Building On An Ideal

THOR SKOV AND Jennifer Sanscrainte started out thinking remodel: Add a second floor, clean up the wiring and plumbing, move some walls in their little North Seattle bungalow, now 81 years old. But there were problems at every turn. When they got to "weird beams" they gave up, decided to tear down and be green.

"I'm not in the angst stage anymore," Skov says, tear-down of their yellow-green "vinyl-over-God-knows-what" looming. "I'm in the gritting-my-teeth-and-getting-it-done stage."

The git-r-done stage comes a year and a half after they decided to build new upon the old footprint.

"We went out and looked at other houses. It was hard to find fixer-uppers," he says. "And if I'm going to spend money for a finished kitchen, it's got to be a kitchen I want."

"Plus, we also have a fondness for this lot," says Sanscrainte, who can name every plant in her yard. That fondness extends to the lot behind their house, where her sister's family lives. There's also the swimming pool in the backyard (great for attracting nieces and nephew), the grape arbors and the vegetable garden they've been cultivating with Sanscrainte's sister and hoping to turn into a four-season producer. Sanscrainte also bikes to work downtown along the nearby Burke-Gilman Trail.

Theirs is a real love/hate relationship. Skov and Sanscrainte dislike the house for its lack of flow and light. They are thrilled with the materials it will provide after deconstruction next month.

"From this house we plan to reuse what are some very good materials," Skov says. "This house is built with steel, wood and glass. All the icky stuff was added in the '50s — fluorescent lighting, dropped ceilings, wall-to-wall carpeting, vinyl siding."

They are true green believers. She is an environmental attorney who works to clean up landfills, and he works part-time for the Northwest Energy Coalition and Fuelworks, which sells biodiesel fuel (his little Volkswagen has been running on it for years). He worked to put her through law school. Her work now allows Skov time to research the building of their home.

"It's a lot more than about the house. When people start thinking sustainable building, they start thinking materials — but think lifestyle," Skov says. "If you change three things in your life, housing, transportation and food, you're doing it."

They are also young urban professionals who want room for children and a house with clean lines and open space. Contemporary, comfortable, upscale.

"A mudroom, that's how it started. We need a mudroom," Sanscrainte says as Skov unfurls a flurry of blueprints. "And a functional kitchen, and a dry basement, nice master bath, stairs that you don't have to duck for or rappel down, no forced air, easy access to the outside, no fossil fuels."

There will be an entrance on every side of the house, bringing the outside in. They can't see their garden from inside the old house. Solar panels will be placed on the garage roof, and the home will have a green roof of soil and plants and grass.

To make the project more affordable, they'll tackle it in three phases, and Skov will do as much of the work as he can. In the first, where they will move in, only the kitchen and one bathroom will be finished. Phase two will involve completing the interior, and in phase three they will refurbish the swimming pool.

But first Skov must find a general contractor. He is frustrated, blaming the "timidity of the building industry." The drawings call for structural insulated panels, not the usual stick framing.

"We've gotten rough framing bids of $8 to $90 a square foot. Maybe they don't know what you're doing or don't want to do it, so they bid it way high. I don't know," he says, thinking out loud. Skov's taking classes to learn how to be a general contractor — just in case the one he hires is the guy he sees in the mirror.

For inspiration and education the couple have pored through the bibles of thoughtful building: Dwell magazine, Sarah Susanka's "Not So Big House" books, "A Pattern Language" and Skov's favorite, "The Good House Book" by Clarke Snell. He also turned to the folks at Puget Sound Solar for advice.

"You know what gives me hope?" Skov says, snapping a fat rubber band around the blueprints. "I'll take a Sunday afternoon and walk around the neighborhood: I see the houses for sale, and I know there's nothing else out there I want."

"Ditto," says Sanscrainte.

Rebecca Teagarden is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. Benjamin Benschneider is a magazine staff photographer.