Living Over The Shop -- This Couple Started Low To Forage Working Space In A Bungalow

IT'S ESTIMATED THAT 21 million Americans will make their homes their primary places of business this year. As anyone who's ever combined the two can attest, living and working in the same space takes some deft planning, to prevent one from intruding on the other.

Architect John Brenneis and his wife DeAnne, an interior designer, have managed to keep both halves of their lives well-defined. The couple operate their business, The John Brenneis Architects, in the basement of their Phinney Ridge house, and reside on the floor above. Seldom has "living over the shop" seemed so stylish.

John bought the 75-year-old bungalow in 1982. Although he liked the fact the house was high above the street on a sunny corner lot, the plumbing and wiring were poor and the yard was a disaster.

When John married DeAnne in 1987, the couple realized there wasn't enough space in the 1,100-square-foot house for the two of them and John's business, too. But John didn't want to add another floor or make any other changes that might alter the home's appearance. "I wanted to leave the exterior in context with the rest of the neighborhood," he says.

There was nowhere to go but down. He brought in a bulldozer and lowered the basement floor 2 feet, expanding the height from 6 feet to 8. He added a separate entrance and some off-street parking in front.

Once they moved their office downstairs, John and DeAnne picked up sledgehammers and began gutting the floor above. They even tore out the ceilings, after checking to make sure they didn't contain any structural supports.

"Once it was opened up, we said, `Gee, it's kind of nice to have this volume in a small space,' " DeAnne recalls.

The couple decided to leave some of the rooms open to the roofline, using changes in ceiling planes and finishes to help define spaces within the open floor plan. They crowned the living room with a vaulted ceiling that extends over the adjoining bedroom. The surface was warmed with beveled cedar siding and illuminated by a west-facing dormer that once served the attic.

The dining area is defined by a coffered ceiling illuminated by a trio of recessed lights. "I didn't want to hang a chandelier over the table," John says, "because it moves back and forth sometimes, depending on how many people we have for dinner."

Elsewhere, the homeowners used low-voltage halogen fixtures to spotlight the furnishings and artwork in pools of crisp white light. The treatment makes the decor look more sculptural and enhances the view at night by casting less light on the windows.

DeAnne covered the scarred wood floors with sisal and painted the walls a matching straw color. (The unbroken background makes the interior feel larger.) Colorful custom area rugs anchor the glass-topped dining table and off-white upholstered pieces in the living room.

"I think it's good to start with some of the major pieces being neutral," says DeAnne. "Then the other pieces - the rugs, the accessories - are more like jewelry: something you can change."

The owners mixed antiques and contemporary pieces with classic designs that straddle the line between the two. "We do a lot of formal entertaining," DeAnne says. "So we wanted a tailored home that was comfortable, yet not too casual."

Given the size of the home, the owners decided to treat it like a hotel suite, with the bedroom opening directly into the living room. The doors between the two are usually left open, so the rooms can borrow space from each other. This is especially helpful in the bedroom, which is barely big enough to contain the metal four-poster bed.

"I like to put overscaled things in rooms," DeAnne admits. "Sometimes you can make the space seem bigger by forcing something oversized into it."

The kitchen had the opposite problem: It was too big to be efficient. The Brenneises shrank the room, opting for a galley plan with cabinets on either side and a pop-out window seat at the end. Illuminated cabinets with glass doors and backs hang in front of the windows, maximizing light and view. The windows continue down to the countertop, lighting the work surface while adding some depth to the counters (since they extend past the wall to the window face).

"We thought about that kitchen for years and really wanted to do something different," says DeAnne. Heeding the advice she's always giving clients, she decided to have some fun with color. She ordered conventional, raised-panel fir cabinets, then stained the base cabinets russet, the hanging units ultramarine and the floor-to-ceiling cupboards ocher. The playful interplay of colors gives the utilitarian space some spirit.

"The cabinets are nothing special," acknowledges DeAnne. "But the twist of an interesting color makes it a little bit different."

Before the remodel, visitors had to walk halfway around the house and up a flight of stairs to reach the front door, which opened directly into the living room. John rerouted traffic to the back door, which was closer to the street.

Planter boxes skirt the new front stairs, which lead to both the entry and the private terrace beside it. Raised planting beds frame the terrace on three sides, their walls formed from stacks of 6-by-6 pressure-treated hemlock. The Brenneises stained the timbers and laid 1-inch spacers between each row to give the treatment a custom look. A filigreed trellis topped by an arbor screens the terrace from the neighbors while allowing light and greenery to filter through.

By widening the landing inside the back door, John was able to create an entry hall without forsaking any living space. A coffered, barrel-vaulted ceiling gives the hall added importance and makes the 10-second commute from home to office all the more pleasurable.

Fred Albert reports regularly on home design for Pacific and other regional magazines. Benjamin Benschneider is a Seattle Times photographer.

----------------- COLORFUL CABINETS -----------------

The Brenneises used pigmented stains to give their kitchen cabinets an infusion of color. To create the look, Steven Elliott of Elliott Paint Co. in Seattle applied a mixture of oil-based enamel and Daly's Benite (a clear wood sealer) to unfinished fir cabinets. The mixture was brushed on and allowed to dry, then the cabinets were treated with four coats of Daly's CrystalFin, a water-based polyurethane finish. (For the blue cabinets only, Elliott added a little paint to the CrystalFin.)

A similar look can also be achieved using analine dyes, although the colors will be more intense and prone to fading.

To rejuvenate existing cabinets, like dark oak units from the 1970s, Elliott recommends cleaning the cabinets with trisodium phosphate (TSP), then sanding lightly or applying a coat of liquid sandpaper. For a taupe finish, add white or gray oil-based enamel to some varnish, then brush the mixture on in two thin coats, working carefully to avoid brush marks or mistakes. No additional sealant is required.