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The master bathroom echoes the kitchen with its black countertop. The architects cut the scale of the white travertine tiles used in the main spaces in half for the floors and half again for the wall tile. crafted from walnut and teak millwork. Two televisions — one for each room — are set into the face of each side. Concealed inside the center column's outer edges, pocket doors work in tandem when opened to create a wood veneered wall that artfully closes of the bedroom from the rest of the house. "When the owner is home alone, he can leave the pocket doors open to let the spaces fow seamlessly from one to another," explains Dufresne. "Tis fexibility in the system allows it to adapt to specifc activities and times of day depending on his preference." Built-ins throughout the residence are all made of wal- nut or teak, and all fooring is travertine tiles to maintain the visual relationship to pocket doors. Te kitchen and dining areas open to the living room on either side of a 10-ft. 6-in. by 20-ft. enclosure encased in millwork. Bookshelves and drawers line the living room side, and the kitchen side is composed of kitchen cabinets, a black quartz countertop and sink. IN THE DETAILS Cocooned inside the enclosure is the master bathroom. Refecting its cluster relationship to the kitchen, the master bathroom's countertop is also black, and the hardware is in the same style as the kitchen. White travertine tiles line the fooring and walls in the same ratio but smaller proportions than the scale of the large-format 24- by 24-in. travertine-tile fooring in the main spaces. Te architects cut the scale in half for the bathroom fooring and then in half again for the wall tile. "It's subtle, but at the grand scale of the project it pro- vides an unconscious comfort level," Dufresne notes. "Te sight lines in this space are critical because you can see from one end into the other. If something isn't quite right it will irritate you like a speck on your glasses or a bug on your windshield." Because many older buildings don't have a suds pressure system designed within the bathroom's plumbing system, the only way to accommodate laundry facilities was to locate them on a kitchen stack. Following the building's ductwork and chases, the team strategically relocated the kitchen to where one of the former kitchens sat years before. Ten, they connected the new laundry facilities to this kitchen stack. Te need for kitchen lighting posed a challenge. With 8-ft.-high concrete ceilings, the team could not add down-lighting or a junction box for a pendant light. Tey treated the partial wall separating the kitchen from the pantry as a shallow folded plane to leave as much open space in the kitchen but provide just enough room for recessed can lighting. Ten, they lined the plane over the island. "It creates a reveal around the perimeter that looks like it's foating against the ceiling," Dufresne explains. "It lines up with the edge of the island and picks up on the island countertop's same 90-degree waterfall edge." Te dining area faces the window wall where heating fan coils stood. Dufresne's team covered the fan coils with a quartz countertop bench in Zeus white to match the kitchen island and designed the front face with an alumi- num laminated slotted board to allow the heat to radiate through. Te quartz top prevents the seat from getting hot. Te space remains a three-bedroom unit with two bathrooms and a powder room. In addition to a guest bedroom, there is an ofce that can become a third bedroom in the future. Te ofce opens to the rest of the home through a three-panel frosted glass aluminum frame door with a track hidden in the ceiling. Te tracks collapse into one another when open, and the frosted glass brings abundant light into the ofce when it's closed. Having opened the expansive view, the team did not want curtains to clutter the space, so they added remotely operated motorized shades. Te concrete ceilings made it difcult to accommo- date the shade pocket and deliver power to them in an elegant way. Dufresne's team coordinated closely with the contractor and shade supplier to chan- nel the electrical behind the structural concrete columns and clad some areas where the old fan coils are, creating custom valences that conceal the shades. "We opened up the volume, made the dimensions rational, and kept the interior clean and simple," says Dufresne. "Now, the owner's focus stays on the refned space and its amazing location." | KJ Fields writes from Portland, Ore., about remodeling. and design. The office opens to the rest of the home through a three-panel aluminum door with track in the ceiling. QualifiedRemodeler.com QR October 2015 31