral carpet in the bedroom.

The homeowners ended up spending $150,000 on their remodel - nearly three times the cost of the original structure. Although they gained just 750 square feet of living space, the entire house is significantly more functional and unquestionably more visually stimulating.

"For some, this building has a lot of discord and a lot of tension," says Janisse. "But for me, all of a sudden now it's really energized; it has much more graceful proportions than it had before. It's just an interesting house."

Seattle writer Fred Albert reports regularly on home design for Pacific, and is co-author of "American Design: The Northwest," published by Bantam. Greg Gilbert is a Seattle Times staff photographer.