Tag: design

bookmark_borderGreywater goals

Posted on by ErikaRS

There are lots of reasons to use greywater[1], and every greywater system will have a different combination of motivations, goals, and constraints. Greywater systems are not one-size-fits-all so it’s important to understand what you want before you choose a particular system.

Our primary goal is to reduce the amount of water we use in maintaining the fairly extensive gardens we hope to have. Our secondary goal is to reduce the amount of waste water we send to the sewers. Our primary motivation is practical — I hate wasting water that can be put to perfectly good use. Secondary motivations are environmental (reducing water use and sewage treatment volumes) and financial (saving on summer watering).

Because practicality is my primary motivation, we want a system that is fairly easy to maintain and fairly inexpensive to install and maintain. This means that we plan to limit myself to quantities and qualities of greywater that can effectively be processed by a garden. Since storage requires delicate and expensive filtration and purification systems, we’ll focus on a system that allows us to divert water directly to the garden when needed and to the sewer when it is not needed.

As we’ll see in the next post, these motivations, goals, and constraints make it a lot easier to decide what type of greywater system is right for us.

[1]The legality of these uses varies by jurisdiction. In general, regions in the US that do have real water problems seem to have more flexible and realistic regulations than places that don’t. Be sure to check with local regulations before building a greywater system.

In this post and throughout the rest of this series, I use Art Ludwig’s The New Create an Oasis with Greywater as my primary source; it’s considered one of the best resources on residential greywater for the lay reader. Other bits and pieces are mostly pulled from my memory of other books and websites I’ve read. Any mistakes are, of course, my own.

bookmark_borderShades of grey: Greywater health and safety

Posted on by ErikaRS

Conversations about greywater often start with questions: Is it safe? What about disease? Greywater is safe, but we do need to take precautions.

First, let’s talk a bit more about greywater and blackwater:

  • Greywater: Waste water with a low level of solids and a very low level of pathogens or toxic chemicals. Sources: washing machines, showers, tubs, bathroom sinks.
  • Dark greywater: Water with a moderate level of solids or a low level of pathogens or toxic chemicals. Greywater turns into dark greywater if it sits for prolonged periods. Sources: Washing machine water used for diapers, kitchen sink water with small amounts of garbage disposal use, greywater stored too long in a tank.
  • Blackwater: Water with a high level of solids, pathogens, or toxic chemicals. Sources: Toilet water or water from a sink that has cleaning chemicals poured into it.

Blackwater and dark greywater both can, under certain circumstances, be handled at home, but it requires lots of caution and more complex systems. I plan to ignore both for the rest of this series.

That leaves us with greywater. Greywater is not very contaminated. One statistic I saw claimed that residential greywater in the US has about the same level of pathogens as drinking water in some drought ravaged third world nations. That’s not a good thing — there are very good reasons that improving access to clean water is an important philanthropic goal — but it does illustrate that the contamination in greywater is something to be managed, not feared.

The low level of contamination in residential greywater in the US can be processed by the microorganisms in the soil, but every greywater system should follow basic guidelines to ensure healthy treatment. Ludwig’s book presents two fundamental guidelines for safety:

  1. Greywater must pass slowly through healthy topsoil for natural purification to occur.
  2. Design your greywater system so no greywater-to-human contact occurs before purification.

From these general principles, many specific principles can be derived: don’t add non-biodegradable chemicals to your greywater, get it quickly into the soil, don’t use it to water food plants, don’t spray it directly on plants such as grass, etc.

But the bigger point is that when it comes to greywater, both disregard for health concerns and excess obsession with health concerns should be considered errors. Education combined with careful design and management can produce a safe home greywater system.

In this post and throughout the rest of this series, I use Art Ludwig’s The New Create an Oasis with Greywater as my primary source; it’s considered one of the best resources on residential greywater for the lay reader. Other bits and pieces are mostly pulled from my memory of other books and websites I’ve read. Any mistakes are, of course, my own.

bookmark_borderWhy greywater?

Posted on by ErikaRS

We live in the Pacific Northwest where we have the good fortune of an abundance — some might say overabundance — of rain. But not all climates are so fortunate. Some parts of the world have almost constant water shortages due to degradation of the local water supply or a population which exceeds the water capacity of the region. Even in the northwest, we have to occasionally worry about drought, and no one likes high summer water bills.


