In Seattle, a Modern Home That Looks Toward the Sky and the Water
As a child growing up in Washington State, Michaela F. is something of a dreamer. “Growing up near the ocean, I always felt at home at sea level,” says the 37-year-old, who at the time was married with two young children, aged five and seven years old. The family moved to Seattle three years ago from Portland, Oregon, where Michaela worked as an attorney for the city, with a goal of raising a family in this region of the state.
She’d always dreamed of living in a modern home, one that she’d describe as a blend of traditional and modern. A former lawyer and paralegal, Michaela has always loved to do things manually, as well as work with her hands. In addition to working at home, she has also worked with a small construction company for a few years. “I like to keep everything simple,” says the mother of two.
A few years back, when she first saw the idea for a modern home on her Instagram, she was excited to see that there was already a project in the works from the owners of Rodeo, who had just moved into a space on the Columbia River, not far from the Seattle city border.
“I took a lot of photographs of the living wall and what it looked like, and put them all on Instagram,” she says. “It was crazy that I had seen something I had never seen before.” The project started when the pair noticed that the living wall was lacking; there were plants, but not a lot—not enough to make a statement. One day, they noticed that the window was covered with the plastic sheeting that covers all windows in Seattle. Then the couple noticed that what appeared to be a water table was only a few inches from their home.
“I thought that was amazing,” says Michaela. “I couldn’t tell you why, but I was excited about it. That was the first thing I decided I wanted to build after seeing an image of it on Instagram, so I put that on my Pinterest board and