Log home holds family memories

The foundation for the MacDonald family’s home was laid twenty years before any building began, when Mike MacDonald’s parents, John “Mac” and Cloie MacDonald, drove through the Bitterroot valley as a young married couple in the mid-1950’s. In love with each other, they also fell in love with the land, and made the Bitterroot their dream. But Mac had a job in Missoula, and there they lived. Through the years that followed, the family grew and prospered, but their dream of living in the Bitterroot lingered. So in 1972, the couple bought a piece of land outside of Stevensville, complete with creek and seclusion. Mike and his siblings were teenagers when his parents bought the land, and they were expected to work. “My (youngest) brother was two,” MacDonald said. “He couldn’t do much, but he helped move rocks.” MacDonald’s father was a teacher, so in summer, the family “vacationed” on their land, with everyone pitching in with the building. Cousins, uncles and aunts all helped build the cedar home that Mike would later buy from his father. MacDonald has the original canceled check his father wrote to pay for the cedar logs. It’s tucked into a photo album chronicling the home’s transformation from logs to poured foundation to two-story home situated on a hillside overlooking a creek and five-acre meadow. The squared logs were purchased for just over $23,000. The cedar came delivered on the backs of two semi trailers. “They just dumped the load out and drove off,” MacDonald said. The family spent the first few days just sorting logs. Luckily, there was a plan to go with the pile. To facilitate putting the home together, the logs were notched with a “double tongue and groove” style, MacDonald said, fitting one into another. Like Lincoln logs, “every layer of every wall has to go down before the next layer goes on,” MacDonald explained. The logs are solid, and though they’re made to fit together, the house’s wiring had to be planned out, drawn on and holes drilled into each one, as the walls went up. To house conduit, his uncle or another family member would mark the log after it was placed, be sure it aligned with the one underneath, and drill out a hole, repeating the process for each layer. Despite the help of “aunts, cousins and uncles” the building process was slow. “It took two years, basically,” MacDonald said. “We got the walls and the roof up the first year,” but had to finish the interior from within. Their first year in the house, the family lived in the basement, using a portable kitchenette until their upstairs was complete. MacDonald speaks with an obvious sense of pride about his family’s project. “A lot of people don’t build their own homes,” he mused, “they have them built.” This home, however, sports contributions from all his family members. Fireplaces and floors were built after the family “spent long hours gathering rock.” “One of my cousins was the ranger in Plains at the time, and he knew where there were some good outcroppings.” The family brought back rock “pickup load by pickup load.” “Every time we went out we were looking for rock,” MacDonald said. It wasn’t just rocks the family hauled back. The family loved to camp, and during one such trip to Idaho, his mom spied a downed cedar tree she thought would be just perfect as a fireplace mantle. “It was on the other side of the river, of course,” MacDonald remembered, smiling. Undeterred, the family floated the log across the Lochsa, and brought it home, where it does, indeed, make a fine mantle piece. In addition to using native resources, MacDonald said his father was concerned with energy efficiency. He put in radiant floor heat, solar panels and vinyl double pane windows. “Those were kind of new 30 years ago.” The family also worked to change the face of the hillside. “It was just cheatgrass, knapweed and rocks,” MacDonald said of the original site. Now it boasts fruit trees and shade trees, flowers and shrubs. “It’s a very different hillside than it was 30 years ago.” The whole place, MacDonald said, is born of his family’s “blood, sweat and tears.” “It’s a neat place,” MacDonald said. “I don’t know of another place like it in the valley.” “You can’t see the whole of another house from here,” he added, which was his father’s goal. “It’s very nice,” he said, surveying the land, where a small creek ripples through a tree-lined gulch. “It’s very peaceful.” MacDonald purchased the family home from his father in 1998. “Mom died in a car accident on Highway 93 in December of 1996,” MacDonald said. “Dad was going to remarry in ’98 and the plan was both respective spouses would sell their houses and start anew.” “I came home with my daughters to pick up some furniture and I wanted to move back here. I’m really the only one of us four kids who wanted to move back, so it just worked out,” he said. Although his parents had lived there for 20 years, there was work yet to do. The basement “was half unfinished when we moved back,” MacDonald said. “When we moved in, we did a lot of the final finish work - putting up molding, trim and things like that.” The MacDonalds moved the laundry room downstairs, put a pantry upstairs, redid bathrooms, put in new carpeting and rebuilt the front deck. They added a back deck and transformed the garage into a workshop for Mike, adding a new double car garage for vehicles. And they did “everything” to the kitchen, MacDonald said, including replacing all the cabinets and putting in new flooring. “The old cabinets were home built, and the doors didn’t meet up anymore,” MacDonald said. “The flooring was older, darker indoor/outdoor carpeting.” The MacDonalds removed the old boiler as well, and installed a propane furnace. “Every year we had a logging truck load of wood brought in,” MacDonald said. “We spent $1,500 to $1,800 on wood, and a lot of hours chopping it. My wife and I are both in our 50’s. No one’s gonna wanna do that work anymore.” Plus, his wife and he both work in Missoula, and there was no one to keep the furnace fire stoked a steady six hours to get the boiler up to heat, he said. “The propane is a better choice. We have a much more consistent, even heat.” One thing MacDonald didn’t change was the writing on the walls. Pencil marks from kids mar some of the walls, MacDonald said, along with original markings made by uncles when putting the building together. A sister was married on the lawn out back 26 years ago, and his younger daughter intends to follow suit some day. “My older daughter wanted to get married here, but she wanted to marry in winter, and I said ‘No’,” he related. “Have you seen what it’s like out here in the winter?” Three generations of MacDonald children have lived in the upstairs loft bedroom, along with foster families Mike’s parents took in. And “my grandmother lived out here with us in the summers,” he added. “There’s a lot of family involvement here,” MacDonald said, looking around. “All of what you see is the result of 30 years of work.” MacDonald and his wife hope to retire soon, and do a bit of traveling. He plans to sell the house to his youngest brother, now 37. He’s happy knowing it will stay in his family, and that he’ll always have a place to come back to. After all, he said, “It's a beautiful home, and it's filled with memories. It’s got a bit of history here.”

