Industrializing

It can be difficult to choose a stylistic aesthetic for a house. Modern is in, but what is modern? Modernist like Bauhaus? Modern farmhouse? Minimalist? Deconstructivist?

When telling people I'm moving toward modern industrial, it doesn't always click with people. What is that? Someone, a salesperson at a furniture store no less, asked, "Oh, like Steampunk?"

No, modern industrial is not Steampunk. Sure, you can throw in some Steampunk decor here and there and it can work beautifully, but the busy Victorian styling of Steampunk, as intriguing as monocled octopuses may be, is antithetical to the modern part of modern industrial.

Breaking it down, modern refers to the simplest way to accomplish an aesthetic or function. Clean lines, simplicity, and good proportions. No fuss, no adding things for the sake of taking up space. Industrial refers to the heavy duty look of industrial settings. Exposed structure, durable materials, and often distressed looks, as if millions of widgets were constructed on the backs of materials in the room.

I unilaterally decided for the family (my wife generously lets me have design authority, given my profession as an architect) that we would move from a more generic modern aesthetic to a modern industrial aesthetic. One, simply because I like the look. But perhaps more importantly, we are not terribly clean people. And we were expanding our family, which means more mess. A more generic modern is not very conducive to our lifestyle, but modern industrial is far more forgiving in this respect. Are there some water marks on our distressed concrete countertop? Yeah, it almost looks like it belongs. 

Envisioning it is one thing. Pulling it off is another, entirely.

The holy master of this style is, in my opinion, Tom Kundig of Olson Kundig. The homes he designs are quintessential modern industrial. His Chicken Point Cabin has a massive industrial glass wall that tilts up with a giant steel wheel that one turns, with an exposed counterweight to balance the heaviness of the door. Another house has a heavy industrial island in the kitchen that rolls out into something else. Yet another has an operable skylight that opens by utilizing the water pressure in the house. His designs encapsulate both the aesthetic and function of industrial architecture.

I won't be doing this. I couldn't engineer those things if my life depended on it. Even if I could, my wife would kill me when I bring home the receipt. 

No, I will need to work within the confines of a production house and our budget. I don't think I'll even be doing exposed structure or mechanical systems. It's not like there are cool webbed steel trusses in our floor plates; they're just wooden TJIs, probably with the HVAC crammed through the floor cavity.

So I will focus on materials and not go over the top. Moving away from plastic in favor of more durable materials. Going to go for masonry, metal, and distressed wood. Glass when the occasion calls for it. I'm going to try to do this not only for the house, but for the decor, furniture, and even household items like chopsticks.

Additionally, I will lean on vintage products. Particularly from industrial applications, which will likely be difficult, but also farm equipment like old metal buckets. This would add to the aesthetic and not to mention, help reduce waste by reusing, repurposing, and upcycling material that otherwise might go to the dump. 

Though our house sits on the best lot, it was my least favorite elevation style and the colors are not great. Still, we have certain little elements that work out for us. The pilaster under the wood posts at our front porch is clad with masonry boards to look like wood, dry-stacked. The material is actually called board-form concrete, but it looks nothing of the sort though I've seen worse. Also, modern industrial works best with lofty high ceilings, as if the penthouse loft of an adaptive reuse of an abandoned warehouse. We don't have any high ceilings. We do have a condo with high ceilings that just scream for modern industrial, but it's being rented out and it's not like I have the money to get us fully moved into our own house and remodel a rental that is still in great condition. Hopefully, in the future, I'll get to do that, but it's not going to happen this decade and probably not the next, either.

However, we were able to choose some options with the builder.

One major item we were able to choose was the flooring. At the design center, I had mentioned to the designer that I would love concrete floors on the first floor, but I knew that wouldn't be an option. As we were looking through luxury vinyl plank samples, she brought up an LVP that had a distressed concrete look. I (politely) shot it down immediately. While it might look decent, it would still be planked which would make it assuredly not concrete. Plus, the touch of LVP to concrete is wildly different, as concrete conducts heat much faster than LVP. Walking on it barefoot, as I knew would happen, would make it feel absurdly fake.

No, we would go with a distressed wood look. It might not be as boldly industrial, but unless we wanted to custom refinish our entire floor to a concrete look, this was the next best thing. Vinyl had come a long way since the ugly linoleum sheets that used to line my parents' kitchen floor. The luxury vinyl planks have great-looking wood prints on them and are waterproof and pretty durable. Best of all, they are cheap. The touch of LVP was comparable enough to wood to make me not want to spend the extra money on real or engineered hardwood. We proliferated the material throughout the house, with an upgraded plank material on the first floor and a cheaper one on the second. The carpet only adorns the secondary bedrooms. While looking at the stairs, I wish we had gone with LVP, but my wife correctly argued that our aging dog with arthritis developing in the hind legs and our young children would have difficulty navigating (relatively) slippery stairs. Fine, carpet on the stairs as well.

Our countertop selection was a show-stopper. I absolutely love this countertop. It is a Caesarstone Rugged Concrete that looks like distressed concrete. This is exactly what I was looking for and the builder offered it as an upgrade. It's a quartz material and a matted, "leather" finish that feels a bit rough to the touch. No shiny gloss finish, please!

It looks and feels great, but after using it for a few months, grease makes the shade of the counter darker and requires dish soap and scrubbing more often. A small price to pay.

In pondering a backsplash, I started looking through the subway tile since this was what my wife and I had discussed previously. She then asked what if we took the countertop up as the backsplash?

I reflexively revulsed, thinking back to the 1990s full-height busy granite backsplashes that are absolutely hideous. I vetoed this, along with the designer's support for the veto, and we went on to pick a tile. 

After going back home, I realized I had probably made a mistake and my wife was right, all along (should I have been surprised, really?). We aren't putting up an ugly granite as a backsplash. We would be putting up a kick-ass distressed concrete slab as a backsplash. I looked through photos online and yep, I was wrong. I told my wife, with my tail tucked between my legs, and I called the design center and asked them to change out the subway tile to the concrete. As a plus, the builder did a great job in putting a particularly distressed part of the slab above the range.

What would I do without her?

Best change, ever.