“We are living in the realm of resourcefulness out here,” says builder Dave Radatti of Northern Montana’s Mindful Designs. Northern Montanans are resourceful when it comes to reclaiming, reusing, creating their own homes, staying warm and even besting the house mortgage system. When catchy loan requirements threatened to reevaluate the purchase of 10 acres in the Whitefish Mountain Range foothills, Radatti and his friends, such as reluctantly Bryan Grace, who would finally move into the cottage on it, found a method. The lender had considered the 450-square-foot cottage a little too cozy (that is, not favorable enough) to get a mortgage. So, together with the owners’ permission, the friends spent a winter value-designing the cottage.
While Radatti desired to tread as lightly on the property as possible and keep the square footage to a minimum, he had been very aware that appraisers would need to visit three bedrooms and two and a half baths. The friends carefully incorporated these two goals to design a cottage that suited Grace’s lifestyle and would be easy and cheap for him to construct himself.
The outcome is an assemblage of 3 lean-to-type structures that include a inviting rustic, energy-efficient house. The appraisers agreed, and the friends got their loan and subdivided the property into four lots.
in a Glance
Who lives here: Bryan Grace
Location: Whitefish, Montana
Size: 1,391 square feet; 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths
Year of redesign: 2010
Energy-efficient elements: Radiant heat flooring, R-63 roof insulation and R-21 wall insulation, energy-efficient windows and doors, an electric boiler for heat and hot water, with solar panels as an option down the road
Mindful Designs, Inc..
The lean-to arrangement is rustic and modern all at the same time, a result of Grace’s want to create something as easy and inexpensive as possible so he can do all of the building himself.
“Sometimes this makes the house help the design,” Radatti says. “The roof needed to be no steeper than three pitches, or so the cost would have gone up, so that combined with the wall height we desired gave us the depth.”
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Grace’s resourceful reclaiming is evident inside the master bedroom, in which reclaimed oak from a distillery in Kentucky creates an accent wall.
Mindful Designs, Inc..
For inside trimming, Grace milled a dead spalted birch tree from a friend’s lawn.
The door on the left leads to a spa on the rear deck. A woodstove helps keep the whole living room toasty.
Mindful Designs, Inc..
From the entry the house’s public places, including the kitchen and living room, are to the right, while the more private areas, such as the bedrooms and two full baths, are on the leftside.
A 1 1/2-inch bed of light conceals the tubing for radiant floor heating. Porcelain tile covers the concrete.
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“We didn’t change a thing in the kitchenwe mostly just washed it up,” Radatti says. Just a pony wall divides the kitchen from the rest of the living room, which opens up the whole area to natural lighting and makes it feel bigger than it truly is.
Mindful Designs, Inc..
Grace kept everything clean lined and easy throughout the house, especially in the contemporary-leaning bathroom.
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The original cottage, constructed in the 1970s, is your shingled portion on the right, which now holds the living room and kitchen. For the remaining part of the structure, Radatti and Grace designed an assemblage of three shed-roofed buildings.
Mindful Designs, Inc..
The substances used on the outside are an assemblage as well. Grace scouted local barns and mills for the reclaimed siding and corrugated metal, supplementing those with lumber milled from trees onsite.
Grace used a chain saw for texture and a concoction that Mindful Design has perfected through the years that brings out the wood’s tannins for colour.
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The wineglass tips you off to where the spa is located. A builder talented Grace the cedar shake shingles.
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Different configurations of windows, trim and corrugated metal are a part of the house’s fun quirks.
Mindful Designs, Inc..
Mindful Designs, Inc..
A small sitting porch provides views of areas and foothills. While the friends all live near one another, you can not see 1 house from another.