Post and Beam
At the early framing stage of a new home we’re building on Mercer Island, it’s all about the posts and beams. Designed by Idaho architect Jack Smith, the home features a timber-framed structure being constructed by subcontractor Cascade Joinery. The timbers will be exposed inside and out, and are an an integral part of the design. The posts measure 8 ¾ in. by 8 ¾ in., and the beams 8 ¾ in. by 12 in.
To make up each solid-sawn, glu-lam post or beam, BC-based Fraserwood Industries saws a Douglas fir log into lams, then glues it back together so the grain matches (with a barely perceptible piece missing from each saw cut). The resulting timber looks like solid wood, but is far stronger and considerably more stable than the original log.
Beams projecting to the exterior are protected with copper copings on top and end caps, meticulously fashioned on-site by subcontractor Tecta America (formerly Sound Sheet Metal).
Those of you used to seeing steel painted a dark red may be wondering about the Caribbean pink steel plates, brackets, and structural bracing that augment the timber frame structure. The protective epoxy coatings can be pigmented any color, not just the standard red, no extra charge. So our client requested pink. Why not? The steel is going to be hidden away when construction is through.
Tight Quarters
Over the years, Schultz Miller has perfected the art of working in tight quarters. More often than not, it’s how we build in Seattle. We’ve worked on narrow lots with neighboring houses nearly to the property lines, super-steep lots, lots requiring alley access, and small lots with little room for storing materials or setting up equipment. Sometimes, as in the case of an underground garage we built recently on Queen Anne, we’ve confronted all of the above.
The garage would be bunkered into the backyard, facing a narrow alley below the house, where stood a wall of vintage concrete topped by a rusty chain link fence. Construction would require extensive shoring (a phalanx of “soldier piles,” steel I-beams sunk into the ground with timbers fitted between them during excavation to form a retaining wall), substantial concrete work, and careful re-grading, with all of the large machinery that goes along with these tasks. Neighboring houses would be just across the alley, perilously below the job site. There was literally no room for an error.
A job like this generates a certain amount of noise and commotion, but we made a concerted effort to reach out the neighbors, to keep reasonable working hours, and to schedule potentially disruptive work for opportune moments. The new garage is a welcome addition to the alley, in keeping with the ivy-covered walls but with a vibrant character all its own.
The piles were installed by subcontractor McDowell Northwest; excavation and sitework were by Active Environmental, Inc.; and concrete work was by Central Cascade Concrete.
Schultz Miller Shines at Cloudy Ski-to-Sea
For the ninth straight year, Schultz Miller fielded a spirited team at the annual Ski-to-Sea Race, a Memorial Day weekend tradition involving 8 team members in a 90-mile relay from Mt. Baker to Bellingham Bay. Cross-country skier Carl Berg kicked off the race in a cold, early-morning mist on the lower slopes of Mt. Baker. Kayaker Geoff Cunard rang the finish bell in an afternoon drizzle on the shores of Fairhaven. Separating the two were 8 hours, 14 minutes, and 27 seconds, an elapsed time that gave our team, “Hammer Time,” its best showing yet: 16th place in the Recreational Open Division of 150 teams, and 95th place overall in a field of 464 teams.
Carl skied a 4-mile cross-country loop before handing off to downhill skier Ray Stevens, who climbed over 1000 vertical feet, then zoomed down the remainder of the 2.5-mile course to hand off to Marc Vassallo, who ran 8 miles down the road from the base of Mt. Baker ski area, with just enough uphill at the very end to make it that much harder on the knees. Marc handed off to road cyclist Paul Vassallo, who sped along a 38-mile route to the town of Everson. Paul handed off to our two canoeists, Stan Cox and Jeremy Von Wandruszka, who paddled together 18 miles down the surging Nooksack River before handing off to mountain biker Eric Biermann, who pedaled 14 miles up and down a course that was mostly deep mud, except where it bumped along railroad ties. Eric met sea kayaker Geoff at Squalicum Park, and Geoff paddled (in a wooden kayak he built himself) 5 miles to Marine Park in Fairhaven, south of Bellingham. Talk about collaboration.
Schultz Miller Profile: Jim Hovick
Jim Hovick recalls watching his dad remodel the family kitchen . . . without any tools. So Jim started out by buying the right tools, taking on small projects, and building from there. He was born and raised in Ballard, graduated from Ballard High School in 1965, and is proud to have served in the Air Force. For years, he worked part-time as a trim carpenter and part-time as a boat builder. “You can learn a tremendous amount about trim carpentry from boat building,” Jim says, “because nothing is plumb, level, or square on a boat.” In 1989, Jim joined Schultz Miller, which was then located in his native Ballard.
He enjoys his work with Schultz Miller because our projects often take him outside the norm, offering him a chance to work with different materials or to create unusual details. Among his crewmates, he’s known as a good closer, able to complete a job that otherwise doesn’t seem to want to finish. He recalls an early Schultz Miller job where he was challenged to join a vertical piece of trim to a sloped piece of trim. He got around it with a small, triangular-shaped third trim piece. Not long ago, he came to the same problem. “How do you want me to handle this?” he asked company owner Terry Miller. Terry said: “Same as you did years ago.” It says a lot about Jim that Terry had remembered.