Little house is big on style

Justin Armintrout’s dream house is small. At only 815 square feet, some might call it tiny. But Armintrout has mastered the art of making small spaces seem expansive. “I’d always admired the house,” he said of the home at the corner of Lolo Street and Greenough Drive. “I always thought it had great potential.” From the outside, the house is classic cottage, with potted plants, dark green shutters and an awning over the stoop. Within is a European styled interior, clean lines and clear views from one room to the next. Through manipulating layout and décor, the cottage feels airy and open. Part of the trick is in color choice, and utilizing lines of sight. “If you can look across a room diagonally, it makes the space appear much larger,” Armintrout explained. Armintrout’s palate is earthy and bright: lambswool walls make a perfect canvas for bold metal antiques. The living room’s mustard brightens an otherwise small space, and an accent wall in the entry is bright Georgia brick, allowing the color to warm and flow from the focal point of the house back through the rooms. The floor is narrow planed oak, original to the house, darkly grained with time. Armintrout moved to Missoula in 1994, to attend the University of Montana. He worked his way through school by gardening for Gilbert Millikan at his Rattlesnake estate. It was at that time he noticed this house. Intrigued by a circular driveway and mature but overgrown yard, he admired the house from afar. Then a couple of years ago, Armintrout noticed the house was for sale. “I jumped at the chance to buy it,” he said. Armed with knowledge gleaned from Sarah Susanka’s book, “The Not So Big House,” Armintrout went to work modernizing the inside of house, while restoring quaint cottage accents to the outside. Armintrout added shutters and an awning, resurfaced the driveway and landscaped the front yard to emphasize the sea-side feel of the house’s exterior. Inside, the house was compartmentalized with small, cramped rooms. Armintrout took out walls to open the space, allowing light to flow. “For me, a home is spiritual,” he explained. “It’s where I get my energy.” “The idea of Susanka’s book,” he went on, “is to condense the square footage down to 1,200 square feet of fabulousness.” “It’s like a sailboat,” he continued, “every square foot is utilized and has a purpose.” To gather additional design ideas, Armintrout “subscribed to every magazine possible.” Still, he had an edge. “I’ve always been interested in design, and most of my friends are designers,” he admitted. Plus, he emphasized, “I just really worked with what was here. The bones were here.” Armintrout gives all the credit for his sleek, open kitchen to his partner, Peter Kulka. “He’s Swiss,” Armintrout says. The space is small, and when they couldn’t find suitable components in Missoula, they went online. “Ikea has a website where you can build and design your own kitchen,” Armintrout said. And all Ikea’s pieces are “European sized,” with a width of 24 inches. The duo went to Seattle and brought back 156 pieces in a U-haul, including a panel-fronted fridge. “It’s much smaller than a conventional fridge,” Armintrout explained. Their stove is narrow as well, perfectly suited to the house’s space. Keeping everything in proportion is another key to making the small space look large. Armintrout’s decorating is particular to him. “I’m big into family heirlooms,” he said. His grandfather’s WW II flight jacket hangs on his office wall, along with family photos and a dollar bill that bears the name of every man his grandfather, a flight instructor in the war, taught to fly who did not make it through the conflict. “He carried that in his wallet til the day he died,” Armintrout said. One kitchen wall sports miner’s helmets from Butte - “You can still smell the soot on them” A row of convex hubcaps lines another. The metal accents lend a modern flare. A telephone nook is pure vintage, with a black rotary phone and a framed portrait of his mother as a young woman. Armintrout’s philosophy on design is holistic. “I look at houses as taking care of someone when they live there,” he said. In return, Armintrout is caring for his house. He has revitalized the landscaping, applying the skills he learned at Millikan’s to his own gardens. “Gilbert taught me everything I know about gardening,” Armintrout said. “I grew up in the country,” Armintrout recalled. “The backyard sold me. It’s almost three quarters of an acre.” His large lot, small house configuration replicates that feeling, while living in a vibrant urban setting. “I love it. It’s my therapy.” With such a large yard, he gets to practice that therapy a lot. The biggest battle is with the plentiful urban deer. “I wanted a yard where I didn’t have to put a cage around any of my plants,” Armintrout said. So the front is open to deer, but planted with deer-resistant species such as Echinacea and bee balm, sedum, Shasta daisies and agapanthus. A line of mature trees shelters the house from the busy intersection. “The trees are really what anchor the place,” Armintrout said. Timbers that hem in the front yard’s junipers were reclaimed from the old Bonner Bridge. Other beds are rimmed with large rocks, gathered from the property. “One of the things I love about the Rattlesnake is the rocks,” Armintrout said. “Of course I don’t love them when I’m gardening, but every time I find one I add it to my rock walls.” The backyard is surrounded by a six foot privacy fence, creating a personal park. “We kept the backyard for ourselves,” he said. Armintrout mentioned “I do a lot of entertaining and a flat backyard with grass is marvelous for entertaining.” To soundproof the yard, Armintrout planted a double hedge – arbor vitae within the fence and cotoneaster on the street side. “Arborvitae is deer lettuce,” he said. A hammock out back is “a great place to take a nap,” he added. The backyard also hosts a smaller guest cottage. Built in 1994 by Terry Miner of Rockin’ M Designs, the 640 foot studio was being used as a rental when Armintrout purchased the home. He has since redone it into a guest house for his frequent visitors. The exterior’s white paint, dark green shutters and awning match that of the main house. Inside, the house is modern and crisp. “We created this separate pathway to access the cottage from Lolo Street,” Armintrout says of the work he and Kulka did. “We wanted to give our guests some privacy.” They lined a gravel path with aspens, shrubs and containerized bamboo, creating a pastoral setting for the guest house. “It’s perfect,” said Armintrout. “My mother comes and stays here.” Armintrout has a penchant for antiques. In front of his house are iron urns, on the walls are family heirlooms, but the guest cottage boasts his true talent for décor. Artifacts in the cottage include a stack of old, bound copies of 1920’s through 1940’s Billings Gazettes that Armintrout found in an antique store in Palm Springs, California. “They’re stamped with the Montana Historical Society,” he said. “I tried to give them back, but they didn’t want them.” Apparently, the volumes were tossed after being put on microfiche. No one knew how they’d gotten to Palm Springs. “I brought them back here. I felt they belonged in Montana.” The guest house has a spare, gallery feel. “I wanted to go with a clean look, so I whitewashed everything and painted the woodwork accents in black,” he described. A loft above the living room sports a ’62 Peugeot moped Armintrout found while hostelling in Europe. “It still works,” Armintrout said, though he mused “I don’t know if it would actually make it up Greenough Drive. In the center of the room hangs a deep green chandelier, made from the spotlight of a cargo ship. “It has a bit of an industrial feel to it.” On the loft is the hood of an old car, weathered the same pink as the true linoleum floor. Back in the main house, the 400 foot basement is “our winter project,” Armintrout said. It houses a laundry room and two legal bedrooms that still have walls decaled by the room’s former occupants. The couple intends to refinish the walls in bamboo and wainscoting, and use the space for guests. In their own chamber, bedside lamps were once used by seamstresses in England, and were found during the same trip Armintrout found the Peugeot. “Other people collect keepsakes from their travels,” Armintrout said. “I collect antiques.”

