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| The Sanctuary Atrium Lobby |
Early last summer I walked into the open house for The Sanctuary, immediately
captivated by it's voluminous atrium, with a stained glass, ocular dome window above and an
epoxy, polished concrete floor below. The floors were cool and grey, so reflective and clean. The interior design firm, Robin Chell Design, had also carried the same polished concrete floors into the unit we would go on to purchase. It was a modern sparkle in a century-old structure. A light, shiny lobby floor, along with milky buttercup walls and high ceilings, brought light into what started out as a very dim interior space. In the living and dining room of our unit, just off the lobby, the floors looked just as beautiful.
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| Living Room Concrete Floor |
Fast forward to the first Seattle winter in our home. I'll borrow some data from a resident's comment posted the City Data website;
"Misty rain - when it rains this is what we typically get. drizzle, mist, drip drip. . . ".
I'd add to that description; "Squish, squish, squish".
The grassy easement just outside my front door has some poor drainage (I'll work on this later with the HOA). I have two pugs. Enough said. That same beautiful polished concrete began to look like a mud-print patterned basement floor down one level. And, it was cold! This Miami girl took to wearing fuzzy slippers at all times. I doubled our electric bill January and February using space heaters for me and the pugs before bed. I gated off any room with brand-new light carpeting. I talked it over with the husband and we decided to install hardwood flooring in the loft area and the street level, over the polished concrete and the cream shag carpet.
So what to install? We looked at all types of reclaimed hardwood, wanting to keep the permanent features of the home more in line with the period of the church, the early 1900s. I also wanted to add a tile inlay directly at the street level double doors. The church has some beautiful features, tucked just out of sight. Above our door is a very high stained glass window, about 2' x 6'. When the morning sun shines through the glass the colors pop as the light moves. I asked my floor contractors, Regan & German, to work with me to design a modern interpretation for the tile area below the stained glass.
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| BEFORE: Street Entry Front Door and Stained Glass above door |
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| Tile samples |
The exterior of The Sanctuary was built of Bedford limestone, also used in the Empire State Building and the Pentagon. Regan found a pale cream limestone called Honed Moonlight with Azul Dot and an Iridescent Metalli 1/4" x 3" insert that might be substituted for some of the blue stones in order to create a pattern. I searched online for other color samples and ordered golds and reds. After the installer laid out the octagon limestone, I used my insert selections to create a simplified reflection of the stained glass above, and he installed it.
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| Reclaimed Hardwood samples |
For hardwood we chose a hand-scraped engineered hickory, which uses a thin piece of reclaimed wood over a 3/8" plywood to allow installation without having to shave down any of the doors. We looked at shades that were light, medium and dark and made the choice to avoid matching either the existing oak exterior doors (medium) or maple interior doors (light) and selected a dark, contemporary color.
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| AFTER: Street Entry Front Door and Tile Inlay |
The installation took four days and the resulting floors feel as though they might be original from 1909. Guests stop and remark as they step over the threshold, when the light catches the iridescent tiles. Take a look at the AFTER photo and judge our solution for yourself.
