Design snapshot: Built-ins

You may have seen the article in The New York Times this week about built-ins and how they can save space, provide versatility, and help organize. Plus, they’re fun. Here are a few built-ins I’ve designed for KHS projects.

My client at the Wenham Ranch House knew that her desk would likely be cluttered, so she wanted a way to quickly conceal it when she wasn’t using it. Our solution was to tuck the built-in desktop, chair, and overhead shelves in a closet with a pair of bi-fold doors. The large door opening allows the desk space to feel generous when the doors are fully open. When closed, the doors provide a neat backdrop for the rest of the semi-open living space.

Of course, books are well suited to built-in storage. Here, we combined books with a window seat (textiles by Oliveira Textiles), and concealed some base storage with doors and drawers fitted with pulls we reclaimed from the original ‘60’s ranch house décor and repainted .

A table served by a banquette like this one, built into a window bay, can accommodate a crowd in less space than a conventional table surrounded on both long sides by freestanding chairs. A banquette can add craft, scale, and intimacy. Those of you familiar with my book The New Small House from The Taunton Press will recognize that this arrangement creates a “pocket for privacy”.

This bench from the Touisset Small House, which is also featured in my latest book The New Cottage from The Taunton Press, is built into the side of an existing stair with the bench seat drawn from the height of the second riser. Bordering the kitchen, the bench is a convenient landing pad for guests chatting with the cook. The semi-solid slats of the stair guardrail provide a backrest, while a cushion and pillows by Oliveira Textiles add comfort. Built-in drawers beneath the bench provide bonus kitchen storage.

Not far from the stair bench built-in is a banquette built-in that allows for a dining area in a space that would otherwise be too small for a table with freestanding chairs on both long sides. This banquette has a more boat-like Craftsman aesthetic, incorporating painted finishes and brightwork.

One last built-in banquette for you to consider. Find this one at the Harvard Shaker House. It has a somewhat lighter feel than the previous two, mostly because it’s open below. This client wanted to be able to sit with heels crossed beneath the bench, so the banquette is supported by a series of brackets. This banquette springs from a chair rail, has an angled back rest, and accommodates the window sill.

As you can see, here at KHS, I enjoy designing custom built-ins that offer solutions while helping a project sing.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: Dutch door

I didn't go scouting for this Design snapshot, it comes straight from our own small house, our cottage. It all started several years ago with my husband's desire for a screen door on our side entrance. At the time, I wanted to ponder what design the screen door might take. But I couldn't escape the fact that no matter how delightful a thoughtfully designed screen door might be, it would be leading to an existing unsightly steel-and-glass door installed by the previous owner. So the project sat on the back burner percolating.

Then this past fall/winter while working on my upcoming book The New Cottage from the Taunton Press, I looked anew at a photo of a sunny Dutch door entrance on one of the featured cottages in a pocket neighborhood designed by Ross Chapin Architects. A light bulb went off. I remembered the original 32-inch wide wood-and-glass side door that the previous owner had stored in the garage when they replaced it with the code-conforming 36-inch wide steel-and-glass side door that I found lacking. Why not modify the original wood-and-glass door to become a 36"-inch wide Dutch door worthy of a new screen door?

Voilà. The newly reconfigured Dutch door is a versatile joy. It offers window-like ventilation when the upper portion is open and door-like separation when the bottom half is closed. Since the Dutch door itself is the primary feature, the screen/storm door design is as simple as possible so as not to obscure or detract from the main event. (The exterior color is "Magnet" from C2 Paint.)

Is there an old wooden door with character in your garage? Maybe it's worth transforming into a Dutch door? There's something so fun and friendly about a Dutch door.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: Small Modern kitchen work space

This is a glimpse of an efficient work area in an open kitchen that I toured this past summer thanks to the Cape Cod Modern House Trust. It's in a small house in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard that likely dates back to the '60's. What's cropped out of this photo to the left is a wall oven, pot-and-pan cabinet below, and open cubbie above the oven. I don't recall where the refrigerator was, perhaps on the opposite wall. I don't think there was a dishwasher.

