DIY Design at Home

DIY Design for Work and Play at Home

Home is where your mood is. Elevate yours with inspiring ideas and tips from the amateurs and experts who made it happen.

written by Melissa Dalton

With virtually everyone spending more time at home in the last year, it’s become clear that our surroundings influence how we feel, and what we can do while we’re there. Dreaming of what you can change to feel happier, healthier, more productive and relaxed right at your own address? Don’t know where to begin?

Know that creative acts, big or small, bring rewards. Whether it’s building a sauna for an invigorating, postworkday sweat, an office that promotes focus and calm, a she-shed studio for meditating, painting or finding that much-needed, on-premises escape, read on. The homeowners who achieved just that and the experts who made it all come together painlessly tell you how. Prepare to get inspired.

A prefabricated Modern Shed was an easy way to add to a Gig Harbor waterfront home.

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli/AZFoto

Build a Sauna for $6,000

Juliette Dubroca knew that her husband, Isaac Backus, comes from a big family of sauna-lovers, so when the couple bought a house in Seattle’s Central District neighborhood three years ago, building a sauna was at the top of their to-do list. They commenced the yearlong project in 2019, designing and building it over the weekends. She’s an architect and lead designer at Central Collective in Seattle and he’s a data scientist comfortable with construction.

First up was deciding where to place the sweat-inducing structure. Their lot is small, about 2,000 square feet, and city building codes presented restrictions: the outbuilding had to be less than 120 square feet to avoid the need for a permit; it couldn’t be more than 8 feet tall or have a permanent foundation, and it had to sit back 5 feet from the property line. Dubroca slid it in beside an exterior door and adjacent to a large patio for easy indoor-outdoor access and with a spot for cooling off outside in warmer months.

For supplies, the couple scoured Second Use, a favorite local source for salvaged building materials. Their finds shaped the 90-squarefoot sauna’s design, from the twelve, colored-resin pieces that they fashioned into a stained-glass window, to two 30-foot, old-growth cedar beams, which they brought home in a U-Haul. The pair decided to set the beams at an X for the roof framework, which created some complexity to the build, with Backus cutting each rafter at a precise angle to fit. “We just gave ourselves this extra bit of challenge as a means to explore something new,” said Dubroca.

A couple used weekends to design and build this 90-square-foot sauna using salvaged materials. It took a year to complete it at their home in Seattle’s Central District. It has a stained-glass window, which they fashioned from colored-resin pieces, and two 30-foot, old-growth cedar beams.

Juliette Dubroca and Isaac Backus

Juliette Dubroca and Isaac Backus

Juliette Dubroca and Isaac Backus

They divided the sauna into two rooms. The hot room must be able to sustain a temperature of 200 degrees, so it’s wrapped in cedar and old, tin-ceiling tile protects the walls from the stove. The cold room is lined with refurbished wood pulled from a Portland school and sports a metal trough for dunking. A pulley mechanism opens and closes the door between the rooms, so no one has to grab a heated door knob between passes.

The couple finished the project last year, and hopes to spread the joy it brings. “I wish that Covid allowed us to share that experience with more people, so that it could be more of a community sauna for the neighborhood, or the street, rather than just a few select people from our Covid bubble,” said Dubroca. “But it’s really a beautiful, meditative, spiritual experience to be in there.”

Juliette Dubroca and Isaac Backus

Juliette Dubroca and Isaac Backus

From Home Office to Haute Office

It may seem as if any advice about the design of a home office would emphasize productivity above all, but not so for Cassandra LaValle. LaValle, the Seattle-based creative behind the popular blog and lifestyle company, coco + kelley, focuses on well-being first and foremost.

That begins with the desk chair. “Comfort is king,” said LaValle. So, while we’ve all seen lovely photos of designer chairs parked at the computer, that doesn’t work for real life, nor does the chair stolen from the dining room, as the latter is designed for two-hour dinners, not eight-hour days in front of a laptop. “Take care of your back,” said LaValle, and invest in an ergonomic desk chair that fits your body. La- Valle likes the looks, function and price-point of Ikea’s options. If the dining chair is all that’s available, try a meditation pillow to soften the seat.

The co-working space at Seattle’s Jackson St. Studio emphasizes comfort, and employs clean-lined, marble-topped desks and hangout spots with soft goods to make it feel like more than just an office. A stylish cabinet hides office supplies and local art adorns the walls.

Ellie Lillstrom Photography

Ellie Lillstrom Photography

While Zoom backgrounds have become paramount, LaValle suggests making sure your view is a good one, too. Place a desk by the window for natural lighting, or add a sculptural desk lamp for a pretty glow. Matching accessories and stationery—the brand Poppin is a favorite—can introduce order even when the day’s agenda goes awry. Bring in artwork and colors that energize.