On the other side of the coin, most homes in the US dump hundred of gallons of water into the sewer system every week. Some of this water is blackwater, which is any water that contains high levels of pathogens, e.g., toilet water. But the vast majority is greywater, which is water that has only a small amount of contamination, such as laundry or hand-washing waste water. Since black and greywater are mixed in most sewage systems, municipalities have to invest in expensive treatment plants which treat the whole slurry as if it were blackwater.

So here we have two problems: water shortages and sewer system load.

As is often the case, this problem can be mitigated by turning waste into a resource:


By separating out greywater from blackwater, we can reduce our residential water usage and reduce the load on our sewer systems. It’s a win-win!

In the next posts, I’ll give a high level overview of some of the concerns around greywater reuse and some practical tips about greywater systems.

In this post and throughout the rest of this series, I use Art Ludwig’s The New Create an Oasis with Greywater as my primary source; it’s considered one of the best resources on residential greywater for the lay reader. Other bits and pieces are mostly pulled from my memory of other books and websites I’ve read. Any mistakes are, of course, my own.

bookmark_borderWhy Design Is Not Done

Posted on by ErikaRS

Now that construction has started, we’ve been asked: “Oh, now you just get to sit back and watch, right?” The answer is “No, not at all.”

We work with the principle: “design only what we need”. Some major design elements are needed from the beginning. The floor plan and building structure determine everything else. Details such as windows were required for permitting. The kitchen needs to be ordered early. Since the colors in the kitchen are closely related to the colors of the floor and counter, we’ve chosen those too. These major decisions are the ones that we have finished.

But there are many more decisions that are still to be made. We have delayed some decisions simply because they are not needed earlier. For example, we’ve just started talking to a craftsman about the front door.  This class of decisions follow the construction schedule. A few of the many other items in this category are hardscaping (driveway, outside walkways, etc.), landscaping, deck material and railings, stair railings, interior doors and hardware, kitchen backsplash, shelving, and light fixtures.

We intentionally delay other decisions until we have more information and context. For example, many of the colors will be finalized once we can test them on the building. We have a general color scheme chosen, but once the siding is up we can apply some paint swatches and choose the exact colors. We haven’t even begun to think about carpet and interior wall colors. Another example is wiring. Once the frame is up, we can walk through the structure and decide on exact positions for light switches, electrical outlets, and any additional wiring such as Ethernet cabling and speaker wiring.

We delay other decisions because we do not know they are needed. Some decisions have unintended consequences that we have to take into account later. We discovered one example recently. Our island is 11′ long, but CaesarStone comes in slabs up to 10′ in length. We can live with it and have a seam in the counter where two pieces of stone join together. We can attempt to shorten the island to 10′. We can tweak the counter design to avoid or integrate the seam. We could even change the counter to another material. Luckily, we learned about this issue early enough that we have time to address it (though shortening the counter would affect the imminent cabinet order). Not everything will be so accommodating.

The early stages of construction are interesting to watch but don’t require a lot of input from us. We don’t really have anything useful to say about the size of the foundation hole or the concrete being poured. As construction progresses more elements will need our input, and we will be more involved in the construction process. Some of these decisions will be minor, but some will be required to allow construction to move forward. We will be kept busy designing throughout the entire construction period. In fact, this may be our slow period!

bookmark_borderKitchen Design Finished

Posted on by ErikaRS

The kitchen design is finalized. We made the few remaining decisions in-person at the new Pedini showroom in South Lake Union.

First and most important was choosing the finish of the upper cabinets. We wanted something lighter than the dark brown lower cabinets. The section of uppers is small, so we chose something with a bit of contrast. We quickly narrowed our choices to the painted glass finishes. A coat of paint on the back of glass provides some gloss and depth to the color. We settled on Bianco, which (despite the name), isn’t white. The paint color is a light grey, and the glass adds just a hint of green to it. It is fairly neutral and matches our other materials well; it is lighter than the other cabinets, but is enough darker than a white wall to stand out nicely. Sadly, we cannot find any photos of the color on Pedini’s site.

While we were at the showroom, we noticed they had a sample kitchen with an interesting mechanism for opening the upper cabinets. In the Magika line (which we are using), they have an upward-opening option in addition to traditional side-hinged cabinets. To prevent the upswing doors from running into your head, they are hinged in the middle. The upper half is hinged to the cabinet like expected, but the lower half is hinged inward, so it stays roughly vertical while the door is opened. When fully open, the door is compact and out-of-way, without hitting the ceiling. Particularly for someone tall, this seems like a nice alternative. They cost a bit more, but it is worth it to us. The sample unit they had was equipped with a motorized control, so just a touch would open or close the door. We weren’t interested in the extra expense or complexity of the motors, so we chose the manual version.

