Dogwood: Mary x Chris x Mike

Hey folks! The other day I got to spend some time with Mary & Chris, who built an Alpine 2.2 in North Carolina. We chat the ins & outs of their build, as well as their construction journey. Their place is beautiful - enjoy the conversation!

1. Intro & Location

Mike: Let's start with some basic questions, right? Who are you? Tell us a little bit about yourself and tell us where this project is that we're looking at today, and which DEN design you ultimately ended up building.

Mary: Okay. My name is Mary Shanklin. This is my husband, Chris Teman. We built our DEN outside of Asheville in Brevard, North Carolina. We had purchased this lot. It's a half acre lot, probably around 2018. And, quite honestly, we went with a design build team initially. And found, we really encountered a lot of runaway costs and, it really didn't accommodate, what we hoped to accomplish.

So, we really were ready to give up and we really were ready to park the job, to sell the property and to move along. 

Mike: Whoa. Okay. For people who are gonna listen to this, I just like, I made a, like a visible reaction because I was like, 'wow. We were like, really about to throw in the towel', uh, which is crazy!

So, tell us what happened next! 

2. Initial Design Struggles

Mary: Yeah. Okay. We're looking at other houses. It's at a time, kind of a little bit early into Covid when it's really difficult to find builders. But we happen to find a great builder who lived by us, Ryan Jacques with Going Green Builders, kind of a little bit more environmentally conscious.

And so then with Ryan, he's kind of giving us a little bit of the standard, 'well, here's these house plans'. At that time he didn't have much experience with DEN, maybe a little bit. You know, but he's kind of asking us to find the design. And then I kind of stumbled into DEN and just instantly saw that it's really what we wanted to accomplish, you know, bringing the outdoors in.

We are in our sixties - so, as you'll see here, the lot, a little bit, the house. And what we get the most compliments on, actually it's the DEN. It's a garage, which was, modeled off of, I think it was the tiny house, one car. But, we could make it an accessory dwelling unit, in the future if we ever needed to.

Chris: It includes a loft. So the garage is 20 x 12, 12 foot side walls. And then it's got a loft at nine, a little over nine feet inside.

So it could be redone as an accessory drilling unit. 

3. Design Features & Functionality

Mike: Amazing, amazing. What do you guys currently use the loft for? Like a, recording studio, yoga studio. Like what do you - 

Chris: So, it's unfinished, so really it's just storage at this point. But once we finish it, it could be used for kids play or grandkids playroom or, you know, some kind of a studio. 

Mary: I have visions of it being my map room where I get to spread out all my maps and get to go see where I wanna go hiking and biking and exploring. But we're still working on that. That's phase two.

Chris: And our builder built one of these as a home for someone else. And so he had the plans so he, he could just build it without any effort. So he gave us a really good price on doing the garage. 'cause the first house, the first build that we used was giving us a carport and giving us the access to the living area by stairs.

And so that's one of the reasons we liked the first floor master bedroom, you know, the living area on a first floor without going upstairs. uh, necessarily. 

Mike: Cool. Cool. Awesome. So yeah, the buildings look incredible. I think that the fact that we also managed to like get the geometry of the buildings to be complimentary is quite nice.

And this, like in-between space that you have here, this patio is really charming. Do you guys spend a lot of time there? 

Mary: We do. And what's really nice about it, it's really a passive solar situation where, as you'll see when we go in, you've got that beautiful full bank floor to ceiling windows, and in the winter we get all that sunlight in.

But in the summer, it's shaded. And so that little patio area, it gets the benefit of shade. You know, a lot in the summer, which we appreciate. 

4. Home Tour & Interior Details

Mike: Nice, nice. so yeah, let's maybe like talk about like the designs themselves. For the main home, give us a tour. Like where, where do you guys like to spend time? 

Mary: Okay. So, here's our little walk up. Hoping it's steady. Went with you know, a fun front door color.

Mike: Oh wow. That is amazing. 

Mary: Right. We definitely had, a little help on the design, you know, on the interior design. But, really it is, just a textbook DEN, particularly on the interior. This is a pretty inviting place. This morning we had a fire, if you can see our, and I think this was subscribed in, in the DEN plans.