In 2019, LaValle co-designed the work spaces at Seattle’s Jackson St. Studio with just such an eye towards balance. The studio is a coworking space for eight business women, in fields including photography, interior design, coaching and public relations. The space needed to be flexible, for hosting a photo shoot or client meeting. Work stations employ clean-lined, marble-topped desks from Room & Board, while nearby hangout spots are accessorized with soft goods to make it feel like more than just an office. A stylish cabinet hides office supplies and local art adorns the walls.

“Some people like a lot of color to bring energy to a room, and that helps them work throughout the day. Some people prefer a quiet palette to help focus,” said LaValle. “Try to understand what your responses are to color and what you need.”

Ellie Lillstrom Photography

Ellie Lillstrom Photography

Ellie Lillstrom Photography

Create a Vintage-Inspired She-shed

When Erin Tole, a portrait photographer based in Vancouver, debuted her “greenhouse/she-shed” to more than 38,000 followers on her Instagram account @vineandvintage, the pictures drew hundreds of ecstatic comments. People declared their intent to immediately start collecting old windows and tagged requests to partners to start building one of their own. Tole designed hers and hired a contractor to build it, but the process was fairly simple.

She had recently installed a patio at the front of her corner lot. “But it was a really big patio,” said Tole, and too big for just a lonely table and chairs. “It needed something.” The answer was a greenhouse/she-shed. Tole started with a collection of salvaged windows, gathered from Aurora Mills Architectural Salvage in Aurora, Oregon, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist and “random places,” said Tole. The patio provided a solid foundation, with a base of several layers of gravel and a vapor barrier, which prevents moisture from being absorbed into the structure.

The contractor sunk posts at the corners, framing the salvaged windows with two-by-fours and attaching them with screws. “We’d hold up the windows and try and fit it together as best we could,” said Tole. “You can fudge all of the weird places where it doesn’t quite fit, by either having glass cut to fit, or using wood shims.” They made sure to pitch the roof so water runs off, and covered it with a sheet of polycarbonate, which insulates and lets in sunlight.

These days, Tole’s greenhouse is an outdoor spot to style with vintage finds, or re-pot her extensive plant collection, both of which define the evolving interior décor of her 1915 house, as chronicled on her popular Instagram account. “The funny thing is, I enjoy the projects more than the end result,” said Tole. “I’m not thinking about sitting in the greenhouse. I just want to build it.”

This greenhouse/she-shed project began with salvaged windows from an architectural supply store, online marketplaces and “random places,” said Erin Tole of Vancouver. A patio served as the foundation, and now she uses the spot to style vintage finds or re-pot plants.

Shauna Intelisano

DIY Deficient? Try Prefab

Modern Shed, a company that designs and manufactures prefabricated sheds, got started in a Seattle backyard, making it a fitting option if thinking about creating your own new space. Modern Sheds come in three sizes to suit a range of activities. Set up a weight bench and fitness equipment for a private gym, move in a desk or easel for a quiet home office or studio, or line the interior with cedar to fashion a sauna.

The company manufactures the sheds in their Sedro-Woolley facility and delivers them in panels for straightforward assembly. For the DIY savvy, installing the small size shed is easy because it typically doesn’t require a building permit or more complicated plans. “You don’t have to be a general contractor, but you need a working knowledge of construction,” suggested Tim Vack, General Manager for Modern Shed.

In 2018, Rich and Kerrie Clos bought an extra-large shed, just shy of 200-square-feet, for their waterfront Gig Harbor property. Their lot is long and deep, and at first, they wanted to tear down the home and rebuild closer to the water. But when construction costs came in too high, Rich Googled “modern shed” and stumbled on the Washington company. “I was looking for something that would be attractive and really durable,” said Rich, noting the quality of materials, such as cement board lap siding, metal roof and knotty cedar at the ceiling.

This prefabricated unit from Modern Shed was the solution for a couple who wanted their Gig Harbor waterfront home to be closer to the shore, but construction costs were too high. They added a custom deck and a contractor put it up in a few days.

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli/AZFoto

The couple collaborated with a Modern Shed in-house designer to get the window and door placement just right and to add a 4-foot roof extension and custom deck. Upon delivery, the contractor they hired had it up in a few days. The couple finished the interior, installing insulation, drywall, vinyl flooring, painting and hanging shelves.

Even without adding a bathroom or kitchen, which adds substantial cost, the Clos’s simple shed has proved extremely useful, whether as a guest room in a pinch, a place to hang out with friends by the water or a spot of solitude. “It’s fantastic to have a separate space to call your own,” said Vack.

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli/AZFoto

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli/AZFoto