Embracing the Necessities
If you’ve ever gone through the process of designing and building a home, you may have noticed that what you blissfully pictured as clean blank walls and ceilings slowly become cluttered with the necessities of modern living. I’m referring to air vents, outlets, switches etc. When I was new to the building trade these elements would catch me by surprise. My heart would sink when I realized too late that a vent wasn’t centered on a doorway or a light switch interfered with a door trim. These travesties are all the worse when you go to the trouble and expense of using beautiful materials only to mar them with builder grade solutions.
For Camp Bluebird, I was intent on anticipating all these requirements and planning for them. Tim and I set all the electrical blueboxes ourselves, paying close attention to how they interacted with trim and/or other components of a room. We also did a bluebox walk with our architect, Pluck. This extra measure allowed us to catch even more potential issues such as light switches taking up ideal towel bar space. Do you notice a hint of OCD at play? Perhaps, but do all decent designers possess this tendency? That’s another post entirely.
Once locations for all these design nuisances were determined, the next dilemma to solve was what product to use. There are two ways to approach these solutions. We could either minimize their appearance or draw attention to them in a positive way. We took both approaches throughout Camp Bluebird. And because there is a hierarchy to the spaces of a home, we invested more in the common spaces of the home than we did in the private rooms. In my opinion, it's okay to mix and match as long as there is a clear system in place.
Prado outlets placed in the butler’s pantry/bar.
We painted the recessed lights to match the ceiling. A ceiling curtain track is installed flush with the sheetrock.
In the alder-clad kitchen and dining room, we choose to draw attention to the vents instead of reducing their appearance. We selected an interesting grill pattern in a bronze finish from Reggio Registers.
We used Buster + Punch light switches in the common spaces—kitchen, dining room and living room. They look beautiful, but the tolerance for concealing the blue box is pitiful. This was more of an issue on the wood-clad walls. In the future, I want to explore other brands that are easier to install.