Making the new look old

As you round the curve of a mile-long drive, smack in the middle of a field of cows, a seemingly ancient cabin appears in a nook of the land. The weathered appearance belies the modern methods that make the house appear aged. “We wanted to build a new efficient home, make it fit into the natural environment and look like it had been there for a hundred years,” Debbie Richardson said. To that end, the Richardsons chose modern methods to create an antiquated look. “We used concrete "cultured logs", a rusting metal roof and 200 tons of rock gathered from the property for the outside of our home,” Debbie said. The home’s walls are its star. They are built both of rock and a material called “cultured” concrete logs. The logs are molded concrete covering a Styrofoam core. Until you are beside them, they look like real wood. “Dick Morgenstern has a patent on the system,” Debbie said. Her husband “has known Dick forever,” and the couple liked the system’s low maintenance, energy efficiency and rustic look, so choosing the product was a no-brainer. Inside the house, the walls are studded and sheet rocked, with insulation sprayed in. “It gives you a large amount of thermal mass, so it takes a long time to heat and a long time to cool,” Dick said. The end result is “very reasonable heating bills.” “This winter we had a week where it was 12 below, and you couldn’t even feel it,” Debbie noted. Their metal roof is pre-rusted, washed with a solution of vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and salt. “You spray it on and within five minutes, it’s rusting,” Debbie said. The roofing is specially made so that it will rust to a certain point – then stop. With the inhibiting layer built in, “It’s much heavier than conventional metal roofing,” explained Dick. It should last 70 years. The couple used the same treatment on the base of their barn. “We just liked the look of it,” Debbie said. Decks are made of Brazilian Ipe wood. “It’s very dense,” she said. Due to that density, “You don’t have to treat it. And it doesn’t get slick when it’s wet,” Debbie said. North American woods were treated “with a product called ‘Lifetime,’” she said. “It’s what the Forest Service uses on their cabins.” The salt-based crystals, in solution, become a weather and bug-proofing treatment. “Supposedly you never need to treat it again. We’re trying to cut down on maintenance,” she said of their various choices. All the materials were selected for ease of care and longevity. This is the Richardson’s dream home, built in a spot Dick saw during his rounds as a veterinarian 20 years ago. “In 30 years, there’s very few places within 80 miles of Missoula that I have not been,” he said. Of all he’s seen, the one spot that struck him was the one where he and his wife now have their home. “I spent 20 years trying to buy it,” he said. The couple finally bought the adjacent piece of land, and traded that with the ranch family who owned their dream spot. “That’s the thing that makes a house special to someone,” said Dick. “They pick a special place and spend a lot of time planning.” Situated atop a knoll, with no other house in sight, their meadow is full of cows, lowing and ambling about. Their house sits in a draw toward a corner of the property. “We wanted to put it where it made sense,” Dick said, “where 150 years ago someone would have built a house – by the water, protected from the wind.” Debbie concurs. “It can be blowing outside, and here around the house it’s quiet.” The couple broke ground in March of 2007, and moved in in November of that year. The house was designed to look like an old National Park building, Dick said. Beamed porches, a rock base and “log” siding attest to that. The 4,000 square foot home spans two stories, although from the outside, it looks much smaller. An attached double garage faces the gravel drive, so only a portion of the house is visible. The remainder of the home is built behind the garage, tucked into the sloping land. The illusion is a small cabin, magically enlarged when you walk through the doors. “You need to give credit to our architect,” said Debbie. Kelly Karmel designed the home, making the outside look rustic, while the inside is anything but. Within, your eyes are met by a huge stone fireplace, created by mason Peggy Steffs, who also built the house’s rock base, incorporating stone arches over the windows. Cathedral ceilings and multipane windows lend a feeling of clarity and warmth. Radiant floor heat, granite countertops, sprawling halls and tile throughout the house gleam. Furnishings are polished cherry and leather. Everywhere is luxury, but no carpet -- “It’s nice when you have animals,” Debbie explained. The Richardsons own 62 acres, lease adjacent ranch land for their cattle, and have permission to use the neighboring ranches for riding, as well. “We have 600 acres we can ride our horses on,” Dick said. Outside the windows, the couple’s cow-calf pairs amble past. They are so close, the feeling is they are pets. Debbie said they wanted it that way. Another nod to the couple’s love of their animals is an expansive mud room, divided into two sections. One side boasts a full – sized fridge and sink, the other, a special wash area for muddy boots, dogs and buckets. “This mud room we love,” Debbie smiled. The upstairs is where the Richardsons live. “The basement is for guests,” Debbie said, crossing the two bedroom, 1,700 square foot lower level. With the idea of one day turning it into an apartment, the basement is wired and plumbed for an additional kitchen. Right now, where a kitchen could be, is Debbie’s old piano. “I never go in basement except to go to the barn,” she said. With middle age firmly upon them Debbie explained, “We wanted everything we needed on one level. We’re getting older and I don’t want to climb stairs.” Upstairs, gorgeous French doors, made of oak-encased ripple glass, open from both sides of an airy hall. One set reveals a vast laundry room, the other the master bath. The laundry room hosts a state of the art washer and dryer, plenty of room to fold and hang, and the working end of Debbie’s in-wall fish tank. “I’ve always had fish,” she said. This, however, is her first salt water tank. Windows pour light into the tank through its face in the couple’s large bedroom, and Debbie is still figuring out how to control the resultant algae blooms. The bedroom is simple, a combination sleeping and sitting room, with windows overlooking those golden cows. The room spans the width of the house, and windows on three sides give it a broad, airy ambience. You feel more like you’re on a deck than within a typical bedroom. The master bath is broad and spare, tiled in relaxing sand. “We had a teeny, tiny shower in our last place, and I wanted a bigger shower,” Debbie said, displaying the walk-in marble stall. “I hate cleaning shower doors, so we wanted something big enough that you don’t need a door.” At the end of the hall, solid French doors reveal an office. The Richardson’s halls are wider than average, about five feet wide, Debbie said. Angles allow for easy maneuvering around corners, rather than having sharp turns. All the doorways are double wide French doors. The house, Debbie explained, is built to accommodate aging and its needs. “I’m hoping I’m never in a wheelchair, but…” she tapers off. Wide halls, smooth floors, and extra wide doorways will all accommodate any adaptive or assistive devices the couple might need. Everything was designed with accessibility in mind. The space doesn’t give up luxury for practicality, but once pointed out, it is easy to imagine maneuvering a wheelchair through the floor plan. It’s simple, Debbie said. “I don’t ever want to move again.” Outside, a rock patio abuts the house, while landscaping is still in progress. It is here the house looks largest from without. Where the two segments of the house meet, the roof is flat and slightly recessed. “The flat roof area allows us to put solar hot water or solar panels on without having them visible when you look at the house,” Dick explained. “The thing we wanted to accomplish is to build the house out here and not destroy the scene of this pastoral view.” Dick said that sensibility is getting rarer these days. The view is as important to Dick as it is to Debbie. “I drive up and down this valley every day,” he said. “It’s a special place.”