And it really does heat up the house. It's form and function. We have like a little patio area out there. We go out there in the summer and do like a little fire pit. We did the splits and kind of like the low profile. Lights on this side, kind of a signature.

It's just called a Sirius light, kind of like sirius the clouds. But, everybody who's come in, their jaws just drop. 

Mike: Yeah. I was recently in an Alpine 2.2, and it is just a phenomenal space. 

Mary: Oh my gosh. So much function. You can see the loft.

Yeah. Up there. So the way that we spend our time, it's funny, during the day, we're down in this main area a lot and you know, we'll have dinner here. We did kind of a fun thing because it is so many windows, and we're not on like, you know, 20 acres of property. We got these windows that, you can raise them up.

And then it blocks out the road. 

5. Lot & Design Philosophy

Mike: Oh, yes. Nice, nice. 

Mary: Yeah. And then recess them down. But to answer your question, during the day we're in here a lot. We find ample seating between the dining area the seating area. And the kitchen has ample room for seating for three. Very functional without too much.

And then having this pantry, really gives us the opportunity to store all of our stuff. And, it's kind of funny, what happened , the plan itself called for a washer and dryer upstairs. And our builder is like, 'you know, we could do this downstairs'.

So we took a closet area and this is the nice thing about the DEN. We took a closet area right at the base of the stairs and we're able to like put in, just like little stackables. So we kind of hang out down here , during the day. And then at night, we go up, well, let me show you one thing.

Okay, so here's the little walkway. It's so cool with the red, we did the red garage, you know, it's just like a great focal point. And then, you know, you get all that. You know? Yeah. 

Mike: You crushed it on this project. I'm really impressed. I mean, really well done. 

Mary: Yeah, we love it.

We'll show you another bathroom upstairs too, but, at night - so we elected to not do televisions in the downstairs, because like who wants to really bring a TV into this space? 

Chris: One thing I did wanna mention that, because we did build on a slab. So some challenges, so above here, to get the vent, the stove outside, we did have to do some boxing of the ceiling to get the vents out since we're not underneath the floor. But it is a lot easier to build on a slab down here. 

Mike: Definitely. Definitely. Also regarding TVs. So my partner is European and she's like, 'we don't need TVs'.

So we use a projector, right? To like watch, whatever, climbing videos or like movies. Or we're just like watching like on a laptop in bed and like, that's our tv! 

Mary: Honestly. Yeah. You know, we kind of made a concession to TVs upstairs 'cause you know, we've got grandkids and all.

So, you know, we find like your stairways, and we did this kind of cool little, um, scene with the stairwells. 

Mike: You guys have great taste, I gotta say, like, it's - 

Mary: Yeah. You know. Okay. So that's my husband, truly. 

Mike: Oh, amazing. I mean, like, you got, it's like, it's like everything is like the, you know, the fixtures and like the furniture are really, it feels really, really nice.

Mary: Oh, Michael, I tell you, your design just hit home with what we wanted to do. this is where, you know, we'll hang out after dinner , and you can read , you can, you know, watch tv. You know, like you said, like hang out at the laptop. So doing that washer and dryer downstairs.

Allowed us to take the washer and dryer space. We haven't done it yet, but this is going to become, instead of a closet, we're gonna outfit it as like a little office, you know, so you can get a little privacy.

But it is also so cool that when we're here, there's so many windows everywhere.

When somebody spots - there'll be like a half dozen deer that come through the property - and somebody sees it through one window and you can just... It's like being outside. You know, you can move a foot or two and see the herd of deer coming down.

Chris: And I think the best thing that we did is by going for the full wall of glass, the full wall of windows. 'cause I guess some people they just do the half windows. Really that's what makes it with the sun and the, the passive solar. 

Mike: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's an impressive design feature and if you can pull it off, you know, like, great.

Yeah I agree. It's great for us to see the design strategy and the intentionality of connecting people more to the outside world manifest in this design and your experience of it. So. 

Mary: Right. And, out of the DEN playbook, you know, we kept the railings clear with, I guess it's like a plexiglass, and it really does speak to just, keeping, you know, the whole space open.

Mike: Hmm. Yeah, definitely. I mean, that transparency certainly helps. Awesome. Awesome. 

