Current state versus desired state

My husband and I spent months, no, years, determining the “programming” for Casa de Roo. There were several versions of the so-called “Manifesto.” In the final, “Everywhere you look: Beauty,” we picture styles to consider for the addition and, perhaps most importantly, articulate what this investment of money, time and talent should accomplish from a lifestyle perspective.

As Swiss modernist Le Corbusier (1887-1965) so famously said, “A house is a machine for living in.” Now that we see what this structure might look like, it is time to take a deep breath, step back and re-review our own words to ensure this modern dream house will indeed help us live better.

Exterior

• Situated below street level, the house is all curb and no appeal. Worse yet is the treacherous trek from car to front door (click image to enlarge).


• Access problems continue, for the dude who delivers our oil to anyone interested in helping us haul 40-pound bags of mulch down to back yard.


• No “shore appeal,” either.


• The deck, the house’s best feature, is on its last leg.

Interior

• Control temperatures. Before you notice ice forming on the lake, you feel cold infiltrating the house. Just as the air conditioner cannot keep up in summer, the heater falls behind in winter—until the sun bakes the great room, leaving us with cold fronts and warm fronts. Will a thunderstorm form over the coach?


• Critter-proof the house (no more real visits from the “Imaginary Chipmunk”).


• Eliminate cornea-singeing and leaky skylights.


• Engineer in better access from the top level to bottom.


• Enhance access to washer and drier.


• Establish dining area for 10 for those few times a year we entertain. More often than not, there’ll be a laptop on the table.


• Expand great room with wonderful site-lines so nothing blocks the view of the lake.


• Give a reason to go downstairs. The area is now a basement with a door to the backyard and feels like an excellent place to develop musculoskeletal maladies.


• Increase storage, including a place to shelve books and our quaint CDs.


• Install kitchen vent that actually (quietly) cleans the air.


• Integrate sensational lighting.


• Make space for an L-shaped couch from which to enjoy the TV, fireplace, lake and birds at the feeder.


• Replace non-closing and otherwise drafty windows. This goes for the (non) sliding glass doors, too.


• Other needed features:
  o Appropriately-sized soaking tub
  o Downstairs bathroom
  o Hot tub
  o Lap pool
  o Mud area
  o “Real” third bedroom (the current downstairs room is not fit for man nor beast)
  o Screened-in porch
  o “Sunken living room” style deck for grillin’ and chillin’

Feeling and functionality

• Focus on the view while shielding us from neighbors.


• Universal design features to give us a home we can grow old in. If I broke my leg today, I’d never make it from my Rav4 to the front door.


• Green. Although we cannot get LEED certification for a renovation, why not make our home über energy efficient and do our part for sustainability?


• Home as soothing sanctuary.


• Incorporate our wine cork collection and “moss project.”


• Gallery space. Some people have a crack habit. We have an art addiction.


• Shelter from the storm, and the sun.


• Balance of openness and privacy.


• Indoor/outdoor living.


• Darkness for star gazing.


• Quiet. Smilin’ Mike’s nautical wind bell causes auditory anguish. (Note: if you have a wind chime and the people next door can hear it, you are not being neighborly. Same goes for barking dogs.)


• Glass floor or “look down.”


• No fake stuff. Is you are not really a rock, why don’t you go ahead and look like something else?


• “Wow!” factor.


• Places to party, Party, PARTY!


• Everywhere you look: Beauty!

So, that’s the program. Will the design deliver? If so, the next steps are documentation, bidding and construction. Selective demolition could begin as early as mid-April.

“Holy Mackerel!

That’s beautiful.”

This was my husband’s first reaction to Designer Anthony Malara’s rendering of how the lake side of our modern dream house might look.

Sited in our actual back yard, it seemed like we could move right in. Even Clyde, our purple steel giraffe, repositioned himself in the lawn for a better look. (Click image for a close-up.)

I immediately used the drawing as the background on my work computer and began showing colleagues.

Other images from Jimmy Dumas Architecture followed: the great room and the pool.

Tomorrow we hash out the details with the firm. Today we simply share the pretty pictures.