SMART DESIGN, LOTS OF LIGHT KEY TO LIVING SMALL ON SALT SPRING
When designing the space in a small house, apartment or petit pied-a-terre, it’s important to analyze every cubic inch and determine whether it’s to be used for living, entertaining, storage or a combination of all three. Judi Underwood did just that when she precisely planned her 1,200-square-foot Salt Spring Island cottage, ensuring all the rooms would be used to the max and have windows oriented toward as much natural light as possible.
She then left town for a winter stay in Mexico, while her exhusband, Roger Warren, acted as general contractor and oversaw her new home’s construction.
Underwood and Warren, who have remained good friends since their separation, used to have a furniture-making business called Chickadee Pine. They did mostly custom work, but also restored and painted 18th- and 19th-century pieces such as corner cupboards, armoires, small cabinets and chests.
He built the furniture, while she did all the finishing. She also ferreted out funky pieces from garage sales and second-hand stores.
He happily looked after her fivemonth cottage-building project while she was away at her other home, a compact casita near Puerto Vallarta that she rents out when living on the Gulf Island. She seems to have achieved a perfect balance, enjoying two small homes, one for winter and another for summer.
“I bought the raw land here on Salt Spring, just over an acre on high-bank waterfront, and started right from scratch, putting everything in,” said Underwood, who noted the work included installing water lines and a driveway and blasting for a building site.
Her partner is a contractor who just finished building his own house in the San Juan Islands. “I seem to always choose men who are very handy,” she said with a chuckle. They met at a music night in Mexico. Soon after, Ken Savage sailed up to Salt Spring Island to visit her and they have been together ever since. He has also helped with the house.
“He recently replaced all of my door handles here, because they were just the cheap things from 15 years ago,” said Underwood. “And he replaced all my kitchen pendant lights with pot lights, too.
“It’s not something you immediately see, but it makes a big difference. It’s very subtle, clean and neat compared to the old big ugly things I had.”
When planning her island home 16 years ago, Underwood wanted to take advantage of the water views, so she designed a low wall in the kitchen and an entry that steps down to the living area.
On the left is a den and to the right is her bedroom and ensuite, entered through a set of French doors. An upper hall, on the same level as the kitchen, was designed so a second bedroom can be added.
Underwood’s furniture is as well thought out and as thrifty as her cottage.
“My dining table is an old dropleaf that was quite a mess when I found it. I refinished the top and painted it, as I have painted just about everything in the house. I don’t like raw wood.”
She paired the table with contemporary chairs that have simple, see-through wooden backs. “They are very much a contradiction in style to the 1950s table, but I like that.” They also echo the vertical lines of an old radiator she uses as a base for a coffee table, under a pane of bevelled glass.
Also in the living room is an old folding games table, a dual-purpose surface behind one of the sofas that can pull away from the wall and open up when needed. Two matching sofas are slipcovered in white-on-white. In the nearby dining area stands a reproduction corner cabinet made by Warren, and finished by her.
Ten years after moving into her cottage, she decided to open up the lower living area a little more, so Warren cut a giant hole in the wall that divided the living room from the den. Now she has improved her views from the upper kitchen. “It’s made a huge difference,” Underwood said.
Warren explained that rather than taking the wall out com- pletely, “I built a pony wall at the bottom of the open space, which measures about six by 10 feet, so Judi can put a cabinet or piece of furniture against it.”
For a front door, she refinished a unique, oversized door that came from their old store, and she also refinished two narrow french doors that lead to her bedroom.
They are done in soft shades of grey, green and off-white, the same colour combination she used when painting all her kitchen cabinets.
All the floors are plywood. She said she sanded every inch of them herself, on her hands and knees with a palm sander. “I painted the plywood with a terra cotta colour, which I put on very thick with a roller and brushes, and then added detail touches of green and two coats of urethane,” she said.
The surface has holes and knots in it, but she likes the “character” look.
For a few shelves in her bedroom, she uses a mini stepladder — “I like things you can see through” — and decided not to have a traditional dresser. All her closets have stacks of woven metal baskets to keep things organized and visible.
“It’s a very simple house, neat and tidy, and there is not a lot of wasted space,” she said. It’s also easy to look after, which is important, since she loves living in Mexico.
Underwood started going to Mexico many years ago and found a motel guest house where she lived while working originally for a Cape Cod couple as a cleaner. She has worked in a variety of places there over the years, including a gift store, gallery and restaurant, and became known as the girl from Salt Spring.
“Building the Salt Spring house drained my budget, so I have topped up my retirement fund by renting out my little casita. The American dollars helped,” said Underwood, who was born in West Vancouver and moved with her family to Toronto at an early age. “It took me 30 years to get back here, but I finally made it in 1984 and that’s when I fell in love with the Gulf Islands and ended up buying property on this island.”
She said she feels lucky to have had the support of Warren.
“Roger is a very clever draftsman and when I asked if he would be my contractor, he took it over completely. I just said: ‘Build it as if it’s your own.’ It has a big deck, but not a lot of detail, so it wasn’t complicated to build.”
The builder was delighted not to have someone looking over his shoulder all the time, she said. So was Warren, who noted that Underwood didn’t return until the job was finished.
“One of the advantages of an owner being away during a housebuilding project is there are no changes,” joked Warren.