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. 

Garage

A new, two-car garage with drywall walls, lights and roll-up overhead doors. Hit the clicker, roll into the garage. Hit the clicker again and get out without getting rained on, or tracking wet pine needles through the house. From an open house perspective, open the door and see a finished garage with space for a workbench and a closet for storage.

Painted drywall walls and ceiling. Puck downlights. Smooth gray concrete floor with a curb all around. Corner for a workbench with plenty of outlets.

I wonder if we want a window (even a door, perhaps) on the west wall. Maybe a window (fixed) on the east wall, facing the kitchen.

We could have a post in the middle to minimize the cost of holding up the 2nd floor north wall.

Wayne Dalton 9100 steel doors from Lowes. $588 each

The closet shown is just luck--we could make it a different configuration if we had a particular use in mind.

Through the door in the middle, turn right and go up a few steps to the door. Come outside, go down a few steps to grade and that's where the man door to the garage would be so that you could circle around again.  Dumb. So, no man door. But maybe a window.

I could paint the concrete floor as I did the workshop. I used a basic floor paint, not a fancy, overpriced epoxy. From an open house perspective, I think bare concrete and no workbench spur one's imagination. 

With a 4:12 roof (to match the existing house), we'll have 45" from ceiling (plate) to ridge. Should we put a pull-down attic stair in here, or have an access door from the 2nd floor apartment?

Bedroom 3 and the Hallway

The previous owner referred to Bedroom 3 as "the apartment," which I think is how Casey sees it, too. Casey uses the alcove outside the door like a porch and seems to appreciate the deck if not the yard beyond.  He gets a lot of use out of the Dutch door. He uses the little closet (he installed a second shelf above the pole), but he also has an open armoire in the room.

He's made other changes that I will reverse: He replaced the ceiling light with a fan, so the room is always dark. He installed a 45-degree live edge sink that is simply impractical, and he has knickknack shelves all over the room.

Big fan, no light; open armoire; tired carpet

Low light, zero storage sink

The carpet is shot, there a crack in the big window. If we're replacing windows, we should replace it. Maybe the garden slider that Peggy suggested. The room needs all new trim--doors, base, windows are all pathetic. Bathroom floor seems okay as is, though.

We can widen the shower into the empty closet space, so we should.

The water heater and outlet are both gone.

The hallway outside the "apartment" is used by the upstairs tenant and as access for the garage. The main open question is what kind of floor is in the hall. I had thought carpeting for the stairs to the second floor, but we don't want to track dirt in from the outside. Maybe tile? 

To the left, up to apt. To the right, outside

Mudroom, Pantry, & Further Work on the Breezeway

 Some further refinements.

What had been a big pantry is now two rooms: a transitional mudroom and a pantry with a door and its own light. 

It's hard to tell, but I modified the floor plan slightly, because the refrigerator doesn't need that much of a bump out and the blue couch needed more leg space. Also, I added the cafe table so that the BR3 tenant doesn't need to eat in his room, glued to his damned television, spilling food and never cleaning it up, attracting ants and...but I digress. The student lounge could use a slightly less institutional look, but I'm not sure what to do. <snaps fingers> Got it! A brochure rack for all the local points of interest.

Got a sec? Want to race through the finished house, including the pantry? Sure you do.

Maybe people won't notice the lack of a window at the sink

Expanding the Breezeway

 The last post discussed the Trees Room, more properly called the Breezeway, and helped me realize that:

1. The room would be more useful--at least as a "dorm common room"--if it was larger.
2. This would allow us to recess the main kitchen refrigerator
3. We might as well rebuild the roof, since we're doing whole new roofs on the west wing, and we plan to re-do the shingles.
4. More square footage looks better on the listing. We're only talking about 84 SF, but I'll take it.

Rebuild the breezeway roof, extend room north

The "dorm common room" would make outdoor parties fun

Hall from the garage to the main house

The old electrical panel on the south wall, behind the louvered door, neds access, but the 15" x 79" louvered door is overkill, The panel box is 13.5" x 30", top @ 82" (BR3 floor @0"). A 14" x 36" access panel would be enough.

Actually building in the cabinets and buying the appliances might be a later phase.

The Trees Room

Okay. No more avoiding it, I need to capture my thoughts about the room that connects the 2 bedroom, 2 bath main house with the 2 bedroom, 2 bath west wing and garage.

Electrical concentrations in opposite walls and across the ceiling

Moving the laundry adds 20 SF to the room and, in theory, widens the Carkeek view. Removing the west wall will be tough, because I know a half dozen wires run through it. All the wiring for the main house runs above the ceiling.

Bedroom 3 is nicely self-contained--we can give the current hall to the transition room without affecting the bedroom. Assuming that the main panel has to stay where it is, 

This room, obviously, suffers from a major identity crisis. I'd like it to serve as a second kitchen for outdoor parties, a first kitchen for the renter in BR3, a wet bar for sipping drinks on the deck, and a dry access path from the dry, clean garage to the main house by way of the mud room/pantry. That's a lot.

The room is 9' 4" wide (inside) with a simple triangle roof. The eaves hit the top of the doors. Because we're blowing away the garage roof, we can raise that ridge and intersect the main house roof closer to the ridge. I suspect that the ceiling can't be similarly raised due to the wires. To be clear, not from the old panel to new (which mostly run under the rafters), but the wires from the old panel to the main house.

April 2019 photo from Workshop Project. Note chicken wire at wall to be removed.

