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A frozen washing-machine line did more than interrupt laundry in Patty and Chris Raz’s 1,130-square-foot Seattle cottage. Because the washer sat beyond the kitchen on the back porch, doing laundry meant crossing the compact house every time. The repair exposed a circulation problem, and that practical nuisance became the reason to rethink the cottage as a whole.
Working with Seattle designer Lauren Lothrop Caron of Studio Laloc, the couple moved laundry indoors, expanded a purple-cabinet idea into a cottage-wide palette, turned the dining room into a library that still supports meals, and used concealed storage wherever the 1906 house ran short on space. The result is playful without discarding the building’s original character.
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The small repair that revealed a larger planning problem
Architectural Digest’s March 5, 2026 home tour presents the renovation as a chain reaction. The washer’s lines iced over, and the machine was located on the back porch. Reaching it required a trip through the kitchen, so a basic household task occupied the most traveled part of the cottage.
The feature does not identify the hose material, connection size, appliance model, repair, or replacement. It also does not suggest that frozen lines are a general Seattle pattern or that a particular hose product caused the trouble. What it does show is how an inconvenient location can expose a circulation flaw in a small floor plan. Bringing the laundry inside addressed that daily route and opened the door to a broader design conversation.
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The house belongs to Patty and Chris Raz and dates to 1906. Caron had previously worked with the couple on their Oregon beach house, which gave the collaboration an established relationship before this project began. Their initial request was narrow: purple kitchen cabinets. The scope grew when the designer and homeowners considered how the rest of the cottage could support the same combination of personality and practicality.
“All we said was that we wanted purple paint on the cabinets, and she ran with it.”
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From an isolated kitchen request to a whole-cottage scheme
The renovation’s visual logic comes from balancing saturated color and patterned materials with quieter, durable surfaces. The kitchen is the most concentrated expression of that approach, but the surrounding rooms keep the palette from becoming a single-theme installation. Original fir flooring, a tiled fireplace, collected objects, and custom storage all remain part of the story.
Raz had imagined an eggplant-like purple. Caron proposed something less literal and more expansive.
“I was thinking eggplant, but she came up with something completely different and saw the vision before I did.”
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— Patty Raz, homeowner
That exchange matters because it describes the designer’s role without turning the project into a generic color makeover. The clients supplied an emotional starting point; the designer translated it into a material scheme that could move from the kitchen into a 1,130-square-foot home without making every room identical.
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The kitchen palette: color with calm, durable counterpoints
The kitchen combines Benjamin Moore Kasbah cabinets with Jute walls, soapstone counters, a Calacatta Viola marble backsplash, and Mayflower and Buckskin tile flooring from Bedrosians. Each surface has a distinct visual job:
| Element | Reported selection | Role in the composition |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinet paint | Benjamin Moore Kasbah | The saturated, playful anchor that grew from the request for purple cabinetry. |
| Walls | Jute | A restrained surrounding color that keeps the cabinet finish from overwhelming the room. |
| Counters | Soapstone | A dark, tactile work surface chosen for a quiet visual presence. |
| Backsplash | Calacatta Viola marble | A veined focal surface that adds movement behind the counter run. |
| Floor tile | Mayflower and Buckskin tile from Bedrosians | A patterned foundation that gives the compact kitchen another layer of character. |
Caron described the counters as “quiet, workhorse,” a concise explanation of why the room can carry expressive color and marble veining without feeling visually noisy. The feature does not provide durability testing, maintenance results, or performance ratings for any of these materials, so those choices should be read as reported design decisions rather than measured product recommendations.
How to read the palette if you are planning your own kitchen
The useful lesson is sequencing. Choose the most emotionally important element first—in this case, the cabinet color—then decide which surfaces should recede. A restrained wall color and visually calm counter can give a vivid cabinet finish room to breathe. A patterned floor or dramatic backsplash can then be assigned a specific zone instead of competing equally with every other surface.
Before ordering, paint large samples and view them in morning, afternoon, and evening light. Confirm how the cabinet color sits beside the counter, backsplash grout, flooring, and adjacent rooms. The Seattle cottage demonstrates a coordinated palette; it does not establish that these exact colors will behave the same way in another home.
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Indoor laundry as a circulation correction
The new laundry is concealed behind cabinet-like doors with cutouts. That treatment addresses two issues at once: the washer no longer requires a trip to the back porch, and the appliance does not dominate the kitchen or another living area when it is not in use.
Concealment is not the same as erasure. A washer still needs ventilation, service access, water connections, drainage, and a safe way to open its door. Anyone adapting the idea should have a licensed professional verify clearances and plumbing requirements for the specific appliance and location. The feature does not publish a construction diagram or confirm which building systems were changed.
A practical planning checklist for concealed laundry
- Map the route from bedrooms and bathrooms to the washer before choosing a cabinet location.
- Confirm that doors can open fully without blocking a passage, sink, or appliance.
- Allow access to shutoff valves, drain connections, filters, and service panels.
- Use moisture-resistant finishes around the machine and plan for spills or leaks.
- Coordinate door cutouts and ventilation with the appliance manufacturer’s installation requirements.
- Check local permit and electrical requirements before moving water or power.
These steps are general planning guidance, not details documented in the Seattle project. The reported outcome is the design move itself: laundry shifted indoors and was given a cabinet-like visual disguise.