Grizzly Peak home sweet home for retirees

Say “dream home” to most folks and they envision 4,000 square feet, luxury appliances, spacious rooms filled with leather and finery. Marble counters, slate tile and a sprawling estate might complete the dream. Say “dream home” to Millar Bryce, and a very different light twinkles in his eyes. Bryce is at home – his dream home – at Grizzly Peak retirement community, an independent living facility for seniors on Missoula’s north edge. Each resident has their own apartment in a dorm-like setting, complete with personal name plate on their door “in case they stay out too late,” jokes manager Lloyd Gillin. There’s a lot of joking at Grizzly Peak. It’s not a stodgy, nothing-left-to-do sort of place, but a residence for those who like the ease of weekly maid service, a grounds crew-maintained landscape, and three meals a day served restaurant style in the resident dining room. “Too many people think this is an institution,” says Bryce, who is keen on correcting that notion. “This is not a rest home,” he emphasized. “Most people don’t realize there’s such a thing as real, independent living.” Bryce says at 88, he’s about the average age of a Grizzly Peak resident. Still, “there’s an amazing amount of people here who are 90 to 95.” “I know so many people who think this is terrible, because I moved out of a nice home,” he said of his decision to move into the retirement community three and a half years ago. “For someone in my position, it is a perfect place to live,” he said. His position is healthy, older and alone. “Practically everyone here is widowed,” Bryce said, though with 113 apartments (97 are currently occupied) the opportunity to meet and mingle is superb. “There’s more opportunity for friendship and socializing here than living on your own,” he commented. And company policy encourages that. Residents are urged to eat with different people at daily meals, and most seem happy to do so. The result is a greater feeling of community. “Everyone here is on a first name basis,” Bryce said. “That’s one thing you do here even better than a small town,” added Bryce, who moved from Plains. “You can make as many friends as you want.” The active lifestyle and capacity to make friends keeps them young, the residents believe. “I don’t really hear any moaning and groaning about going back home,” Bryce said. “It’s just too comfortable here.” Margaret Carson agrees. The painter and collage artist moved to Grizzly Peaks four years ago from Toronto, where she had lived for 11 years to be closer to two of her children. (The other two live in Montana). Before that, “I was traveling around,” Carson said. “I’ve been a restless soul.” For now she is content to live in the place she said she found “by accident.” “I was driving around with my daughter,” she explained. “I wasn’t in good shape.” Reeling from the death of another daughter, Carson said “all I wanted was a room to hole up in for six months until I felt better. When the six months was up, I forgot to move out.” “I’ve been perfectly happy ever since.” Bryce said he first learned of retirement communities when his sister in Washington moved in to one managed by Holiday, the same company that runs Grizzly Peak. She was happy there, and through regular visits the idea of moving into a similar community seemed sensible to him, especially after his wife passed on. “It didn’t take me long to decide that was what I was going to do,” Bryce said. “For me, it is my Dream Home.” Another aspect of community living Bryce considers “dreamy” is the plethora of activities available to residents. Sightseeing trips to the Smoke Jumper’s Center, to Big Fork and Philipsburg are regular events. And while most residents still drive their own cars, a free shuttle service can ferry them to doctor’s appointments, grocery stores and other locations around town. There are small group luncheons, ice cream socials, and plenty of space throughout the building to mingle with friends, be it for a game of cards or a turn at the third floor pool table. “One thing Holiday did when they built the buildings is make sure there’s a lot of open space” to promote interaction amongst tenants, Gillin remarked. “Lots of card playing goes on here,” Bryce concurred. And, he noted, if you’re tired of Peak activities, there’s plenty of options awaiting just a stone’s throw away on North Reserve. The emphasis on independence is why Bryce believes Grizzly Peak’s tenants are so happy, by and large. “What’s nice is no one feels sorry for you. No one fawns over you. I think most of us appreciate that.” In Bryce’s generation, a can-do spirit predominates, and though they’re older, they aren’t ready to be coddled to. “No one keeps their age secret – we’re all sort of proud of it,” Bryce smiled. Carson, for one, is 88 and “full of aches and pains.” “My daughter told me I wouldn’t grow old gracefully,” she says wryly. Because age and its infirmities a factor to the group, each apartment comes equipped with an emergency pull cord, like those found in hospitals. “That’s another thing that offers much security to those of us getting older here,” Bryce said. “You can pull the cord 24/7 if you need help. I think it’s a real security knowing you’re not alone.” Bryce’s neighbor Glenna Mae Reish also agrees with him “I feel protected,” she said. “That’s the main thing – I feel very secure.” “The comfort of being with people your own age should be discussed,” Bryce remarked. “You easily find friends with similar backgrounds, and just as easily form friendships that are very comforting.” “Most men are much more afraid of this type of thing than women,” he added. The gender balance at Grizzly Peak “must be 80 percent women.” But Bryce doesn’t mind. “There’s some interesting people here,” he said. “I eat with one fellow who was an executive in the steel industry. Another was a geologist.” “People think it’s an institution, and that scares them.” But for those who call Grizzly Peak home, that notion isn’t true. “I just hope that my message gets across to the folks that do not know there is very comfortable independent living available with no feeling of being institutionalized,” Bryce said, “At least nor for me.” His fast friend Margaret Carson agreed. “I don’t feel when I walk out the door (of my apartment) I’m leaving my home. I feel the whole place is my home.”

Hmongs make gardening a family affair

Cua Grogan has been waiting for spring all winter long. The Hmong woman, whose family sells organically-raised produce at Missoula’s farmer’s markets, has been planning her garden since fall. When the markets close with the coming of winter, “we’re already planning the next year,” she said. Winter, Grogan said, is consumed by planning plots and rows and greens and flowers. Now that spring is here, the rejuvenation begins. Any gardener knows and loves this time of year, when all the unspoken hopes of new seed varieties and tiny color catalogue pictures give way to the reality of hands in earth, fingernails crusted with mud and backs that begin to ache in that satisfying way from pulling weeds. It’s an annual rebirth, after the hibernation of winter’s doldrums that sapped the colors from the land. The bright lime sprouts of leafy greens, the ruffled reds of baby lettuce, the impetuous resurgence of perennial herbs all seem celebratory after months of cold and grey. Already, one of the family’s greenhouses is filled with tiny salad greens. Carrots are almost ready to pull in another. In a third, bok choi have reached maturity, though the snappy green is tender as a seedling due to never experiencing wind. All told, the family has five greenhouses. The one behind Grogan’s home is new, and at 34 feet wide by 135 feet long, it’s larger than some Missoula housing lots. The other four are located on the Moua’s farm in Frenchtown, where the majority of the family’s produce is grown. Seeding of the houses began in late February, and is spaced to ensure a steady supply of food throughout the market season. The history of the family’s involvement in Missoula’s farmer’s markets stretches back over 20 years. At the time, Cua was just a little girl. Her mother and relatives raised vegetables in community garden plots on Spurgin road. The downtown farmer’s market was young and spare. Grogan’s mom, Ia Lee, was approached by members of the farmer’s market board back in 1985 or 1986, she said. “My mom and aunt were approached … to be a part of the farmer’s market,” Grogan said. The early market provided tables, tablecloths and market space, “because they wanted the farmer’s market to grow,” Lee said. The effort was appreciated. At the time, Grogan’s father was in school and her mother was holding down two jobs, doing whatever she could. “When they were approached, they saw that as the first door to do what they loved, and that was farming,” Grogan said. “My mom always tried to persuade all the Hmong families (to grow vegetables for the farmer’s market), but they were reluctant.” “They didn’t have the land, and there was the language issue,” Grogan said of the reasons the other families didn’t jump on board as readily as hers. Grogan’s father, Vang Moua, did know English, but her parents didn’t have land either, she said. Neighbors, however, noted the industriousness of the family and knew the benefit of producing crops rather than potential weed fields, and let them borrow their large lots along Spurgin Road. The neighbors shared in the crops the family grew, and the remainder was sold at the budding farmer’s market. It was a beneficial arrangement for all. “A lot of people have been so generous in sharing their land,” Grogan said. That sharing of land helped her mother convince additional Hmong families to become market gardeners as well. “She said, ‘You grow your own food, you feed other people, you make some money,’” Grogan quipped of her mother’s sales pitch. To continue to feed others, her parents purchased a 20 acre plot in Frenchtown about 13 years ago, and most of their market produce is now grown there. Come summer, the farm takes up most of the family’s time. “We pretty much only have Saturday after the market, that’s our day of rest,” Grogan said regarding the 12-hour days she and her family put in during the height of summer. The family starts harvesting on Thursday, she said, to prepare their booths for Missoula’s two downtown markets. Almost everyone helps. Grogan’s husband married into the lifestyle. A commercial estimator by day, Kyle Grogan joins his extended family in the fields in evenings and on weekends. “He knew he was marrying into a Hmong family that likes to farm,” Grogan said. “He’s kind of a closet farmer,” she smiled. “He really enjoys it.” The couple’s son likes to plant seeds, Groagn said, but as for Saturdays, “He’s at the age when he’s running around, so we’re chasing him more than he’s helping.” So, while the family works downtown, two-year-old Shane goes to visit his grandparents. If tradition holds, he won’t always have it so easy. Cua began helping her family in the fields in third grade, she said. “When we were kids, there was no going to friends’ houses on weekends,” she said. At the time, she wasn’t thrilled. “As a kid, you’re around your peers and they’re always doing stuff and you wonder why you can’t. But now, I appreciate it.” Grogan said the communal work keeps the family close. Her sister and her husband also help on the farm. Her uncle, aunt and cousins do, too. Grogan’s parents are still the driving force, but happily let the younger generation do what they can. “Family life is pretty much out on the farm,” she said. This year, the Moua clan will grow corn and kohlrabi, eggplant and tomatoes, peppers and basil and cucumbers. Of course there’ll be salad greens. And every day, there will be members of the Moua family, hoeing and weeding, watering, feeding chickens, thinning and picking produce as it readies, keeping Missoulians eating fresh throughout the growing season.