We discussed several small decisions, mostly about handles. Magika has two handle options: hidden handles inset into the top of each door, accessible via a horizontal channel; and external vertically-oriented handles in aluminum or white. We generally liked the inset handles; they look clean and lack bits to snag on. For the back of the island facing the dining room we considered the aluminum handles for the visual effect. However, the channel for the inset handles adds height to the cabinets, and matching a set of channeled and channel-less cabinets on the two sides of the island would’ve been tricky.

On the upside, this conversation revealed that using handled cabinets in the bathrooms would lower the height a bit, so we switched those. Back in the kitchen, the cabinet and drawer on the appliance wall can’t fit channels, so those require external handles. We spent a while debating which handles to use, and how to position them. We decided to have no holes drilled by the factory, and decide which handles to use and where to put them at installation time.

The fixed, opened shelving was dropped from the order completely. The shelves from Pedini wouldn’t exactly match the cabinets, and were fairly expensive for simple shelves. Since we are getting other built-in cabinetry work done in the house, we decided we could get a better result by having those shelves constructed later.

With a few emails for revised diagrams and cost quotes, we now have the kitchen design fully locked.

bookmark_borderExterior Siding

Posted on by ErikaRS

The bulk of the exterior will be finished before most of the interior of the house, so we need to finalize the design for that fairly early. Yuval also likes to submit a basic siding scheme with permitting documents, even though it is not required.

We were inspired by a picture of another house by Whitney Architecture. We like the simplicity of plain lap siding for most of the house, with large panels to emphasize features such as the stair tower. The other houses at Bellevue 41st have used more elements than this in their siding schemes. Our house will have a lot of exposure to view, so we wanted something simpler to keep it from being too busy. This picture also suggests a light grey/dark grey color scheme that is cohesive but provides nice contrast between the different sections. The funny thing is, in person this house is a nice cream/chocolate brown color; but we prefer the grey that we saw in the picture.

Another picture inspired a plan for the windows. We like the contrast of the dark window trim against the light siding. To prevent it from being too stark, we’ll use a dark grey instead of straight black.

Markus designed a great siding scheme from those initial inspirations. It uses lap siding for most of the house, but uses a smaller width on the upper floor for variety. The stair tower and the garage use panels, along with a little bit around the living room windows. The section next to the front door is designed as wood slats, to warm up the entry a bit. We’ve also discussed using wood on a section of the upper floor over the garage, to mesh with the green roof garden up there. Other than the wood, we are planning on a light grey for the lap siding, and dark grey for the panels.

We still have to finalize colors and woods, but we like the current design, and are happy to have a piece that is nearly perfect from the start.

Pictures from:

bookmark_borderShiny things! (Sinks, Faucets, Toilets)

Posted on by ErikaRS

We don’t need to choose plumbing fixtures until later in the process. Most of the time, they come near the end of interior design. But when Yuval sent us a sample list from one of the other houses, we spent an afternoon and evening picking out sinks, faucets, toilets, and accessories (drains, mainly), because we’re exciting like that.

Kohler is our preferred supplier. To simplify our choices and provide visual consistency, we decided to reuse the same items and lines as much as possible. Our faucets of choice come from the Purist line. For the lavatory, we were drawn to the version with separate linear handles, and we matched it in the shower and bath/shower. We considered the single-handle stem version, but found it fairly ugly.

The Purist line also has kitchen faucets with several variations: bridge or single stem, larger or smaller, and pull-out spray or no spray. We’re not fond enough of the bridge look to pay several hundred dollars more, so we chose the single stem version. We chose the larger faucet with spray as the main kitchen faucet, and the smaller without spray as the prep faucet in the kitchen. In the laundry room, we went with the larger version without spray.

Looking through all the sinks was a bit more work. Upstairs, we settled on rectangular under-mount sinks with a curve to the basin. They are simple, and look nice. We considered choosing something more stereotypically modern such as a vessel sink or wading pool sink, but neither seems as usable.

The powder room needed something a bit different. Yuval suggested that we could save money by skipping cabinets and using a wall-mount sink. We will separately install a bit of storage for the few things that we want to keep in that room. We found a reasonable wall-mount sink that should work well.

We quickly narrowed down the kitchen sink to two options. A large single-basin sink, or a model where some of the basin is taken up for a shelf on the side. Even though it has a smaller basin, we really like the shelf on the Stages sink. It is well-placed for using as a prep area, since the prep faucet will be mounted right above that section. The main problem is that it costs twice as much, at least in part because it comes with a whole bunch of accessories. They may not be completely useless, but we’d be happy to have just the sink. Despite that, we’ll probably use the Stages sink.

