A live/work laneway house for a graphic artist | Lanefab
Photograph by Colin Perry
The owner’s personality shines through in this Vancouver laneway house. A freelance graphic artist, she asked Lanefab Design/Build to design a small house that would be both her home and her workplace. Small bursts of color plus authentic materials enliven the clean-lined modern dwelling.
The 760 ft2 (70.6 m2) laneway house has a split-level floor plan. One side is an open living space while the other side has an office loft and adjacent roof deck stacked over the bedroom and bathroom.
Photograph by Colin Perry
A high vaulted ceiling rises up from the living area and over the loft, creating a feeling of expansive openness. Light spills down from the loft’s clerestory windows, but the half-wall railing blocks any view of the actual workspace from the living area.
Lanefab designed and built the live-edge dining table on casters. When it isn’t needed for large dinner parties, it tucks partly under the kitchen counter, providing an additional prep surface.
Photograph by Colin Perry
The concrete floors appear to have been given good power troweling before being coated with sealer, an attractive finish that is much less expensive than grinding and polishing. Apparently the longer the concrete is troweled, the more mottled and “swirly” the result will be. The feature wall of reclaimed lumber adds some rough texture to contrast the smooth floors and other finishes.
The bedroom and bathroom were dug several feet into the ground to keep the structure within the 5.8 m (19′) height limit. The bedroom contains an abundance of clothes and linen storage; one wall is devoted to closets while another is lined with drawers.
Photograph by Colin Perry
The drawers are actually recessed into the crawlspace beneath the living room. Because the crawlspace is less than 1.2 m (4′) high, neither the drawers nor the rest of the crawlspace storage counted towards the home’s square footage.
The yard space between the laneway house and the main dwelling was designed as a shared courtyard with patio areas, planters and a “rain garden”, a planted area that collects and absorbs the runoff from the roofs. The retaining wall is made from gabions, wire cages filled with rocks.
Enjoy the photo tour!
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Photographs by Colin Perry and Martin Knowles Photo/Media, courtesy of Lanefab Design/Build.
Text copyright 2016 SmallHouseBliss. All Rights Reserved.
perfect functional design for the geography. I could not do stairs and I would not like the decor, which is irrelevent. the space works well. very nicely thought out!
Is there any chance of finding our where the owners bought their furniture- particularly the couches?
Where can I get plans for this house
I love the design and space works
Wow!!! This is beautiful. I too like this kind of home in my future. I loved it😍
Beautiful home. How much does it cost to build it? How much would it cost to buy?
I just followed your blog…It’s amazing, Fantastic, breath taking blog. Cheers to your effort.
Hope you’ll visit my blog http://www.itsourlife.blog 🙂
Your suggestions matter !!
I’ve only just discovered your blog don’t have the time to look around right now, but I know I’m going to love it!
Dear Small House
We would love to follow in your footsteps to maintain and broaden the reach of your site Small House Bliss. We have had our plans on your website for over five years. I would like to speak to someone that has the authority to consider my offer to maintain this site into the future.
Greg
On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 2:02 PM Small House Bliss wrote:
> SmallHouseBliss posted: ” The owner’s personality shines through in this > Vancouver laneway house. A freelance graphic artist, she asked Lanefab > Design/Build to design a small house that would be both her home and her > workplace. Small bursts of color plus authentic materials en” >