Project of the Week – The Burrows House

ENDURING MID-CENTURY QUALITY

This week’s video chronicles how a Seattle couple kept the character in their mid-century Seattle home, and even added a bit of charm, with the use Western Red Cedar.

The unique house was built in 1958 by John Burrows. A well-known contractor in the 1950s, Burrows moved to Seattle from California, bringing with him the styles of mid-century masters Joseph Eichler and Richard Neutra.

The renovated Seattle home includes the original Western Red Cedar ceilings and beams, which continue through the windows to the outside.

“We want to honor the home’s roots, while bringing it into modern living for our family,” homeowner Audrey McGill explains in the video. “We love the look of cedar, the smell of cedar. It stains very well. It has a nice warm feel to it. It lasts.”

And lasted it has, for seven decades.

EXTENDING CEDAR OUTDOORS

Along with the durability of real cedar, McGill and her husband, Kevin, also understood how versatile it is. With that in mind, the McGills used Western Red Cedar outdoors as well. They added courtyard fencing in the front, created privacy screens in the back, built planter boxes, and redesigned their courtyard with cedar.

The warm-toned Western Red Cedar pops beautifully against the freshly painted dark charcoal color of the house, which includes the original cedar siding from 1958.

“When we were painting everybody who came by remarked how well the siding looked after so many years,” McGill says.

The Pacific Northwest home is certainly testimony to the enduring quality of Western Red Cedar. But it also shows how Western Red Cedar can be added to a character home to bring even more beauty and functionality that will last for generations.