The right attitude
Navajo the cat has not fully adjusted to his new home.
You would think enough time has passed — his human family (Nick Abbott, Ali Milne, and their college-graduate son, Joe) moved to Innis Arden, a community in Shoreline, Wash., north of Seattle, five years ago.
“We knew we were looking to downsize and wanted a one-level forever house, and we knew we wanted to stay in Innis Arden,” Milne says. “We moved here from 1.5 miles away. Our cat keeps going back — through ‘Coyoteville,’ through ravines — and I’ve got to go get him. It was really cute for the first four years.” Silly kitty. His family’s current home, built in 1956 and newly enhanced by a delightful 300-square-foot addition and remodel, just oozes cool-cat habitat. It took some work. “There had been two owners — the last one for 50 years,” Abbott says. “It was the original 1950s kitchen and appliances. The master bath looked like a museum. We did the initial work on the bathroom and kitchen and then the fireplace.”
Abbott and Milne are both research scientists (he’s an equity research analyst for Wells Fargo, and she teaches middle school science). For the big stuff, they called in the pros: architect Curtis McGuire, the team at Claddagh Construction and structural engineer Gary MacKenzie, of Swenson Say Faget, who beautifully brought Abbott and Milne’s midcentury modern home into an enlightened, more-modern era.
“The addition itself is situated to open up their existing home to the yard, the spectacular views and the morning-throughevening daylight,” McGuire says. “Another important part of the project scope was the reorientation of the garage, which allowed for a cool entry approach and landscape design to the front door.”
New windows went in. A wall came down. A new metal roof sprouted solar panels. And every single thing in the entire addition adds up to awesome.
Abbott, the family cook, designed the “simple kitchen” with Ikea, siting the induction cooktop so he can gaze at the Puget Sound while he sautes.
To help support the quartz countertop, Milne says, McGuire sketched the perfect “Why don’t you do this?” solution on a napkin: integrated vertical wine racks on the end — one side for whites, one side for reds.
Milne selected a joyful palette of “just a few carefully curated colors,” Abbott says (glistening white cabinetry, extra-cheerful aqua subway tiles, brilliant orangy bar stools and dining chairs), and a couple of fantastic patterns (in consultation with Elizabeth Anderson Interiors).
A wallpaper in the sitting room is reminiscent of a Technicolor “off-the-air” screen saver from the golden age of television. “I had picked that wallpaper and knew it’d go somewhere in our house, sometime,” Milne says. “We did that in one afternoon. (Nick) only swore at me once — no, make that twice.”
Edging the dining area, an 18-inch-deep ledge below the wood-beamed ceiling provides shade from the upper clerestories; electrical outlets for music; and one decorative basket, which is part joke and part perfect. “We put that up there for Curt,” Milne says of their architect. “He had drawn baskets and ferns in the plans.”
In the original part of the home, past the wall-ofwindows living room and Abbott’s bird-watching perch of an office, the master bathroom (formerly bright green with green-and-white wallpaper) glows from a new skylight, new frosted glass and the absence of greenand-white wallpaper. “When the sun is just right, it makes a prism in the shower,” Milne says.
The light-filled master bedroom added new doors, tall windows and the perfect outdoor space to appreciate a little privacy and a massive view.
“It’s the nicest sun in the evening, right here. Just gorgeous,” Milne says. “We’re so lucky. In our previous house, you could see the water, but it wasn’t as good as this.”
This is it, Navajo. Come on home.