Choose native landscapes to be waterwise

Landscaping with native plants is a great way to create low-maintenance, water wise gardens said the experts at a recent native plants meeting that combined landscaping tips with weed-combatting strategies. Native plants have developed over millennia in Montana’s arid, cold ecosystem, and are well suited to the typical hot-cold-wet-dry seasonal weather patterns experienced in western Montana. They can add visual diversity to a garden or landscape, through architectural shapes and non-flowering color, while flowering natives can often endure the driest weeks of summer without the daily fuss that typical garden plants require to survive. There are different ideas about gardening with natives, said Richard Rogers of the Calypso chapter of Montana’s Native Plant Society. Rogers is a revegetation expert who does site reclamation using native plants. Some people feel nature will “claw its way back” no matter what, he said, while others prefer to “assist nature” with irrigation, soil preparation and the like. Rogers said the approach you choose is really up to you – and how many acres or square feet you have to work with. The smaller the plot, the more you can amend your approach, he said. Regardless of your choice, Rogers said, the secret to growing native plants “is matching plants to habits.” If you have a shady spot, don’t try growing a sun-loving flower there. If you have a sandy spot, don’t plant a water loving tree. “You’re not gonna grow aspen on a dry prairie,” he said. In order to mimic nature, Rogers said you have to think about how the plant lives in the wild. Most natives drop seed in the fall, he said, then experience a winter dormancy. “If you seed natives,” he said, “you shouldn’t expect them to come up the first year.” The seeds need to lie dormant through a winter cycle before they can germinate, he said. When landscaping, Rogers prefers using plants. That approach, he smiled, “Is faster and more assured than seed.” Rogers also said to think in terms of micro habitats. “A chink in concrete is similar to a chink in rock,” Rogers said. “It might not look like native habitat, but it can act like it.” For urban and suburban gardeners, Rogers recommends asters as an easy-to-grow native flower that establishes quickly and provides visual interest. Other natives that grow well in our area are flaxes, evening primrose, and coneflowers. Shrubs that do particularly well here are big sage brush, flowering potentilla, serviceberry, snowberry and any of the gooseberries, he said. In order to keep native plantings healthy, they must be watered. But, warns Bill Allen of Allen Landscaping and Nursery, “Overwatering is one of the biggest mistakes made when landscaping with native plants.” Because the plants have evolved in Montana’s arid climate, overwatering can be detrimental. Flowering natives such as penstemon can actually be killed by too much water. Trees, however, are a different story. “A spruce tree in hot, windy weather will take a hundred gallons of water a day - that’s a lot of water,” Allen remarked. “Of course,” he said, “soil type determines” how much supplemental water a tree needs. Heavy clay soils retain moisture, while sandy soils dry out quickly and require more. The Native Plant Society’s Patrick Plantenberg recommends using mulch to conserve soil moisture and discourage competition from weeds. And, he said, mulches can be decorative in and of themselves. So, while “there’s no such thing as no maintenance landscapes,” Platenberg said, mulches helps get you closer to that dream. If you are planting your yard to attract birds, Rogers said, species diversity is important, but structural diversity is even more so. Birds need plants of varying heights and cover densities to provide habitat for them to feed and raise their young in safety, he said. “Physionomic diversity matters.” As for weeds, Jeanne Caddy, a weed control expert from Divide, said educating oneself about weeds is the best defense against them. “It’s important to learn to identify weeds before they become a problem,” she said. Because many desirable natives have counterparts in the weed world, Caddy reminded gardeners it’s just as important to learn to identify native plants as well. “You don’t want to pull up your good plants,” she said. Managing small infestations is the foremost step a person can take to keep weeds from spreading, she added. Pulling weeds from your garden or lawn and properly disposing of them can keep the invaders in check. While a weed here or there doesn’t seem like much now, uncontrolled, they can take over. Other tips are just as easy. “Take the burrs off your dog,” she instructed, “and instead of throwing them on the ground, throw them in the garbage.” No matter what you want to grow, the Native Plant Society encourages you to start at home. Many local garden supply outlets carry native plants or their close relatives, and have informed staff that can help you decide what plants will work best in your yard or garden.

Total transformation: Yellowstone Building goes digital deluxe

The outside of the old Yellowstone Photo building looks pretty much like it has for years, at least from the street. Industrial brick faces Front Street, but a new façade and grand entry now open into the eastward parking lot that abuts the building. Inside the building, architect John Paoli has crafted a river of stone, a mirage of movement with angled walls and off-kilter angles that remind a visitor of flowing water. Sue Barrett and her husband John, who run Barrett Productions from the third floor of the building, commissioned Paoli to weave his magic throughout the space. “I told him I’m not a big fan of straight lines,” John Barrett said. Apparently, neither is Paoli. “I’ve rotated the internal grid a bit,” Paoli, who owns Inkstone Architecture, said of his renovation’s architectural landscape. It’s a trick he’s used before, he said, that “breaks the monotony and invigorates the space.” And it does. Following the slightly angled corridor to the elevators or stairs, the inlayed slate on the floor of the entry way appears to wave in strips that mimic a river’s flow pattern. Upstairs, on the floor that houses Barrett Productions, the walls themselves have been moved, off kilter from the external rectangle. The walls slant and occasionally slope to create a feeling of motion that keeps the mind alert – important in a field where film editors spend hours upon hours before computer screens and sound equipment, editing and re-editing footage of the great outdoors. “It’s the great conundrum,” said video editor Bob Ambrose. “We work indoors on outdoor film production.” In fact, the editors spend so much time in the building, the whole internal structure was designed to capture some of that outdoor feeling, said designer Shannon Callaghan, who selected the cool, mineral color palette for the wall surfaces. So who gets the credit for creating such an innovative space? “We worked together on it,” Barrett said of the building’s design. “We told John what we needed in the space and what we were looking for.” What they needed was surfaces that absorb sound, not bounce it around. And light filtering shades that allow the outside in, without the scenery becoming a distraction to the work at hand. And internal light, as many of the offices have no exterior windows. Paoli selected numerous green materials for the building, including energy-saving light fixtures that are hung perpendicular to the hall walls, shaded with frosted glass “so it wasn’t directly lighting into people’s eyes,” Paoli said. On the hall ceilings, odd wedges like plates on a reptile’s back keep the eye in motion, moving forward. Each editing room had to be sound proofed from each other, Paoli said. Special wall panels made from crushed sunflower seeds (a matrix of both hulls and shells) were selected for their ability to dampen sound. In addition, they add an earthy beauty and calm to the space, with a golden-black coloration noticeable up-close. “Have you felt how heavy the doors are,” Paoli asked. “The doors are special order doors that are extra heavy and double insulated,” he said, providing even more of the sound isolation required for the high tech work. “It’s a great editing environment,” said video editor Lin Brummett, working on outputting a show for the Travel Channel. One wall of Brummett’s internal studio has a slanted, pale creek-colored window panel, sloping upward and outward from the wall. That, too, adds “a higher acoustic value to the corridor” said Paoli, drawing sound out and away from the room. The panels have another benefit, as well. They are translucent, not transparent, allowing light in without the distraction of noticing what is outside the window. And they sport an internal waffle structure that also dampens sound. The end result is a cool, dark environment that is silent as the bottom of a stream. Paoli chose the watery green color, in fact, to reflect the earth-based feel of the building. “It’s very calm – just what us video editors like,” Brummett said. For the video editors who are facing the outside world, woven shades “cut out most of the direct light, but still have the view,” Paoli said. Indeed, they’re reminiscent of gazing through a screen door, where the world outside is muted, but apparent. For these edit bays on the building’s exterior walls, Paoli added blackout shades as well. Because the company uses so much high tech equipment, static charge is an issue. To reduce the opportunity for stray electrons to disrupt the editing equipment, Paoli selected flooring of Marmoleum, a static-free linoleum, for the business’ corridors. On the stairs between floors, an anti-static rubber tile was used as well. In all, the building is a triumph of new modernism. The walls are dark, but not oppressive. The palette is muted, yet not depressing. And the structural design flows with life. Every angle, subtly placed, keeps your eye and your mind centered, but moving forward. The over all effect is of walking through a wooded creek. The rippled interior glass the color of water, the mineral tones the color of rock, all replicate the sense of peace you find out in the woods. For an outdoor film production company, it is a natural fit.