The open air beneath the work counter/row of drawers/tray cubbies helps lend this compact work area spaciousness as does the shallow, stepped, open semi-cubbies above the counter. You may have noticed in photos I've posted of recently completed KHS projects, that I'm not a big fan of overhead cabinets. I often suggest windows or open shelves for the back-splash area and a separate pantry elsewhere instead. In this scenario, the overhead shallow shelves with built-in bookends and, in one case, plate rack dividers concisely organize easy-to-reach cooking and serving items. The taller open space above the cooktop allows the cook enough room for spoon or tong clearance when serving from a pasta or lobster pot, and provides nice visual breathing room. The succinct palette of clear-finished wood drawer faces, shelves, and counter tie in well with the wood ceiling joists and floor, and the contrasting white wall backdrop (possibly melamine) further helps the space to feel light and expansive.

If I were to incorporate a similar design in a new or renovated contemporary kitchen, I might modify it to include a dishwasher to the right of the sink with the wall oven above, and the refrigerator to the right of the dishwasher/oven stack. A tall, deep cabinet with pull-out drawers to the left of the work counter (in the location of the wall oven in the cropped photo above) could balance the dishwasher/oven stack and provide necessary storage. I might also suggest a more functional downdraft cooktop (as opposed to the unvented cooktop in the photo), venting in the wall behind the work area. Lastly, I would propose an island, mostly open below, that would provide additional prep surface, while housing a row of drawer storage and a drawer-style microwave.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Window-seat landing design-strategy bonanza

As frequent readers of House Enthusiast know, I define 10 small-house design strategies in my book The New Small House. But, as this photo taken at Blithewold Mansion in Bristol, RI will attest, there's no rule against applying many of the same strategies to smaller moments in larger houses.

This generous window seat off the landing in the grand front stair of this c. 1907 estate, designed in the English Country Manor style, is a great example of creating multipurpose spaces. Here, the landing is more than a place to catch your breath before continuing further up or down the stairs; it's also a destination, thanks to the window seat. 

It's a place to curl up with a book or to have a word or two with a companion before heading down to enjoy tea, or up to the more private spaces. It's a pocket for privacy amidst an otherwise larger and more public setting.

It takes advantage of the volume and height a stair can provide, by providing a perch from which to both overlook the activity of the living space below and the scene outside as folks arrive or depart. It takes advantage of the third dimension.

It also borrows daylight and view from windows that would otherwise be dedicated to the stair, and shares that daylight and view with the floor below and the hall above.

Because the painted, raised paneling that lines the wall of the stair seamlessly sides the back of the window seat and then continues further up the stairs, the window seat is very much part of the overall succinct palette of the stair hall. The line between stair and window seat, blurs so that each benefits from the other and is in a way enlarged by the other.

My one wish is that the window seat cushion and pillows were not red/burgundy, and that the coordinating rug wasn't red/burgundy and navy blue. I would prefer colors drawn more from the vase to the left in the photo, or the vase on the window sill further down the stair. Something with more of a mid-green or mid-blue color story would be my choice. But I suppose the cushion, pillows, and rug are the colors they are for historic reasons. Can't help but want to update it some and give it a fresh look. 

To see more of Blithewold as well as their impressive gardens, check out their calendar of events. I took the photo above when I was there for one of their afternoon teas. Just delightful.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast

Design snapshot: Mansard marvel

I always look forward to spotting this mansard charmer as I weave my way home. At one and one-half stories, it satisfies a fundamental ingredient of my Recipe for Architectural Charm: grounding roof lines.

It also exhibits legible massing. Its simple rectangular plan is augmented by a side porch and tall symmetrical bays on the front that flank the entry and presumably serve living areas -- perhaps a dining area on one side and a parlor on the other. Similarly tall, gabled dormers containing pairs of skinny double-hung windows that relate to the greater width of the bays their centered above, and a single dormer, containing a less skinny double-hung centered on the entry, serve, what I imagine, are bedrooms.

The white on white exterior clapboards and trim capped with a contrasting charcoal-gray roof demonstrate another ingredient of architectural charm: a simple color palette. And the harmonious materials of wood clapboards and trim atop a simple brick foundation round-out its appeal.  

But it's the architectural-charm ingredient of thoughtful details that I'm focusing on today, while I consider the design of an exterior renovation that could benefit from their example. The mansard's deep projecting eave brackets, more vertical bay-window eave brackets, pronounced entry cornice brackets, and the quiet brackets receiving the dormer rake trim all communicate a hierarchical order while visually supporting interesting layered overhangs that cast nuanced shadows. Various trim depths, heights, and profiles further contribute to the thoughtful order that animates the facade. I'll keep these in mind and ponder how to translate them to the renovation project currently affixed to my drawing board.

I'm grateful to have this charmer as part of my daily visual lexicon, especially around Christmas. 

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast