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The renovated kitchen of the Cole/Larson home
with eco-friendly pressed paper countertops,
reconstituted teak cabinets, and
comfortable cork flooring.
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When David Roodman and Mai Pham began planning to renovate their 75-year old townhouse at 1231 C Street, NE, they were determined to build in green elements that would reduce the home’s ecological footprint while reflecting their own modern aesthetic. Working with Capitol Hill architect Ziad Demian (www.demianwilbur.com), they completely renovated the first floor and basement.
The Pham/Roodman home is one of the nine homes (and a renovated townhouse turned kitchen supply store) on this year’s Renovator’s House Tour, which will be held on Saturday, October 17, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Designed for the modern homeowner, this walking tour showcases a wide variety of homes and styles. The emphasis is on clever solutions to everyday problems and how to incorporate green design into our early 20th century homes. The tour raises funds for the Capitol Hill Cluster School, a DC Public School serving over 1,000 students.
The Roodman/Pham house is a perfect example of how to turn an older townhome into a modern dwelling. Central to the new design are black pressed-paper countertops and custom bamboo cabinets, shelving, and a closet that mix two tones: natural bamboo yellow and a black stain. The modern, Asian-influenced casework maintains a sculptural presence while creating porous boundaries between the entryway and living and dining spaces and maximizes natural light (thus minimizing the need for artificial lighting). When selecting lighting fixtures, they only chose ones that would accept compact fluorescent bulbs, and they installed two ceiling fans in the main living space in order to use air conditioning “as a last resort.”
Instead of replacing the home’s original windows, they installed airtight, low-emissivity (“low-E”) storms, which block invisible, heat-transmitting infrared and ultraviolet radiation. They also planted eleven new trees, including a large river birch and four male ginkgos along the west the house, which shield it from the scorching afternoon sun in summer. David notes that by choosing trees that lose their leaves each year, the family still gets the benefit of afternoon sunshine during winter. They also added new insulation in the narrow attic space, a relatively cheap and easy energy efficiency improvement people sometimes overlook.
In the basement – where the floor plan features a family room, guest room and bath – visitors also will notice a blending of the family’s modern aesthetic and their commitment to living green. The doors and some of the wood in their frames were recycled when the first floor’s interior walls were removed. In a similar vein, they filled the opening from an old kitchen window with used bricks found on Freecycle. Throughout the project, David relied on Freecycle to give away cast-offs like the old iron bathtub in the first floor bathroom, and leftover building materials, to minimize waste.
The Larson/Cole House
Charlotte Larson and her husband Chris Cole, who live at 501 3rd Street, SE, also brought a green sensibility to their recently-completed kitchen and bath renovations. With assistance from the Levine Group (http://thelevinegroup.com), which provided design/build services for the kitchen renovation, they also identified materials that were both “eco-friendly” and attractive, including reconstituted teak for the kitchen cabinets, the same pressed paper countertops used in the Roodman/Pham kitchen, and cork flooring. Charlotte noted that the countertop material is so hard that the sink installer actually stripped one of his drill-bits trying to cut a hole for the faucet next to the sink. By contrast, the cork floor is wonderfully soft, saving the chef from getting sore knees and many a dropped bottle or jar from breaking. In addition to using renewable materials, the family opted to keep several of the existing appliances, and found others on e-Bay.
The upstairs bath was designed by another Hill resident, Gay Hardwick (gayhardwick@mac.com), and built by Impact Construction and Consulting (www.impactbuilt.com), a local company specializing in green building projects. In addition to using recycled or renewable materials for the renovation, Impact worked with a salvage company during demolition to ensure that as much of what was taken out as possible could be reused. The sink is poured concrete, other materials were selected for low-VOC (“volatile organic compound”) content, and the door, which slides open on tracks (“barn-door-style”) to save space, is made of recycled resin into which a woven grass material has been embedded, allowing for privacy but letting light filter through. In the shower, the floor is paved with black river rocks and the walls are covered in small rectangular glass and stone tiles in colors that evoke a mountain stream, creating an overall effect that’s almost spa-like.
Ticket Information
Tickets are $25 and may be purchased online at www.renovatorshousetour.org or at Frager’s Paint Store, 1115 Pennsylvania Ave. SE; Hill’s Kitchen, 713 D St. SE; Randolph Cree Salon, 325 Seventh St. SE; Schneider’s of Capitol Hill, 300 Massachusetts Ave., NE; and Stitch DC, 731 Eighth Street, SE. Tickets also will be on sale at Eastern Market on Saturday, Oct. 10, Sunday, Oct. 11, and on the day of the tour.
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