A Home Built for Legos

Since I was a little kid, I’ve always loved Lego,” says Seattle architect Jeffrey Pelletier. “It’s probably the reason I’m an architect now — it just inspired me.”

Pelletier’s fascination with the colorful building blocks didn’t end at adolescence. He continued to amass Lego sets well into adulthood. By the time his collection reached a quarter million pieces, he realized he’d outgrown his old house and needed a place with more square footage.

Pelletier and his husband, Christopher Pasco, settled on a battered 1902 Seattle foursquare, drawn by its grand appointments but modest proportions, and its convenient Capitol Hill location. In renovating the home, Pelletier aimed to preserve the structure’s bones but make it more suitable for contemporary living. “You get the benefits of both,” he says. “You get the floor plan of a modern house, but you get the feel of an older home.” And, in this case, you also get a color palette as exuberant as, well, a stack of Legos.

Pelletier and Pasco, a property manager, lived in the home for six years before starting the remodel. The old house was dark, had poor access to the yard, and lacked many of its original features. “A lot of the details that make an older home special had been pulled out,” says Pelletier of the onetime boardinghouse.

AFTER: “I really wanted to make sure that every space in the house felt special,” says Pelletier, who added floor-to-ceiling bookcases in the living room to maximize storage space.

The exuberant color palette was inspired by the weather. “Seattle has a notoriously gray climate,” says Pelletier. “We wanted bright colors. If I don’t like the colors in 10 years, I can paint it.”

The living room walls were painted Sherwin-Williams’ aptly named Fireworks. The home had no crown molding, so Pelletier added it throughout, and had the trim on the bookshelves custom milled to match the existing trim. The library ladder optimizes access to the shelving; it migrates between here and the kitchen as needed.

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A Home Built for Legos