Though she had worked as an advertising strategist since graduating college, Robin Cornuelle had always been drawn to a career in design and architecture. She tested the waters on her own home, a 1894 bungalow in Portland, Oregon’s historic Woodlawn, furnishing it with estate sale finds and collected art—until finally, she decided to take the plunge and build something from the ground up.

Cornuelle rented out the main house to two friends in the creative industry and enlisted local design-build firm Tall Firs to construct a 790-square-foot ADU, where she now lives. The two buildings needed to feel connected to each other while still providing privacy, and leave room for as much outdoor space as possible. Below, Cornuelle recounts the design journey, including her leap into forming her own architectural and interior design business with the team at Tall Firs.

1. Seeking a Change

I had always worked in advertising, but wanted to explore a career in design and architecture. I decided to build a house as a way to prototype working in those industries—an experiment, really, to learn, and get the experience that would help me decide about a change of field. I decided to build a new house on a lot shared by a historic house I’d bought in 2013, renting out that larger house to friends. The main house, built in 1894, is one of the oldest in the historic Woodlawn neighborhood of Portland, and it was important that the new structure complement the old one, both aesthetically and to meet the city’s design codes.

2. Bridging Old and New

With our goal of matching the two structures in spirit, a full exterior remodel of the older house allowed us to match the siding and trim profiles of both structures. We replaced the vinyl windows with wood ones and removed vinyl siding, replacing it with small-reveal lap siding consistent with other historic homes. A color juxtaposition set them apart. We also designed a custom “circle” front door for the original home to bridge the new with the old.

Because the house is in a historic district, we echoed the gable roof seen in the side angle of the main house, using minimal eaves. We purposefully did not try to match the main house’s more traditionally shaped windows, and used larger, asymmetrical, and more modern windows on the ADU, while still adhering to the city’s design requirements. For privacy, we hid the front door on the side of the home and placed fewer windows on the side shared with the main house.

3. Choosing Materials and Handcrafted Details

The overall design strategy was to prioritize simplicity and to choose natural materials, accepting how they age. All of our building materials will patina and change with time, with a hand-touched living finish: marble, plaster, unlacquered brass, concrete, and wood.

We sought to balance high and low throughout the project, using affordable, simple materials in interesting ways. The concrete floor on the main level is troweled and unpolished with a minimal matte sealer, and we decided against relief cuts, choosing instead to accept any natural cracking. There is no trim anywhere in the house, and doors disappear into the walls, with a washer/dryer hidden in an upstairs wall. The bathroom is entirely white cement waterproof plaster with natural concrete on the floor, and a hand-poured concrete sink.

Shop the Look

We wanted to leave the fir ceiling of the first floor exposed and allow for the maximum ceiling height, so the ceiling on the first floor is actually the floor of the second floor, resting on solid fir beams. The flooring also functioned from an engineering standpoint: by placing it at an angle for shear, we didn’t need to use a plywood subfloor, lowering the cost and allowing the ceiling to remain exposed.

The flooring material, fir car decking, with the V-notch side down to create a ceiling with texture, is twice as thick as standard hardwood flooring. The flat side faces up as the flooring for the second story, and brass flooring nails were left exposed, further contributing to an aged, hand-built look. Because of this approach, any choices we made upstairs affected the downstairs ceiling. We used a wall-hung toilet in order to hide almost all the plumbing in exterior walls, save the shower drain, and designed a lighting plan that didn’t have any ceiling-mounted lights.

We wanted the lighting to have the same feeling as the house, serving as art pieces rather than as simply utilitarian ones. We used ceramic light fixtures from MQuan and Notary Ceramics, a Noguchi paper lantern, and stretched fabric wall sconces.

All the structural materials are fir, complemented by fir windows. We wanted to limit the number of wood species we introduced, so the structural elements are fir, while cabinets and design elements are quarter-sawn white oak. We elected to leave out screens to maximize views and lighting. In the kitchen, we wanted the cabinetry to be as light and minimal as possible, and designed cabinets that look more like furniture.

4. Furnishing the Home

We were inspired by my childhood in Hawaii, and chose design elements that are Hawaiian and Japanese, and that balance color with minimalism. Furniture and art were sourced from family and artist friends, with a mix of high and low, old and new. Artists that contributed to the project include wood sculptor Vince Skelly, ceramicist Sarah van Raden of Notary Ceramics, and furniture builder Nick Tretiak.

5. Designing Green Spaces

We also partnered with San Francisco–based landscape design studio TALC to reimagine the lot and the green spaces around the two buildings, with distinct exterior rooms: a meadow, a dining area, a fire pit area, and a patio. The communal exterior spaces are shared by both homes.

Overall, the process worked well because I gave the design-build team the freedom and trust to explore and work out experimental ideas together as the project evolved. Perfection wasn’t the goal, and we weren’t confined by the notion of perfection. We all wanted and worked towards a finished product that said, “Human hands built this.”

The working relationship between myself and the Tall Firs team was so successful that I left my job in advertising, and we’ve joined forces on a new architectural and interior design business based in Portland called Of Prairies, launching this fall.

More Construction Diaries:

A Couple Build a Moroccan-Inspired Retreat in Joshua Tree

A Young Couple DIY a Lofted Yurt in Portland

A Serene Desert Hideaway Is Part Rental, Part Designer Showcase

Project Credits:

Design/Build: Tall Firs / @tallfirs_building

Landscape Design: TALC Studio / @talc.studio

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Construction Diary: A Self-Taught Designer Makes a Career Switch After Building an Artful ADU