The laundry room just needs a large, sturdy sink. The garage gets a large, sturdy sink that can mount to the wall. It also gets a service faucet which can accept a hose. This means we don’t need a hose bib anywhere else in the garage to use it as a car washing area.

For toilets, we only had a few requirements. We want dual flush, and for the master bath and powder room we want comfort height. Out of the many options, we chose a style that looks a bit more modern. We decided not to spend the money on Kohler’s fancy new Numi toilet, because we don’t need a toilet that is also a geek gadget. Also, it costs $6000.

It will be a while before we need to order these, but it is another set of decisions made.

bookmark_borderKitchen Design

Posted on by ErikaRS

After the main layout was finished, we designed the kitchen. Kitchen design isn’t required for permitting, but the lead time on the cabinets is long enough that we need to order them around the time construction starts. We are using the Pedini Magika system for all the drawers and cabinets. The kitchen design was done by Pedini Seattle.

The main layout followed what we had decided while designing the floor plan: a counter and cabinets along the back (north) wall, a long island parallel to that, and then a full side (east) wall with appliances and cabinets. We wanted the cooktop on the island, since that is where we spend the most time when we want to interact with others. That put the main sink on the back counter, with the dishwasher next to it. The side wall then had the double ovens and refrigerator.

The cooktop is offset to the west of the island so that it isn’t back-to-back with the sink. That also gives a nice large prep area on the island. The wall with the ovens and fridge has a tall, skinny cabinet for things such as brooms, mops, vacuums, and aprons. It also has some open shelving for cookbooks and a larger open surface for open cookbooks, mail, or other non-food items.

We considered putting a small prep sink on the north-east corner of the island. I want a chopping station where I can rinse vegetables and cut them up without fighting with Erika for the faucet. I also want a slightly taller section of the counter for chopping so that I don’t have to lean over. Raising the main island wouldn’t work very well, though, and the prep sink would add extra cost. Instead, we raised the back counter by two inches and added a second faucet on the right corner of the sink. We also removed the upper cabinets in that section. This gives me a nice section of counter to use for cutting up ingredients, without cabinets getting in the way and with access to water that doesn’t interfere too much with Erika. She might not be able to wash lots of dishes, but if she needs to fill pots with water, or rinse and peel potatoes, or other smaller tasks, we can easily share the sink and not interrupt each other.

The original plan showed the south-east corner of the island as a bar counter. We decided not to bother with this, because we will have a large dining table just a few feet away; we replaced it with more cabinets.

We considered adding some smaller amenities, but decided they weren’t worth the cost. We looked at having a pull-out trash and recycling under the island, but decided, given the $600 additional cost, that having just a plain cabinet there would work fine. We also had a tambour (roll-up door) over the open shelving on the side wall in the original design. However, we didn’t want to add a bunch of extra metal next to the stainless steel appliances or to pay the additional $700, so decided to go with open shelves.

The upstairs bathrooms also feature designs from Pedini Seattle. The layouts are very simple, with two cabinets and one set of drawers in each bathroom. We did debate on the heights for a bit. Standard kitchen counters are 36″ high, while bathroom counters are usually around 30″. Since we are using kitchen cabinets for the bathrooms, they are only available at around 36″ high. For adults, especially tall ones, 36″ is a nice height. For young children, the taller height can be a bit more difficult. We decided that we wanted consistency with the cabinets, so we are going to use Pedini for both bathrooms, and add a temporary step for when our children are young. This also allows us to adjust the height more easily as they grow.

Compared to other parts of the design process, the kitchen and bath were pretty easy. After the first round of design, we were only tweaking details. Still, getting those more or less in place feels like real progress.

bookmark_borderMaterials and Colors 2

Posted on by ErikaRS

After choosing the bathroom materials, as described earlier, we moved on to the main level.

The Hearth Room
We were less certain about the main living area. Anne encouraged us to start with the kitchen surfaces and the flooring since those are some of the largest and most visible areas in the house.

In the kitchen, we gravitated toward dark brown cabinets with a white counter top. But we had to decide what type of white counter to use. We had asked Yuval to get samples of the different varieties of white CaesarStone and settled on Quartz Reflections. It has more variety and character than plain white, including metal flakes in that give it a bit of a sparkle. Anne commented that most men fear the glitter, but it is sparse, and we both think it looks nice.

