Vision Pays Off in a Vibrant Live-Work Space
Like many Seattle artists, Amy Ockerlander was worried about losing her studio space in the city’s Pioneer Square district after the implosion of the Kingdome in 2000. Subsequent redevelopment displaced many artists, who were forced to find new spaces outside the city’s traditional creative enclaves. After plans for an artists’ collective fell through, Ockerlander and her husband, Alan Brookfield, a clinical engineer, searched for an affordable commercial space to convert.
The couple found a 1922 building that Ockerlander describes as a “big beige box in Ballard.” “I loved that it was a large, plain box on a corner,” she says. It had the space inside, and it had space outside. All it needed was vision — and an awful lot of work. With the elbow grease of Ockerlander and Brookfield, the help of architect Bob Kovalenko of Kovalenko Hale Architects and the efforts of Lunde Construction, the structure was transformed over 16 months into a vibrant live-work space.
Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Amy Ockerlander, Alan Brookfield, their 4 dogs and a cat
Location: Ballard neighborhood of Seattle
Size: 4,300 square feet (399 square meters); 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
Year built: 1922
When the couple began demolition of the first floor, there was a dropped popcorn ceiling that blocked the windows and made the space really dark. “When the building was worked on in the 1980s, they ripped out just about all the original character,” says Ockerlander. “Everything that was put in was the cheapest possible.”
Demolition revealed that the structure of the building itself was full of character. “We loved the wood above that dropped ceiling, and left it as is and exposed,” she says.
The open floor plan was divided through creative furniture placement and a central staircase. The couple worked with Nathan Hartman of Kerf Design for many of their furnishings. Here a cozy reading area is tucked behind a Kerf bookcase with blue, orange and green laminate shelves.
The curved bar is a secondhand find; it’s great for entertaining and parties, and as a place where the couple’s cat can escape her four canine housemates.
“We have a lot of sitting areas in the house, so we have a lot of couches,” says Ockerlander. A vintage Maxfield Parrish print on the wall is surrounded by Brookfield’s photography and paintings by local artists.
“We reused everything we could from demolition,” Ockerlander says. “Alan and I laid the floor ourselves. The wood had ‘sticker marks,’ which is something that happens in the kiln, but it fades over time. Because of that imperfection, we got the wood for a fantastic price. So we bought 7,000 pounds for each floor and nailed it in piece by piece. All in all, it took 14,000 nails.”
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