Houzz Tour: An American Waterfront Home Gets Transformed

Photos by Haris Kenjar

Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: A Seattle couple — he works in corporate travel, and she’s a stay-at-home mom — and their 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter
Location: Menlo Beach, Mutiny Bay area of Whidbey Island, Washington
Size: 3,127 square feet (290.5 square meters); four bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms
Designers: Brian Paquette (interior designer) and Martin Henry Kaplan (architect)

The home sits in an idyllic waterfront location but its choppy layout didn’t maximise the gorgeous views outside. It was in need of functional updates like new windows and doors, and the time was also right to make interior improvements to create a better visual connection with the water.

Interior designer Brian Paquette helped turn the tide, altering the main floor layout and changing the finishes.

In fact, Paquette says the angles of the walls proved a challenging aspect of the redesign. But creating a more open floor plan allowed the intersecting planes and diagonals to become secondary features rather than dictate the layout.

Paquette had the living room ceiling raised a few inches. He had the beams and angled steel, seen at the right, painted the same white as the walls for continuity. The fireplace has a slim steel mantel, which Paquette says was chosen for its simplicity and relationship to the window design. The floating stair treads are reclaimed oak, the same as the floor.

Elegantly casual, the furnishings focus on comfort and texture — with leather, wovens and a chunky area rug. The blues, browns and golds reference the coastal landscape outside.

Ottoman: custom design upholstered in leather by Moore & Giles; gold lounge chair: Dillon, Lawson-Fenning, upholstered in Romo fabric

The living room opens to the dining and kitchen areas, the layouts of which were completely changed. A large island provides ample workspace at one end and casual seating at the other. The sliding barn door on the far right leads to a pantry.

A custom blue paint on the lower cabinets matches the blue of the oven, seen in the previous image. The uppers, however, are white. “It’s a big kitchen, so having an all-white kitchen next to the rest of the colour would have been off-balance,” Paquette says. Wrought iron light fixtures offer contrast as well as a subtle coastal look.

Cabinetry: custom, Gemkow Construction; white cabinet paint: Decorator’s White, Benjamin Moore; countertop: Calacatta Gold, Pental; island counter chairs: Lee Industries; pendant lights: Hubbardton Forge

A den off the entry features access to the deck, which winds around about 60 percent of the home. Like elsewhere in the house, Paquette sprinkled in furnishings made of natural materials, like the wood stool made of reclaimed teak seen here.

Sectional: custom; wood side table: Tirto Furniture

Previously a wide-open attic on the third floor, the kids’ space has five bunk beds just to the left of this sitting area.

The colourful area was one of the homeowners’ requests and what Paquette describes as “unabashed fun for everyone.” The design leans toward the wild side, combining a bold custom chevron area rug, palm-patterned wallpaper and candy-hued pouf seating blocks.