The House Next Door -- This Queen Anne Cottage Rediscovers Its Comfort Zone

BILL DONNELLY WAS NOT PUT off by the fact that the house he bought in 1992 had only a partial view. For him, "It was like looking at art through a window." But it took vision on his part and that of designer Kate Dougherty to bring the art inside as well.

In 1981, "The House Next Door," written by Lila Gault with photographs by Mary Randlett, looked at housing in Seattle's neighborhoods, focusing on the common and typical rather than the grand and pretentious. In the book, Donnelly's house on the west bluff of Queen Anne Hill was described as "a formerly undistinguished builder cottage" that had been remodeled in 1978 into a "comfortable and attractive house."

A recent re-visit to that house dramatizes how one's definition of "comfortable and attractive" can change. For Bill Donnelly, it meant changing those features that had been changed in 1978 by the former owners - the kitchen, the master suite and the stair hall.

Initially, Donnelly thought a coat of paint, some changes to the bathroom, and new carpet would do. Instead, he and his wife, Lori Patton, have spent nearly as much money as the house cost to take it out of its 1970s time warp. They were able to pay for custom work, materials and finishes that are often sacrificed to keep costs down. But it's not just the money. Donnelly also spent weeks just looking for the right granite and marble.

His dream kitchen, however, came easier. At the Seattle Design Center Donnelly fell in love with the "Deco" cabinet designs in Rutt of Seattle Kitchen and Bath Studio. He had the manufacturer simplify the cabinet faces and custom finish them in clear maple. With the cabinets as a starting point, the 1980s-era kitchen was transformed.

Designer Dougherty changed the layout, creating a U-shaped work area. Flat-faced cabinets and Formica counters gave way to the angular cabinet faces and sea-green granite counters with stepped edges tied to the Deco theme. Black absolute granite was used for backsplashes. Dougherty played off the pyramidal geometry of the cabinets with inverted pyramidal columns supported on obsidian spheres found in local gem shops.

The kitchen was enlarged to the north with a dining area built over an existing garden shed. Radiant floor heating permitted the removal of the radiator that had defined the old north wall of the kitchen. That wall is recalled in a shallow arch that echoes the arch of the huge picture window in the new breakfast nook.

The most dramatic change to the house has occurred in the entry hall. Donnelly disliked the enclosed stair that had been built by the previous owners. It was narrow and the half-walls made it feel confining rather than open. The cedar paneled ceiling didn't help, either. Donnelly was inspired by the open staircase and maple finishes of the refurbished lobby of the Poll Building on First Avenue and Union Street.

The solution was to remove the cedar, raise the roof and open the stairway. With the kitchen cabinets in place, it seemed natural to play up the Art Deco style in the stair hall. "I had the image of Hollywood spotlights flashing across the sky," says Dougherty in describing the sunburst-patterned stair balusters. Josh Levine was the metal fabricator and Heartwood applied the powder coated finish. Scott Graczyk laid the wood treads on the stairs. Graczyk also collaborated with Dougherty on the design of a cabinet upstairs that replaced louvered doors and a master-bath cabinet that share the chevron and sunburst motifs repeated in kitchen woodwork and stair.

The 1978 second-floor remodel divided spaces into several zones. By raising the roof to make a full-height second floor, the sitting area has become a comfortable bedroom. The dated cedar-sheathed bathroom was transformed with black marble floors and walls, maple cabinets and a glass-enclosed shower stall. While the actual square footage has not changed, by turning the shed dormer into a gabled dormer it has gained in height. By reversing the shower and the toilet locations, both are now more usable.

These alterations did not come cheaply. And for every place where it shows: raising the roof, the new kitchen and bathroom, the staircase, a raised patio, new landscaping and a rockery, there was equal attention to improvements that don't show - re-roofing, radiant heat, reconstructed floors and new wall board in the living and dining rooms. The "undistinguished builder cottage" of 1925 that became "the comfortable and attractive house" of 1981 has finally entered the "golden years" as a stylish and sophisticated addition to its Queen Anne neighborhood.

------------- WHAT IS DECO? -------------

Art Deco architecture and interiors gained popularity from the end of World War I through the 1930s. Abstract geometric and stylized ornamentation on commercial buildings, apartments, homes and clubs borrowed from French, Asian, African and Latin American patterns and motifs from nature and industry. In the 1920s, American architects adapted these fresh contemporary designs to add a touch of sophistication to downtown buildings. The results were opulent, colorful and exotic. To learn more about Deco, The Seattle Architecture Foundation offers a three-hour walking tour. Art Deco Seattle as part of its Viewpoints tour season is on Saturday, July 29, 9 a.m. to noon. The cost is $18. For information and registration, contact the Seattle Architectural Foundation, 448-0106.

------- SOURCES -------

Kitchen cabinets: Rutt of Seattle Kitchen and Bath Studio, Seattle Design Center

Appliances: Thermador & Subzero.

Floors: Stonekrete; Pratt & Larson.

Lighting: George Kovaks; Current and other lighting outlets.

Custom woodwork: Scott Graczyk.

Steel fabrication: Josh Levine.

Metal finishing: Heartwood.

Carpet: Savnik; Latitudes, Seattle Design Center.

Landscape: Stock & Hill Landscapes Inc.

Lawrence Kreisman is director of "Viewpoints" Seattle Architecture Tours. Greg Gilbert is a Seattle Times photographer.