From reluctant remodel to winning renovation

Sally Daer didn’t want a new kitchen. But after watching his wife work for years in a dark, close space, Tom Daer decided his wife deserved one. “Sally is a study in efficiency,” said Interior Designer Page Goode. Goode, who owns Makeroom Design/Interiors, explained that Daer had her tight space so well organized, she didn’t think she needed anything else. Daer is, after all, a make-do kind of person, working with what she has. But, Goode said, “Her husband called me up and said ‘I want to give my wife a kitchen remodel.’” And so it began. The tiny kitchen is in a 1940’s era University neighborhood home. Daer likes that her home still reflects the era it was built, and when she came around to accepting a new kitchen, she wanted that to fit in, too. The remodeled kitchen, in fact, looks like it has always been there. From arched doorways to a dinner-plate pass through beneath glass-fronted cupboards, the structure of the home seems authentic. That talent comes from Goode. With 31 years of interior design and architectural experience behind her, Goode knows structure and style. Moreover, she spent eight of those years doing historic preservation. The kitchen Goode designed for Daer fits the house so well, it makes you question Daer’s proclamation, “There’s nothing in here that’s original.” But even more importantly, Daer adds, “There’s not a thing I don’t like.” Her friends like it, too, she said. The Daers entertain almost constantly, and functionality of the small space was a paramount concern. The bright new space, while having no more square footage on the floor than it ever did, nonetheless “feels like a bigger space,” Goode said, a trick she accomplished by “simplifying all the surfaces and planes.” Instead of a corridor interjected with appliances, the kitchen is now a single palette of color and line. The end result is a room that feels spacious, yet has a grace befitting the era of the home. Still, the new look required some effort, and some cash. Daer estimates she and her husband spent about $68,000 on the kitchen. But with as much time as she spends there, the money was certainly well-spent. And then there was the physical layout. The space was a challenge to work with, both women remarked. “It’s tiny,” Goode said. And narrow. With arms stretched wide, you can almost touch the opposing walls of the room. It’s more a galley than the broad, wide rooms many know as the heart of the home. And, Daer was a stickler about wanting the new kitchen to look as though it had always been a part of the house. And she wanted a skylight. It is “the only thing that was really my idea,” Daer said with a smile. “Everything else was Page.” Leaving it to Goode to manifest her vision, Daer got the kitchen of her dreams. The new configuration made the small space far more functional. The narrow kitchen used to have a free-standing, portable dish washer along the wall, far from the sink, midway down the corridor-like room, Goode said. That’s been replaced with a cabinet-fronted unit under the counter, beside the sink, a far more logical location. Custom cabinets were built to fit the home’s architectural style, and sided with cork boards to hold the couple’s many snapshots. A coffee nook was built into the wall, and boasts its own cabinet, which stands where the old dishwasher stood. A corner cabinet has swing-out shelves, to enhance usability. One cupboard opens to the side, rather than the front, to allow more usable space within. For the fridge, Goode specially-ordered a magnetic front, again so the Daers can post their family photos. The freezer again is cabinet-fronted, to continue color and line and make the room look larger. And Daer thanks Goode for that. “I looked at a lot of backgrounds in ads to see what was in,” she said. “I wanted wallpaper, but Page decided against that.” Instead, Daer has tone-on-tone sand and white walls and cupboards. The color brightens up the narrow room, and a polished granite countertop reflects that light. The smooth-topped stove blends into the black granite, with the colors matching both the era and the rest of the house, as well. The effect is streamlined and classic, elongating the surfaces to provide an illusion of space. Even the flooring mimics 1940’s lino, although it’s a modern, green flooring made of recycled plastic bottles, Goode said. Originally designed for hospitals, the flooring offers resiliency to reduce foot fatigue, and, “It hides the dirt so well,” said Daer. The flooring has an imprinted pattern under the surface, making it look textured while providing the ease of maintenance that comes with a smooth-surface flooring. Its color, too, was picked by Goode, and lures the eye form the far hall into the cooking area, again, enlarging the space visually without changing the square footage of the room. With all the changes, the kitchen is now “better than anything I could imagine in my wildest dreams,” said Daer, eyeing her new space. Guests now drop in to get ideas for their own remodeling projects, she said. That pleases Goode. After all, Goode said, “she was against it.” Daer concurs. “I was against it completely, and now I love it.”

Ranch club wonder

Marcia Holland’s house in the Ranch Club west of town is peppered with Alaskan art. Her family lived in that northern state until 2006, when they decided to build in Missoula. Holland, from Butte, moved here because her husband Chuck loved it, she had family here, and importantly, her son could breathe. “One of the reasons we moved is Mick’s allergy to birch pollen,” Holland said. Birch is common in Alaska’s wet climate, but far less so here. Still, the family didn’t move right away -- they needed a place to come to. “We were building our house in Missoula, but we were doing it while living in Fairbanks,” Holland said. Finding a designer they could trust to bring their vision to life was paramount. Page Goode, of Makeroom Design/Interiors, was the one. Though the family was only able to journey to Montana four times during the process, Goode made the most of their visits. During one, she had them scrambling from paint store to fixture store to lighting store, looking at pendants and paint colors and faucets and drawer pulls and cabinet knobs. “They were exhausted,” Goode said. The next day, they did it again. “What was most amazing about Page was the breadth and depth of her knowledge,” Holland said of their concentrated encounters. That knowledge, earned through 31 years of designing interiors, allowed Goode to select colors, styles and furnishings that matched the Hollands’ tastes. Rubber flooring in the kitchen is one example. “Chuck used to cook in a restaurant, so Page chose (this),” Holland said. The commercial flooring reduces fatigue, and it’s black. The countertop is black. The kitchen island is black. Appliances are black. Turns out, black is one of Holland’s favorite colors. “A friend from Chicago came and is redoing her kitchen,” Holland smiled, “and was stealing the ideas.” Off the kitchen, a small, quiet space hosts a gas fireplace, a soft couch and a small, designer table on a black rug. “We discovered we spend all this time just sitting here in the winter,” Holland said. Other rooms are treated differently. In the dining room, the accent wall is bold slate blue. Amber pendant lights balance that. The dining table of African wenge wood boasts seating for eight. The chairs are sleek black leather. The colors, Goode said, are intentional. They are designed to pull the outdoors in through the room’s large picture windows that overlook the Ranch Club’s golf course. From the panes, blue sky pours in, bouncing off a thick glass coffee table mimicking a slab of ice. Goode, with a background in architecture, said, “I tend to pay attention to the structure” of the home, and select design elements accordingly. Other touches in the house reflect the family’s personalities and preferences. In Micah’s bathroom, drawer pulls are small black stones. The counter laminate is called beluga. Alaskan art hangs on the walls. A special room off the garage was made for Chuck’s bicycle gear. Jerseys, bicycles and accessories all hang neatly in their own organized space. Green River slate covers the foyer, while blue-toned slate covers the bathroom walls. The flooring shows flecks of mica and garnet, polished to enhance the colors. Holland credits 11-year-old Micah with the stones’ selection. Off the foyer, the washroom sink is a glossy black basin-on-table, filled with river rocks. Holland chose it because she liked it. “Why not,” she asked of her accent rocks. The paint on the home’s walls was selected by Goode. Unbelievably, it is the same color throughout. Called netsuke, it appears warm amber in one room, cool cream in another. “I love it because it picks up the color of the landscape,” Goode said. “There really is a method to the madness.” The color flows from room to room, morphing to suit the personality of each space. In the master bedroom, the accents are all brown. “We found this bed that’s copper and steel,” Holland said of her platform frame, “and had a greened copper planter made into a side table for the room.” “This is a complete change from any color I had in my house in Alaska,” she admitted. A unique feature of her bedroom is a deep L-shaped closet that provides plenty of space to organize personal items, but minimizes wall space usurped by doors. The result is copious storage, “so we didn’t need to add another dresser out there,” Holland said. The basement, referred to as “Mick’s bachelor pad”, sports a Wii, large screen TV, pool table and prep kitchen. Admittedly, the kitchen with wine cellar is more for adults, but as a result of the design, Holland said her family spends more time together downstairs, playing pool, watching movies and making snacks. They also have a closet especially for hockey gear, so the family can leave their duffels packed and ready to grab for road games. “We have enough space now,” Holland said of her 4,000 square foot home. “It’s much bigger than our old house by a lot.” “When we tell friends that we built our house "remotely" and that it turned out beyond our expectations, they cannot believe it all worked - and it did only because of Page,” Holland said. “Page did everything from understanding our taste and recommending selections to finding craftsmen to take on projects. She helped select furniture and placement to maximize features of our new house, like our spectacular view,” Holland gushed. “I cannot sing Page's praises enough - she made our beautiful house happen.”