Schultz Miller Profile: Jerry Hamel
Jerry Hamel began his working life as a teacher of 6th-grade math and 8th-grade science. He then took a desk job with Bank of California. But it wasn’t long before he realized he preferred the challenges and rewards of physical work to those of the classroom or office. Growing up in northeastern Kansas, he’d helped a local carpenter on his family’s house. When the opportunity to work for a small contractor in West Seattle came along, he took it. In 1987, he joined Schultz Miller, and he hasn’t looked back since. He’s currently the employee with the longest tenure in the company.
What keeps Jerry going is the chance to brainstorm, apply math skills, and solve problems on a variety of different projects. He appreciates that carpentry gives him the opportunity to figure out a problem and then implement the solution, not pass it on. One of his favorite projects was one he took on mostly by himself, a 5-foot-high attic in The Highlands whose owner wanted a nautical-themed bunkhouse for her grandchildren. Jerry crafted ship-like ribs for the ceiling, added port holes, and installed a ship’s ladder. He’s always been adept at details and finish work, but he isn’t afraid to pick up a broom or shovel. His motto – “Whatever it takes to get the job done” – has served him and Schultz Miller well.
Details Make the Difference - No. 1
Details matter. If this is true everywhere in your home, it is perhaps especially true in the kitchen and bath, where you have an opportunity to interact daily with architectural details you not only see but also touch and feel. The master bath in a 1960s rambler we recently remodeled provides an excellent case in point. The fixtures and finishes in the bath are the masterwork of Nils Finne, Principal, FNNE Architects, who designed each element and conceived of the overall effect, and of the many craftsmen who fashioned the various parts and components.
Finne's custom fabrications of furniture, lighting, fittings, and hardware bring the architectural intent of the entire building down to the tactile and immediate. “We explore the close touch of a hand as it might grip burnished metal or brush across a surface of textured wood,” says Finne. For Finne, the fabrications are an extension of the idea of crafted modernism, the notion that modernism must embody the enduring value of craftsmanship in order to acquire lasting value and meaning.
The bathroom was intended to feel like an outdoor space, returning the idea of bath to its natural origins!
A very thin and light steel mirror frame has been suspended in front of a continuous set of windows, creating an intriguing set of reflections of inside and outside.
The twisted steel towel bars are a FINNE signature element.
The custom cherry cabinet panels were created with sophisticated computer-driven routers. The resulting pattern can be seen as “woven wood.”
The laser-cut steel tub frame explores the use of a very delicate, nature-inspired pattern with a pure industrial material. The same pattern occurs in the shade valences.
Photos: Benjamin Benschneider
Movie Night
Imagine sitting on the deck or soaking in the pool . . . while watching a movie. Not that the view across Puget Sound isn’t grand. But when it’s dark out, our West Seattle clients now have their choice of viewing stars winking over the water or a movie flickering on the exterior wall of their garage. Designed by architect Rick Hiner, the project includes a new, stand-alone studio, terraces, landscaping, and an infinity pool. A digital projector located in the studio (behind a pane of glass) sends its beam over the pool and onto a garage wall that has been refinished with white stucco to create a 9-ft. by 16-ft. movie screen. In the photo above, taken during construction, you can see three speaker boxes in the wall; metal grills, painted white to blend with the wall, will cover the holes.
Architectural Concrete
We’ve worked with a lot of concrete over the years, but rarely have we poured as much of it as we did on a recent project in Washington Park. The concrete you see on this project is known as “architectural concrete,” to distinguish it as a finished surface from the more utilitarian kind. Architectural concrete is every bit as strong and functional as standard concrete, it just looks better.
Building with custom concrete is a team effort, involving design input from the architect and engineer, detail work from the concrete subcontractor and the careful attention of a Schultz Miller project manager. For this job, concrete subcontractor Central Cascade Concrete worked with the project manager and the concrete batch plant to develop a concrete that had specific appearance and flow plasticity characteristics. Using select pea gravel, fly-ash, a polymer admix, and color pigment, this custom mix produced a bright concrete with a warmer hue rather than the more usual blue-grey mix. The concrete is “board formed,” which means individual boards were used to hold and shape the mix as it cured, rather than the standard sheet forms. The boards for this project were fairly wide, at 12 in., and set tight, so just a little concrete seeped through, leaving a very light line. Sometimes boards are used to impart their wood grain to the concrete, but in this case, resin-faced boards were used to achieve a very smooth finish.
Architectural concrete is time-consuming and labor intensive, so it costs more. And board forms are more expensive than standard forms because they can only be used once. But the result is stunning, and the beauty is long lasting.
Drilling for Heat
A house we remodeled recently in Denny Blaine is the latest of our projects to rely on the earth to provide heating and cooling. The technology to accomplish this is commonly referred to as a geothermal system, though it’s more accurate to call it a ground-source heat pump. A conventional heat pump draws heat from the outside air, condenses it, and supplies it to the house; a ground-source heat pump draws heat from the earth, which maintains a nearly constant temperature across the winter. For this project, subcontractor GeoDyne drilled five 200-ft.-deep holes in the side yard. A mixture of water and anti-freeze circulates through plastic pipes from the house, up and down the length of each hole, and back to the house. Inside, a heat pump installed by EarthHeat (now GeoTility) transfers the heat from the geothermal tubes to water that runs through tubes within the subfloor (under new hardwood floors), supplying radiant heat to the house. Run in reverse, the system draws heat from the house and transfers it to the ground, taking the place of a conventional AC system. Annual savings are typically 40-50% vs. natural gas and 30-40% vs. an air-source heat pump. The real savings will be 10, 20, and 30 years out, when energy costs are expected to rise significantly.
