You can say a home has "character." But how many actually look like characters? Take this townhouse in Seattle, called the "Big Mouth House," which got its name after a colleague jokingly sent owners Kailin Gregga and Steven Lazen a pic of the home edited to look like the Japanese character Domo.
Architects themselves, Gregga of Best Practice Architecture and Lazen worked with Rob Humble of Hybrid Architecture to create a simple and open living space. "We were also very interested in incorporating a studio space on the lower level with its own access door, to act as guest quarters for friends and family, but could potentially be used as a short-term rental if desired," Gregga told Hunker.
The team's concept began with a white box interior that could feature pops of bright color. But the challenge was in budget, so they looked to low-cost ways to have fun: "The tile in all the bathrooms and kitchen is very inexpensive, readily available tile but either livened up with colorful grout, or deployed in interesting ways," Gregga said.
After interning at Dwell magazine in San Francisco, Kate began writing about arts, design and culture for other national publications. She is based in Los Angeles and San Francisco.