Mary: All right, I'm gonna keep on going here. Cool. Our little stairwell. Here's the downstairs bathroom is similar to this and, little modern, you're able to like, really customize your shower area.

It's not a huge bathroom, but, it's gets everything done. We got like the little rain head and you know, because it's not so huge, you just kind of pack it, without it looking too packed. 

 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. 

Mary: So then here is, this is, believe it or not, we prefer to stay up here for right now. It's just this really cozy room and, we did put the TV up here, but it's got like a good view and, once again the splits. So, that's kind of, to answer your question, that's kind of how our day rolls here. 

Mike: Amazing. Wait, so you guys sleep in this upstairs bedroom or downstairs 

Mary: For right now, we're still figuring out how we can do like curtains, on that big opening in the master downstairs. And until we get that done, you know, and also hot air rises, so in the winter. 

Mike: Oh, right, right, right. 

Mary: But I have to tell you, like even in the summer, the hot air comes up here and it's like we don't even have to turn on the AC that much downstairs.

You know, it's just a really good design. 

Mike: Nice. That's great to hear. 

Mary: Yeah. Yeah. So here's our little stairwell again, and it is, you can see everywhere you look, there's natural light and then you just compliment it with this, mix of lights that, really were installed pretty much where, the plans called for.

 

Mike: Yeah. That's incredible. This room is just like, it's truly impressive. Also the property is great. I mean, the way that the windows frame up the topography, like this gentle slope that you have here, in front of these windows in the patio is quite nice.

Chris: It's pretty good. 'Cause we are in the county, we're not in Brevard, the municipality, but we do have water.

Central water. But other homes next to us are on a well in a septic tank. So we're sort of a close to a mile and a quarter to downtown Brevard. But then we're in this secluded residential dead end cul-de-sac.

So you seem like you're out in the woods. You have access to the, to all the urban amenities of Brevard, you know? 

Mary: Yeah. I did a post on Reddit, about this and I, I didn't keep up with how many people were responding to it, but it seemed like one of the bigger challenges was finding ample property, to put your DEN.

But I feel like, you can see from what we accomplished, with not just, the Alpine 2.2, but also the, um, the garage that even on a half acre, really sloping lot , you're able, you know, you're able to live pretty comfortably and privately. 

Mike: Yeah, I mean, I would say so, and this, going back to what we were talking about, before we started the interview, even like , this is like proof positive that it can be done, and done like really elegantly, on a smaller parcel, with like slightly atypical site conditions, it's like everyone's like looking for this like mythical flat, lot where they're like, 'well, we won't have to do any Earth works and nothing will matter'. Honestly I feel like more dynamic topography is better.

It's more interesting, quite frankly, you know?

Mary: Yeah, yeah. I think, it does give you like a little more variety. It's kind of fun to have the hillside in, in the summer, you know, the sunsets behind the hills, so then you get all that shade, that you wouldn't, if it was just flat.

So yeah, we feel like, just to go back, we were ready to wave the white flag on this lot and the project and we could have ended up, just giving up all together or, buying an existing house. But, this let us do really exactly what we wanted to do.

Chris: Mm-hmm. It did. And just for some more background, where we live in, outside of Orlando and, in Winter Garden, we live in the first designated green community in Florida. It's a new urbanist community. It, it's called Oakland Park. And so we kind of had our eyes open on what the architecture of the house would be like, and then the functionality of it.

Mary ran into online the DEN design page, and we just thought it was like a great looking design and it's kind of different. There wasn't that design wasn't out there. All the other kind of modern houses were just, they were modern houses. They weren't unique.

And then we just liked the , the hygge design concepts of the DEN in terms of how you furnish it, the, the type of flooring you use, the color of the flooring, and kind of the, just the real basic, furnishings that you do just really make it inviting to us. 

Mike: Yeah, I really appreciate that.

Right. And I think like, the design and the design ethos, kind of like self-selects folks like yourself, right, who are kind of progressive, progressive minded about like, about what it means to experience a house and your connection to the property and nature.

And obviously like, we focus on encouraging our customers towards like more sustainable solutions even. And yeah, it's funny 'cause like people, like as the CEO and founder of this company, people have like whispered in my ear, like across the years being like, 'well, you know, don't you wanna just create some more like typical American designs?'

