Home still a midcentury rambler at heart
BELLEVUE, Washington — From her sunny front yard, Ellen Weiss points out two houses that look an awfully lot like hers — classic split-level, midcentury modern — and they are just the tip of the seriously sloped design iceberg.
“This house was replicated numerous times on this block and one street up,” she said. “Now, a lot of people are adding on.”
Ellen and her husband, David Weiss, already have — twice, in fact, since they moved to this neighbourhood in 2006. Over the years, through two major projects designed and driven by Ellen, the Weisses’ home grew to 2,700 square feet from 1,700, adding a whole lot of modern function, flow and flair in the process.
Thing is: It still looks exactly the same from the sunny front yard. “Nothing on the front face of the house changed,” Ellen says. “We wanted to make sure that the final product fit into the surrounding neighbourhood, which is largely made up of modest midcentury ramblers.”
After moving from another Bellevue neighbourhood, which “wasn’t a neighbourhood,” Ellen said, the whole family really loves this one: It’s close to a couple of interstates, with great schools; the nearby Lake Hills Greenbelt and Bellevue Demonstration Garden; and bicycle-friendly streets for Jacob, now in sixth grade, and Hannah, in fourth. (Weiss kitties Theo and Ruby wisely steer clear of the local coyotes.)
Ellen has a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Washington, where she also studied construction management. (She completed all the master’s coursework, but became pregnant before tackling her thesis.)
Her background was helpful in a talent-translating way, she said, but Ellen clearly broadened her home-project horizons here.
“I designed every aspect of both remodels and acted as general contractor for the first one,” she says. “I scheduled inspections, meetings, ordering, every last thing.”
Phase One of the Weisses’ remodel transformed the twostorey portion of the home with a new master suite on the top level and a new office and guest room downstairs, along with a bigger and better guest bathroom and family room. Phase 2 expanded the kitchen and dining area, reconfigured the living room and entry, and demolished the original garage and added a detached one.
“At first, I was not entirely sure about my abilities,” she says. “I hired one architect, but didn’t use any of her designs because I didn’t feel they addressed our needs. That made me feel confident with what I had come up with for the way we wanted to live and my asthetic.”
As you might expect, there were learning opportunities:
• In the living room, which opened right up after a divisive wall scooted back toward the kitchen and lost significant height, “The fireplace was a little project of its own,” Ellen said. “I picked out the walnut pieces for the mantel, and when the woodworker came, he said: ‘Do you want these pieces on the front?’ I did, but I was kind of wrong — you can see the joinery and colour differences.”
• In the kitchen, which was completely transformed and gloriously expanded, canister lights were canned because of building codes: The original ceiling is higher, and shallower, than the new one over the dining area. “We used a centre beam asthetically to hide the differentiation,” Ellen said — “and we used track lighting.”
• And during construction of the downstairs guest room, Ellen hand-drew a design for a lightluring horizontal window up high — but her new architect consultant, John Phillips (who converted her drawings to computer-aided design, developed construction drawings and hired the structural engineer), noticed it hadn’t been in the original plan, and it was in a shear wall. That required a little extra engineering to finesse. “I absolutely needed John Phillips. He really didn’t change much of the design, but there were small details we had to work out — lots of structural things,” Ellen said.
Her design touches every aspect of each remodel, from the brilliantly blended, colourful main-floor office to the hand-formed stone pattern in the master bathroom and the all-over neutral palette peppered with cheerful colour.
“I had time to just play with it,” she said.
For his part, David “was very easygoing,” she said. “He would give me some input, but he’s not a big design guy. The garage was his thing: space for his bikes and woodworking.”
That new 1,000-square-foot garage, pushed back into the setback so far it required signed affidavits from three neighbours, abuts a new terrace and a reconfigured yard. The neighbours’ lushly mature trees feel just like the Weisses’, which adds to that community vibe.
The family that sold this home to the Weisses moved just down the block, Ellen said, and lots of homes in this special neighbourhood still have their original owners. This is a place where the homes, and their people, keep fitting right in.
“The previous owners came back after the first phase and were blown away,” Ellen said. “They said: ‘This is your house now.’ ”