Fein stone kitchen

Kim Fein has moved 17 times in the last 30 years. In that time, she has renovated seven homes. It helps that she’s trained in interior design, holding a design degree from Purdue University. Fein has moved to follow her husband, an engineer with Envirocon, who is currently the senior project manager for the Milltown Dam removal. In an ironic twist, Fein is dealing with a water project of her own. The kitchen in their mid-1990’s Lincoln Hills home was damaged by flooding during its previous ownership. The house, Fein said, was in the 1995 Parade of Homes, but the builder “took pride in some things and went cheap on others.” “It was just bizarre,” Fein said of the odd combination of techniques throughout the home. Worst was the kitchen. “We came across flooring issues where there were floods,” said contractor Steve Monogue of Natural Stone Solutions who is assisting with Fein’s remodel. The kitchen floor was ceramic tile over concrete board, and had been damaged by water. Monogue suggested removing the concrete board and replacing it with hardiboard, a waterproof underlayment, and replacing the ceramic tile with stone. “If you’re using natural materials, you don’t have to worry about water,” he said. Water damage to the kitchen necessitated removing the cabinet faces as well. “The cabinetry was flaky,” Fein said. “It was terrible.” Refacing the cabinets helped keep remodeling costs down. “If you’re doing a kitchen remodel that includes cabinetry,” Monogue said, “the cabinets will be the most expensive thing.” Fein chose solid wood doors, but is modifying them. “I’m about to put a higher gloss, tougher seal on them to make them easier to clean,” she said. Before redoing her kitchen, Fein toured houses for sale in her neighborhood, and noticed they all had granite counters. Attention to market trends prompted Fein’s use of stone in her own house. That, and a desire to eradicate germs. Fein wouldn’t disagree that she’s germphobic, and prefers surfaces that are easy to clean. One of the changes Fein prioritized was removing a tile counter top “with a wood edge, which you’re never supposed to do because you’re constantly wiping it down,” she said. And she was. Besides constantly washing the peeling wooden edge, Fein was “resealing the grout every three months.” “The germs were just unacceptable,” she said. Instead of hard-to-clean grout, Fein now has a smooth granite countertop, cut of a huge slab of stone requiring only one seam for the length of her kitchen. The pink, black, taupe and crystalline stone attracts natural light from the nearby window, and bounces it on the slick, semi-translucent surface. “It’s not impervious, but it’s nearly impossible to scratch it,” Monogue said of the granite. Fein has relied on Monogue’s assistance with her entire kitchen remodel. “When you have places that make very professional decisions, you stick with them,” she said. Natural Stone Solutions suggested slate for Fein’s backsplash, and Fein chose to have it set on point, in a diamond pattern, with copper tiles for accents. The slate will be sealed with a gloss finish to accentuate the colors in the stone, and to make it easier to clean, she said. In addition, “There was a two-inch gap behind the sink that was a catch all for dirt,” Fein said. To remedy that, Fein had her backsplash set flush with her windowpane. She also replaced her sink, selecting a granite-polymer composite with straight sides and a deep bowl. The material is “almost bullet proof,” Monogue said, stating it is resistant to hot pans as well as scuffs and scratches. To enhance the crisp look, the sink is mounted under the counter, rather than from above. This method also keeps water from sheeting up and over the sink’s edge. Fein will soon have a striking, modern kitchen featuring natural stone counters, walls and floor. She intends to faux-finish the remaining walls to match the natural rock tones. “Then we’ll pick a paint color about four shades lighter than that for the ceiling,” Fein said. “I’m not a big fan of white ceilings.” “She’s literally redone the whole kitchen floor to ceiling,” Monogue said. Doing much of the work herself allowed Fein to have a high-end kitchen for a very reasonable price. “Some people choose to use a general contractor. I’m my own general contractor,” Fein quipped. “It’s a lot of time,” she admitted. “I just spent three hours running samples back and forth.” Monogue encourages that sort of involvement, though, as stone samples look completely different in the warehouse than they do in a person’s home. One project Fein credits to Monogue alone is simplifying a small “wet bar” sink tucked into a nook beside Fein’s fridge. The former sink extended over its countertop and had rounded edges, so “there wasn’t even room to set a glass,” Monogue said. He moved the basin to the side of the two-foot space, selecting a deep, straight sided model to minimize counter loss. The result is a small but usable space that maximizes flat surface availability. “I was ready to get rid of the whole thing,” Fein said of the bar before Monogue’s modification. The reworking fits Fein’s ideology in remodeling: “Kitchens and bathrooms not only need to be beautiful, they need to be functional.” “The trick with remodeling is you want it to look like it was intended originally,” Monogue said. “It’s tough to do.”