And we're like, 'no, no!' Like why would we wanna like widen the kind of design approach and aesthetic here. It's like this is our customer and, this is like our specific viewpoint and perspective in the market, right?

And you know, people will find us, right? And like that has worked. 

Mary: Right. And, also I feel like, you can do this. It's not a design that's begging to spend a fortune on furnishings. Like these, open shelf cabinets, the open shelf cabinets and, you know, also the exterior, it's not one that's begging for you to spend 10% of your budget on landscaping. And so, you know, that's the other thing. It's just like the simplicity of it allows you to accomplish it, without going over budget. Which we did not go over budget. Like the house that we were getting done by the design build team? That was going over budget, you know, before ground broke.

And this, you know, we were able to, to stay on target. 

6. Reflections & Advice

Mike: Right. I mean, we hear that story like every week, essentially, right? It's like, people endeavor to do these kind of like, speculative, like custom homes, right? And they find that through that process they end up effectively pricing themselves out of the project, right? And then, your story is one that we've heard before, right? Where it's like, project has nearly, been at a point where people have like nearly ready to abandon it. And people find, you know, these like simple but elegant DEN designs and they're like, 'oh, well this is what we wanted in the first place!'

You know? Somehow like the project got away from us, through like any number of meetings and any fantastical ideas that like people come up with in, during those brainstorms. 

Chris: We've been there. We've been there. 

Mike: Yeah. I hear you man. I hear you. I mean, like, that's, yeah.

I mean, we've rescued people from that situation time and time again.

So I've got two more questions, right. Before we finish up. First of all, the home tour was amazing. I mean, the building itself is amazing. You guys did a great job. The team did a great job. What has been like your favorite part of the process of just like building a house?

Was it when you saw the foundation get poured? Was it the progress? Like, would love to hear your thoughts on just like favorite part of the process. 

Chris: Yeah, so this, this was like a really heavily tree lot. So we did, we were into a little bit of a shock when we came up and the lot was cleared and then it was leveled for the house and we're like, 'oh, what did we do?'

And then the months later we came back and the framing was done and the framing of both the garage and the house was done. And then that was probably where we could say, 'here we go'. 

Mary: Yeah, I think, once you start to get the drywall up, you can really get a sense of the space.

But honestly, I feel like it was what we added to the space. Some of the furnishings, the lighting. We did, just like this really light touch, of a color. You know, and that back splash and I felt like it was what we added to this really strong foundation, to kind of personalize it without you know, mucking it up. 

Mike: Cool. Cool. That's really cool. And then last question, right? If you had a friend who is endeavoring to do the same, with a set of DEN designs, what advice would you give them?

Mary: I would say two things. I would say one, don't be afraid to build on a slab. That the plans call for going up, and doing all that wiring inside. But it's really not challenging if you're in an area that's not... like for us going up higher, it just wouldn't have worked well.

So building on a slab, I would say don't be afraid of. I would also say don't be afraid to tweak the design a little bit to meet your needs the way that we did, bring in that, washer and dryer, down to the, the main floor.

Chris: I think I agree with Mary. The other thing is I think the design itself is artistic and it's a sculpture to me, so I wouldn't really worry about the house.

I would say just try to find the lot that fits what you want. And one thing we learned in Florida is you really gotta figure out which way the sun is and which way you can face the house. And that lot may be precarious for that. And then the other thing is just the views that you get, you might wanna just really think about how you orient your house and whether the lot facilitates different views.

Otherwise you, you don't need all these windows if you're not really looking at anything. So to me it's the house. The house. Don't worry about it. The plan. It's so nice. I ran a county planning department, so I'm familiar with building departments and just the automatic, how simple the plans are to submit was really great.

Mike: High praise. Amazing. I can't wait to post that on our site too. From someone who's been in the muck of municipalities, that is incredibly high praise. So thanks for that, guys. I think that's it. On behalf of the whole DEN team, thanks so much for spending some time with us today.

The project looks incredible, like, I hope you guys continue to enjoy it. I hope the kids and grandkids enjoy it. And yeah. Thanks so much, Mary and Chris.