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Passive Gets Aggressive

Passive Gets Aggressive

Seattle is among the epicenters of the growing passive house movement.

Sloan Ritchie, right, his wife, Jennifer Karker-Ritchie, and their kids at the first passive house in Seattle, in the Madison Park neighborhood.

Sara Eizen Makes The Case for Space

Sara Eizen Makes The Case for Space

Sara Eizen’s residential interior design services are in high demand as clients seek extra space, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places

This story appears in the Sept-Oct. issue of Seattle magazine. Subscription information is here. Sara Eizen turns closets into classrooms and forgotten corners into stylish home offices. She can redesign spaces without ever setting foot inside a home. During this time of coronavirus, she’s become a Zoom czar. Ironically, before the pandemic, Eizen advised clients to…

Winemaker Charles Smith’s Leschi Home Is One For the Ages

Winemaker Charles Smith’s Leschi Home Is One For the Ages

Scandinavian influence makes its way through this home on Lake Washington

Charles Smith and daughter Charlotte cozy up on the expansive sectional in the main living area. A big change he made to this space was removing a glass ceiling in the dining room—“It made the room seem vast,” Smith says—and replacing accordian doors that

Northwest Home November 2011

Northwest Home November 2011

The latest issue of our home design publication, found inside every other issue of Seattle magazine.

The latest issue of Northwest Home (found inside the November issue of Seattle magazine) reveals local home shopping finds, such as the green goodies at Capitol Hill’s NuBe Green, style pointers on creating a chic chalet and how a little coaching helped one bachelor design his dream pad. Plus, our Home of Month tells the…

The Ultimate Water Saver

The Ultimate Water Saver

Giant rain barrels and Washington's first legal grey water system set this Jackson Place home at a h

The 1,750-square-foot house architect Robert Humble designed for himself and his wife is entirely nontraditional for Seattle. It’s modern, flat-roofed and boxy, and was prefabricated off-site and delivered by truck in sections to the skinny, empty lot owned by Humble and his wife, Nicole. But that doesn’t mean the owner hasn’t tried to integrate it…

A New Low of Toxicity Levels

A New Low of Toxicity Levels

A Ballard resident uses simple strategies to rid her bungalow of harmful, hidden chemicals.

You wouldn’t think a Ballard bungalow with pink asbestos siding and lead paint would appeal to a couple with an interest in the environment, but Rachel and Izaak Koller planned to remodel the Ballard home themselves—wearing suitable hazmat gear. Thanks to the previous tenants, the couple had to remove or remake nearly everything in the…

Inside Seattle's Super-Eco Homes

Inside Seattle’s Super-Eco Homes

You don't have to go totally gaga for green to reap the rewards of a few simple home-improvement mov

Those who grew up in the 1970s may recall the appearance of a brick in the bathroom toilet tank—a popular do-it-yourself water-saving measure. Fortunately, living green has become a little more sophisticated in recent decades. In Seattle—a city famous for its green-built, LEED-certified offices, restaurants and condos—many residents have taken the green-living ethos into their…

Super Efficient Energy

Super Efficient Energy

A Rainier Vallery homeowner employs the common sense - and human powered - Passive House standard.

The first time Dan Whitmore welcomed a group of friends to the nearly completed Rainier Valley home he was building for his family, it was a bit like a treasure hunt. “It was our first blower door test,” says the goateed contractor. (A blower door test is performed to check airtightness of a house and…

Find the Perfect Paint for Your Home

Find the Perfect Paint for Your Home

Local paint color consultants help writer Maria Dolan get a kick out of hue.

Color consultant Renate Ruby’s discerning eyes slid past the stripes of color I’d swiped onto the entry wall of my home—kaleidoscopic evidence, in hues ranging from eye-popping saffron yellow to mealy nonwhite, of nine months of color indecision. She patted the thick white trim framing my living room—the very thing I fell in love with…

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