Tree House Apartment

Up in the trees with a view of Carkeek Park. Trees House West Wing, Westworld. Let's get into our West Side Story.

Roofs to be demolished

Newton's view from upstairs window (Height ~278')

The current plan calls for an approximately 625 SF apartment above BR3. It cantilevers to the south, replacing the existing 26" eave. Ignore the placeholder windows:

This new apartment has a living/dining space (~200 SF), a 68 SF bedroom (1' 6" around a queen-sized bed is 8' x 8.5'), a kitchen (refrigerator, sink, microwave, like the breezeway), and a typical 1950s 5 x 8 bath (40 SF) and a typical 2.5 x 6 closet (15 SF). The stairs on the west and the top landing take up about 67 SF, so the bedroom can grow to 268 SF, in theory.

Space	SF
Living/Dining	260
Kitchen	40
Bedroom	200
Bath (5 x 8)	40
Closet (2.5 x7)	15
Stairs & Landing	67
TOTAL 2nd Floor	622

The sizes are ballpark, obviously, and finishing the 2nd floor may well become a Phase 2 project. 

Here's how I see the space planning based on the views.

The apartment has its own entrance around the west side of the garage, or through the garage. The west side door is the apartment's only access to the backyard, but I think that's understandable. 

Here's an idea: Since the 6x6 SE corner is a likely dining space, we could make it a roofed-over deck. I've seen this done (usually off a bedroom, but still). Since it rains so much, it lets you sit outside, dry in the rain. Just for fun, I'll mock it up.

It's adorable!

A corner window in the proposed bedroom (facing NW) would look directly at the multi-trunk cedar.

Gray line in lower panes is NW 118th Street

The cedar tree has 5 trunks about 8' off the ground. In the model, I just have the one trunk where it hits the ground.

You could reach out the bedroom window and touch it 

Existing west wall (align 3 trunks in background)

Stairs extend into side yard. Imagine steps and landing.

What kind of flooring does the apartment need? We'll likely try to preserve the ceiling joists and drywall over Casey's room and use TJI's to support the apartment floor, so we already have some noise isolation. Maybe an engineered wood? Wood laminate looks like a good compromise between engineered wood and vinyl planks.