Once just a garage, now a family lodges

Sometimes just one family room won’t do. The owners of the family lodge pictured on thee two pages wanted a family room to accommodate the frequent visits of their many relatives –not to mention stopovers by enumerable friends. When it became, clear that space available inside the house would be too small. The architect turned the owner’s attention to the garage.

Adding rooms above and to the back of the double garage created a large play area with windows facing the sea, a smaller area with a woodburning stove, a spacious sleeping loft with storage, and a bathroom and dressing room.

In short, it’s a children paradise. Kids can ride a carousel horse, sneak mouth-bursting numbers of gum balls from machines, or pull out the sliding storage drawer from under the window seat and rummage for favorite toys. Best of all, they can race up the stairway and slide down the firepole.

To build the lodge the architect called for piers to be sunk on four corners, with a fifth pier supporting the center of the lodge. You guessed it –the fifth pier doubles as the firepole. It’s a case of architectural double entendre, proving that structural requirement can be met successfully with great wit.

Indoor campfire

The family and friends can gather on all side of this square, suspended fireplace. Track lights as well as stationary spotlight for reading. Illuminate the informal indoor campfire alcove. The built in seating has storage drawers underneath. Notice how the strong unbroken horizontal line of the window, shades, and window seat makes the room seem wider than it is. The warm brown rug, brown tiles around the heart and earth tone upholstery carry out the friendly, casual feeling of the ranch style house and wood paneling.

This entry was posted on December 30, 2009 at December 30, 2009 and is filed under Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.