Bevingtons at Brookside

Tyson Miller can do it all. Just ask his biggest fans. Gary and Emily Bevington have had Miller do numerous remodeling projects on their home, and they trust him enough to give him the keys and leave on vacation while he’s at it. “He’s very clean,” said Gary Bevington. He cleans up after himself completely, Bevington said. Many contractors don’t, he noted, but Miller is meticulous that way, and in the work he does. “He’s absolutely compulsive,” Bevington said. “He’s so careful, and clean.” One project that exemplifies that care is a tile entryway the Bevingtons had Miller construct during last year’s respite from Missoula’s winter. Bevington had wanted a sand colored tile that matched the kitchen of the open floor plan in their Brookside home. “This open plan was popular in the 90’s,” Bevington commented, and while it still looks contemporary, they wanted to delineate each individual space in the room a little more. The kitchen is separated from the wide entry way by a long counter, and the living area has carpeting and couches, but the entryway needed a pick-me up. Because the natural traffic flow follows from the front hall to the kitchen to the patio deck, and vice versa, Bevington wanted an easy-to-clean and durable surface, as it would get a lot of wear and tear. Tile fit the bill, especially as that was already what the kitchen had for its flooring. But the color they had chosen was no longer available, something the couple didn’t know when they left town, leaving Miller to complete the job. “He called us and said he couldn’t get that tile,” Gary Bevington remarked, “but he said he’d been looking at some design plans and had an idea for a transitional space between the kitchen and the patio. We trust him, so we said go ahead.” When the couple returned from their trip, they found a new transition zone, with clay-colored tile that reflects the rust-brown stain of the patio deck, and also picks up the color variations in the kitchen tile. “He said if you can’t use the same color, you should use something that picks up one of the accent colors in the original tile. That’s what this does,” Bevington said, pointing at the new space. In addition, Miller laid the tile on point, in contrast to both the parallel lines of the decking and the traditional square layout of the kitchen floor. He also added an accent border between the kitchen and the newly designed space, mirroring the kitchen tile’s squares, but more-closely mimicking the new tile’s colors. The result is a perfect zone of movement, between the regularly-used deck and the kitchen not far within. The couple even placed a café table in the space, so they can sit indoors and gaze out at the landscaped area behind them from the new, warm space. Intentionally or not, the tile also replicates another of the Bevintons’ loves: their home in the Yucatan of Mexico. In the basement, the Bevingtons show off another of Miller’s creations. “We have a lot of friends from Europe,” Bevington said, “and when they come to visit, they like to stay for a while.” “The problem with long-term guests,” he added, “is food coordination. So I had the idea of putting in another kitchen.” This, a fully-enclosed “junior” kitchen, remedies some of the problems of the open floorplan upstairs, Bevington said. While he enjoys the look upstairs, Bevington ticked off numerous reasons an open kitchen plan is not ideal. Foremost is cooking smells. Bevington jokes he can come downstairs and make kimchee and no one would ever know. After admitting he doesn’t really create the hot, pickled cabbage dish, he does own up to cooking German sauerbraten, another smell he’d rather not have wafting through his living room. Nor even that of the fish he’s fond of grilling. To minimize odors, Miller install a commercial exhaust fan designed for venting petroleum smells from gas stations. Miller did that work, plus all the wiring and plumbing on the kitchen as well. “He can do everything,” Bevington said. That multi-talented ability is important to Bevington, who doesn’t want a bunch of subcontractors mucking about his home. Equally important is the ability to make the new space seem a part of the old. “I wanted it not to look like an add-on,” Bevington said. And with Miller’s ability to match color and texture, it doesn’t. The walls, ceiling, and texture of the pre-existing finished parts of the basement all flow into what was, until he began its transformation into a kitchen, an unfinished, concrete-floored space that looked like, well, a basement. After finishing the foundation work for the kitchen, Miller put in a floating laminate floor to reduce foot fatigue, had cupboards installed and selected a laminate countertop of bright marigold. “The countertop was Tyson’s idea,” Bevington said, letting on he probably wouldn’t have thought of that color. But in the windowless space, it adds light and a splash of fun, again reflecting the Bevingtons love of Mexico, which they have been visiting for endless years now. The new kitchen will serve him well when he wants to cook foods too daunting for upstairs, and it will provide the perfect space for the couples’ numerous long-term guests. It will also be the food-preparation spot of choice once the Bevingtons complete their next project: a lower level entrance and patio off the basement living room. He plans to have Miller do that job, too. And he couldn’t be happier about that decision.

4Gs Plumbing

You don’t typically think “industrial” when you think interior design, but at 4-Gs Plumbing and Heating, industrial is daily business. The mechanical and electrical contractors recently built a new home for their growing business in Missoula’s Industrial Park. The outside prefaces the interior, using copper color and piping to reflect the business’s mainstay. Inside, the theme continues with paint color and decorating schemes. Kathryn Kress, of Perfect Color, said that was her plan. “One thing I do is I want the exterior of the building to match the interior,” she said. The color continuity begins in the foyer. Freeform gold slashes are painted upon a copper colored wall. They’ll mirror the sway of golden grasses that will be planted outside the entry windows, said business owner Melody Bryan. Sconces of copper with a pebble-look patina add to the naturalizing effect. In the business proper, practicality merged with color preference in carpet tile for the main floor. “We knew we wanted carpet tile because we have heavy wear patterns,” Kress said. “We bought overage so we can replace them,” as they get worn, she added. The business wanted to involve its employees in the remodel process, and held a design contest for a conference table. The winner is a glass-topped table with curved steel piping for legs. The pattern on the carpet, a black and grey curving slash, mirrors the table’s “parabolic shape and creates a shadow line, just like the table does,” Kress said of selecting the pattern. In the break room, she selected Adura flooring by Mannington. “We adora the Adura,” she quipped. “It holds up,” Bryan said. “Before we moved in, the construction workers were using this doorway and leaving clots everywhere. It holds up and cleans up so easily,” she explained. The flooring is wax-free, requiring only sweeping and mopping, saving the business maintenance costs as well. One of the natures of remodeling is changing your plans as you go. The original counter chosen for the break room was discontinued before it could be ordered. Kress said you have to stay flexible, and they chose a different laminate. The new counter looks like granite. “It just goes to show you, laminate can be beautiful,” Kress said. Other touches that reflect the business’s central nature are the brushed stainless steel fixtures. Choosing materials suited to the plumbing and heating business was one of Kress’s responsibilities. “We have a little techno thing going on,” Kress said of the accents. In a business that focuses on the bones of a home, industrial accents are not a shock. Coming as a surprise, however, is the “girl’s room,” a fitness lounge for the female employees of the business. “They’ve moved so far from their exercise class, they have to have something here,” Kress said. Bryan agreed. All three female office employees used to go to workout classes regularly, and the new fitness room provides them with that same opportunity on site. “As the boss, you get to decide these things,” Bryan smiled. The mini-gym sports “ionique” flooring, a textured hard-surface tile said to release invigorating negative ions. “The Japanese have been putting these into post-ops for years,” said Kress. Adjacent to the fitness room is a deluxe shower and bath, all built around the color of a sink. “Melody loved this sink,” Kress said of the soft-grey porcelain. “I saw this at one of our kitchen distributors,” Bryan said, caressing the finish, “and one day I’ll have it in my home. But for now, this will do.” The grey became the anchor color of the room, reappearing in the commode and shower tile. “I think a paint designer would call it mouse,” Kress laughed when asked the color’s name. On the design side, the shower is intentionally huge. Faced in clear glass, the shower “has the monolithic rectitude of the concrete vault that’s in the center of the building,” Kress said. Both women praised Creative Paint and Glass, who put in all the glasswork in the building. Bryan said they were wonderful to work with. “You just ask for what you want and it appears.” Upstairs, the project managers are on a bright, open floor where Kress said “all the colors we used in the building are repeated in succession.” The structural elements of the building are repeated, too, with wall mounted file cases mirroring the shapes of the windows and the lines of the walls. The upper conference room is warm with cherry cabinets and walls of muted blue. “The blue is like a breath of fresh air,” said Kress, who chose it to contrast with the earthen tones that otherwise dominate the building. It is in this room that John Bukovatz, another 4-Gs owner, has his winning table. A boat-shaped light currently hangs above it, but will be replaced by one that Bukovatz designs as well, Bryan said. The “boat” was hung before the large screen TV was placed upon the wall, she said, and now it conflicts, so it has to go. It’s another reminder, Kress said, that a remodel is a work in progress. Still, Bryan is happy. “It’s all come together. Everyone who has walked into this place has said ‘Wow.’” “We have people bringing people over to look at our building,” she added. “I’m just sitting back and going, ‘It’s just what I wanted.’”