We will use the dark brown for the lower cabinets, and the cabinets around the appliances on the east wall. However, we want to pick a lighter color for the cabinets over the sink and back counter so that the room doesn’t feel too dark. Pedini has a lot of colors available in a painted glass that looks really nice, so we’re going to get some samples to help us pick a final color.

Choosing the floor material was harder. Wood comes in so many colors, textures, and finishes. We knew we wanted a fairly neutral colored wood; I don’t like woods that are too yellow or too red. We liked darker brown woods, but, as we suspected and Anne confirmed, with the dark cabinetry, dark wood could lead to the room feeling too dark. I liked the very light colored woods, but Erika was less fond of them. Eventually, we settled on a fairly light brown, oiled wood that we liked the look and feel of. Oiled floors require a bit more yearly maintenance, will stain more easily, and will still dent; but they look more natural and less shiny, and develop character as they age (instead of just looking worn).

We chose Ecotech tiles for the entry. It is a sturdy tile, so we can use it both in the outdoor and indoor entry. The Ecogreen version nicely matches the wood floor on the main level, so the transition from inner entry to the main area would work well.

The Powder Room

We want the powder room on the main floor to generally match the theme on the main floor. However, the powder room is a small space not visible from other areas of the main floor and provides a chance to do something more interesting. Not crazy — our style, as Anne put it, is more ‘understated elegance’ — but using some interesting textures, lighting, and color combinations.

We were drawn to the Pental Glow tile. It has a fabric-like texture and a nice sheen. We chose a lighter gold that goes with the floor and white of the sink and toilet. We will run the tile up one of the main walls (probably behind the sink and mirror) and use light to bring out the texture of the tile. Anne suggested a grey paint for the other walls and ceiling. We were surprised, but it works. We will use black for accent, perhaps through some elements made of iron or blackened steel. It seems like a very unusual combination, but it should yield an elegant and interesting result.

And much more…

Even if we don’t change our mind about these choices, there are still many choices to make. The south wall on the main floor is the biggest one. It will contain the fireplace, with a raised hearth for sitting and some kind of material wrapping it and extensive built-in cabinetry between the entry and fireplace. We need to decide on the interior color of the window frames, carpet colors upstairs, other flooring options for the upstairs landing and utility room, trim, paint colors on walls, the media room and other areas downstairs, and of course the stairs themselves, which will be a centerpiece of the house. Many of these choices will be delayed until the house is partially completed and we can stand in the rooms and look around. This will be an ongoing process; but we have made good progress.

bookmark_borderMaterials and Colors

Posted on by ErikaRS

We are working on interior design, starting with materials and colors. We started by visiting tile show rooms. On the first trip, we browsed. On the second trip, we picked out samples. There are a lot of nice tiles, but the vast majority in the showrooms are neutral: white, black, grey, and brown. A few come in red, a few in  metal, and glass comes in a wide range of colors. So when we saw a lovely blue tile, we investigated further. The people at the Statements showroom referred us to their commercial/builder showroom. We got a nice selection of blue tiles, mostly from the Italian company FAP.

Next we reviewed our finds with Yuval and saw the samples he had picked out for us. We didn’t make a lot of decisions, but we identified several more samples we wanted to get to prepare for the second meeting. Then we brought in Anne Viggiano, the color designer Yuval works with. This meeting was really good, and we came out with some specific material choices for different rooms. Yuval took some nice pictures of the material combinations for reference, which we have below.

The Bathrooms
Erika and I had a vision for the bathroom. Our favorite counter material was Deep Ocean CaesarStone, and we thought it would pair well with lacquer white cabinets. We wanted to continue the blue theme from the Amour Mer tile by FAP, although we weren’t sure where. We paired that with a grey floor tile and some naturally-shaped flat stones for the shower floor.

Anne and Yuval helped us tie everything together. Anne suggested using the same stones we liked for the shower floor for the backsplash to give it a more organic, rounded-ragged edge. The stones pair nicely with the rough-edge maple Yuval suggested for the bathroom bench. Ecotech tiles provide the grey we wanted for the floor as well as some natural texture that would be less slippery when wet.

We decided to use the Amour Mer tiles in the shower so that they would tie into the blue of the counters without competing. The shower will be mostly glossy white tiles with some vertical strips of the blue.

These materials will provide a nice balance between the clean, modern counters, cabinets, and shower walls and the natural stone and wood in the floor, backsplash, and bench.

After discussing all this, we moved on to the main level, where we had only a vague idea of what we wanted…