The roof comes into play because we could move the north wall closer to the street along the blank kitchen wall. There are 16 circuits in the main house--I don't want to have to do a full re-wiring. That said, moving the service entrance and meter isn't as big a deal. That's just a new mast and one heavy, unwieldy wire from the meter to panel. It involves coordinating with Seattle City Light which could leave us in the dark for a week or so, but that's nothing compared to refinishing the floors or replacing the roof.

New service entrance, meter. It's a weird little alley.

Finally, we need to consider what is in the Trees Room. I'm showing sliding garden doors on both sides, making it a true breezeway. There seems to be a 4x8 header on the north and south, so we can do whatever fenestration we want up to 82.5" above the floor. If we rebuild the roof--for example, a shed roof with a high wall to the south for clerestories--we can likely adjust the attic electrical.

From the tenant's perspective, it's a stick-out bonus room up a short flight of stairs with access to the backyard. A counter with a sink, a refrigerator of some size, and at least a microwave if not a portable induction cooktop. A small couch, maybe. It's like the common room on a floor of a dorm. Maybe we add a washer-dryer stack like this one from Frigidaire (27” W, 32.5" D, 77.5“ H)

From the landlord's perspective, it's the path to get to the house, all the while judging the housekeeping of the tenants.

What kind of floor? Carpet--no, we want indoor/outdoor use for summer parties. Tile--maybe match the kitchen, or maybe reuse the existing. Wood/laminate--might be nice.

Trees Room, aka Breezeway

Kitchen

We want to achieve the feeling of a modern, freshly remodeled kitchen, but keep costs low. New appliances, but reuse cabinets if possible.

I'm ready to lose the greenhouse window and the counter-level glass blocks, but I'm sad to see the light and ventilation go. Now that the plan includes a windowless pantry, maybe we can back off on the cabinet density and include more windows.

Cabinets. The current plan involves reusing the 26 cup pulls, along with 8 cabinets. This means 5 new cabinets (not including the dining room, which will need new pulls), to match the frameless cabinets and door style.

Unusual raised panel doors

Matching the existing doors may be hard. The "California" style from one source is close, but not exact. The straight bevel is usually on the inner panel, with the ogee on the outside stile--in our case, it's reversed.

By the way, the existing drawers are smooth panels, except for the edge, which matches the doors. (Raised panel cabinet fronts online often have raised panels on the drawers.)

The existing 3" cup pulls have 2.5" center screws.

The big question is whether slightly different cabinet doors can be mixed and matched without looking wrong. Put another way: How much are we really saving by reusing the cabinets? The current design calls for 13 cabinets. A 21" base cabinet from theRTAstore with a white Shaker door is $391 ($313 on sale). Roughly $3000 in cabinets--if we reuse 8/13ths, we save $1846. Maybe consistency is worth it.

Glass front cabinets seem to fit with "coastal," but we need to consider the contents of the cabinet--dishes and glassware look good, appliances not so much. See Storage-based Kitchen Design from 2015.

Appliances. I'm assuming new refrigerator-freezer, 30" electric range, microwave-exhaust fan, and dishwasher. First question: Should they be white or something like brushed stainless steel? Many are available in "black stainless steel." Should everything be one brand, or best-in-breed?

Bertazzoni Master Series

Range: I like the controls at the front, not the back. I'd like the range to appeal to buyers--Bertazzoni makes a high-end induction slide-in range that seems to cost about $4,000. The GE Profile induction range is $3,000. The Viking 5 Series is $10,800, but it looks very impressive.

On the low end, the Frigidaire non-induction FFEH3054US is just $900.

Refrigerator: There are a number of counter-depth models for about $3000. Freezer on the bottom, french doors above. The GE Profile PWE23KYNFS is supposedly a best-seller. It's 35.75" W, 31.25" D, 70" H. LG's version is $2000 and has the same dimensions. 

Microwave: LG has a 2.2 CF stainless steel microwave that I like.

Dishwasher is easy. Everyone makes models in white and stainless steel. They are all the same dimensions.

Let's go with brushed stainless steel, LG refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, and the Bertazzoni range.

Sink. Especially if the appliances are stainless steel, that's what the sink should be. Undermount. I like what they call a single-bowl workstation sink. Kohler Prolific, or similar. 33" W, square sides.

Kohler K-5540 Prolific Workstation Sink

The faucet should be a single-lever gooseneck with a pull-out sprayer head (known as "pull down"). Basic. I don't think we need the spring coil around the outside (known as "pre-rinse"). Grohe Concetto is nicely streamlined.

Silestone Blanco Maple

Countertop. I like quartz. Not natural stone, not tile, not plastic laminate. I like the simple edge in the sink photo (above). I like a "waterfall" effect, but the only place I can use it, I don't like the sharp corners it produces, so I think I'll skip it.

Home Depot sells Silestone, among other brands, and Silestone has a bright white with a "white noise" flecking called White Storm. That might be too bright. Another color, Blanco Maple, introduces more chips and seems pretty coastal to me. Ikea Kasker calls it "white with mineral effect" or "white with mineral/glitter effect."

Backsplash - low (2") in the sink photo looks good, but we'll need more at the range. Since the range is nearly centered on the dining room and visible from the living room, it is ideal for a spot of color, like blue glass mosaic tiles. 

Flooring. I like a slate gray tile, but I'm flexible. A big porcelain tile with light grout might work.

Ignore the dark cabinets and the rug.

It was done by Mrs. White in the Kitchen, using the piece of driftwood