A dining room that works harder
The former dining room became a multipurpose library with built-in bookcases, a small bar and wine storage, a window bench, and a 19th-century pedestal dining table. It still accommodates dining, but the room no longer waits for formal meals to justify its footprint.
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— Lauren Lothrop Caron, designer
The arrangement is a useful response to a small home because it adds several everyday uses without requiring a separate room for each one. Books occupy the built-ins, the bench creates a place to sit by the window, the bar and wine storage support entertaining, and the pedestal table preserves a conventional dining surface.
The shelves hold auction-sourced books, Chris Raz’s camera collection, and pottery made by Patty Raz and Caron. Those objects make the library personal rather than purely architectural. They also demonstrate a storage principle: display can be planned as part of the room’s identity instead of treated as overflow after construction.
Applying the multipurpose-room idea
Start by listing activities that actually occur in the room: meals, reading, homework, hobbies, remote work, or hosting. Give each activity a defined landing place, then choose furniture that can support more than one of them. A table with comfortable circulation may serve better than a larger piece that only works for occasional gatherings. Built-ins should be sized around the objects they will hold, including books, equipment, and display pieces, rather than around an abstract maximum of shelves.
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Storage that disappears when it should
Elsewhere in the cottage, a hidden coat rack and bespoke bedroom storage use tight spaces that might otherwise become dead zones. The attic serves as both a reading nook and a guest room, extending the home’s useful area without changing its stated 1,130-square-foot size.
Concealed storage can keep a compact house visually calm, but it should remain easy to use. A coat rack hidden behind a door is helpful only if the door opens onto a clear landing area. Bedroom cabinets need enough depth for the intended clothing and enough clearance for drawers or doors. In an attic, stairs, headroom, egress, insulation, heat, and ventilation are practical constraints that require site-specific review; the feature does not provide measurements or code details.
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Three questions for every tight-space storage idea
- What must be reached daily? Put frequently used coats, linens, and equipment in the most accessible locations.
- What can be stored seasonally? Less-used items can occupy higher shelves, attic areas, or deeper cabinets.
- What needs to remain visible? Collections and books may become part of the room’s character, while cleaning supplies and clutter may benefit from doors.
Old-house character alongside new materials
The living room retains original refinished fir flooring and a fireplace with green tortoiseshell tiles. Those elements anchor the renovation in the cottage’s age. Newer interventions—painted cabinetry, marble, tile, built-ins, and concealed laundry—are layered around them rather than used to erase them.
This is an important distinction in a 1906 house. Preserving a floor or fireplace does not require every new surface to look period-correct, and adding contemporary storage does not require stripping away original details. The Seattle project pairs historic texture with fresh color, allowing each to make the other more legible.
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- Document original features before demolition or refinishing.
- Decide which elements are worth restoring and which require replacement for safety or function.
- Resolve circulation and utility problems before selecting decorative finishes.
- Use paint and movable furnishings to test a stronger visual direction before committing to tile or stone.
- Coordinate new millwork with existing trim, floors, doors, and sightlines.
The Raz cottage illustrates this order of priorities: a utility problem prompted planning, then the decorative choices gave the practical changes a coherent identity.
What this project does—and does not—prove
The home tour documents specific decisions in one Seattle cottage. It does not provide a cost, construction schedule, energy analysis, resale result, maintenance record, or measured increase in usable space. It offers no product comparison and does not identify a preferred washing-machine hose or claim that replacing one would solve the underlying circulation issue.
What can be carried to another project is the design reasoning:
- Treat an inconvenient chore as evidence about how the floor plan functions.
- Let a small, personal request guide a broader palette without forcing every room to match.
- Use concealed storage and appliance doors where visual calm matters, while protecting service access.
- Make dining rooms, attics, and transitional areas support more than one realistic activity.
- Keep valuable original details and place new work in conversation with them.
Why the renovation feels personal rather than merely efficient
Efficiency alone would explain moving the washer indoors or adding bedroom cabinets. The cottage’s personality comes from the choices layered on top: the unexpected cabinet color, Calacatta Viola’s expressive veining, patterned floor tile, collected books, a camera collection, handmade pottery, and a vintage pedestal table. These are not interchangeable storage solutions; they connect the rooms to the people who live there.
That combination is the project’s central idea. A frozen line exposed a route that no longer made sense. Fixing the route created permission to ask what each room was for, what should be seen, and what could be hidden. The answer was not a minimalist reset or a formal restoration, but a compact house with stronger circulation, flexible rooms, and deliberately playful finishes.
Quick Recap
Key takeaways for a compact-cottage renovation
- The 1,130-square-foot home is a 1906 Seattle cottage owned by Patty and Chris Raz.
- Iced-over washing-machine lines and porch access prompted a move to indoor, concealed laundry.
- An initial request for purple kitchen cabinets expanded into a whole-cottage redesign with Lauren Lothrop Caron of Studio Laloc.
- The kitchen combines Benjamin Moore Kasbah cabinets, Jute walls, soapstone counters, Calacatta Viola marble, and Bedrosians Mayflower and Buckskin tile.
- The dining room remains usable for meals while functioning as a library and activity room.
- Original fir flooring and a green-tile fireplace remain alongside new built-ins and saturated color.
- Hidden coat storage, bespoke bedroom cabinetry, and an attic reading nook/guest room make tight areas work harder.
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