I Love You, But It’s Not Gonna Happen

When you have to tell a client that their budget is not going to get them past first base

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do as an architect is shut down the conversation — or at least redirect it. A case in point: I was “dating” a lovely couple who lived in one of the tony “W” suburbs west of Boston. They were interesting, culturally attuned, sensitive — just really nice people. And they had a budget of $1.5 million to put an addition on their home. After conducting a viability + zoning study, measuring the house, and developing a schematic design, I was able to assure them that the money they had set aside was enough — until they decided that they needed a fully finished basement under the addition rather than simply a crawl space.

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The wife wanted to be able to grow plants throughout the year that thrived in her native Brazil, which would require maximizing the glazing on the walls and roof. She wanted a studio to do her artwork. They both wanted an exercise room.  

 They didn’t believe me that the changes wouldn’t come at significant cost, so I brought in three GCs, all of whom estimated between $2.2 and $2.5 million. It was at that point the couple realized the residence wasn’t going to be their forever home and decided to just re-do the bathrooms and move on. 

 I was able to help them figure this out for just $15,000 rather than what it would have cost had I done a complete set of drawings. That was intentional. I do my work in phases to allow people to discover whether there is a “there” there. I want them to be in charge of their checkbook.

 The first phase doesn’t just involve a study, measurements, and preliminary design work.  It also entails a realistic look at the numbers. As described in my Project Planning Guide (you can reach out to me for a PDF), having $1.5 million to spend doesn’t mean you have enough for a $1.5 million project. It’s more than prudent to put some of the money aside for unavoidable contingencies, fees for a survey and potential legal advice, even a line item for new furniture and perhaps an exterior paint job depending on what is being done.

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If it looks like the money will cover the desired project once these and related adjustments are made, I proceed to phase 2: design development, construction documentation, and construction administration.

If it doesn’t look like the money will be enough, it’s important to take a step back and reassess. In this case described here, I didn’t break up with the couple. It just became clear that this wasn’t our time.

Existing Conditionalist

Humberto Bernal makes my life 1,000 times easier. An architect whose entire niche is documentation of existing conditions, he creates 3D mapping of a space — a dollhouse cutaway — using Matterport, and I then send it to the contractor and subs. We can virtually stroll around the space together at any time on a Zoom call and work through things, not just what currently exists but also what is in the process of being demo’d out and what is being built. It’s a fantastic way to do existing conditions — the foundation upon which all design work is based. Humberto also gives me 2D drawings, but with drawings alone, you miss a lot.

Other residential architects I’ve spoken with sometimes create their own models in 3D, but they don’t necessarily use them as a tool. Humberto, with lasers and drones and other specialized apparatus, increases my efficiency many fold all the way from the outset through the build. “What’s happening at the ceiling in that location?” I just open up the model, and I’m there.

Humberto enjoys what he does. “When I go to a new building,” he says, “I always try to learn the story behind it and discover how it evolved over time. Especially in this area, there are sometimes so many layers of renovations and additions. I very much enjoy working to understand what happened over the years.

“That in turn helps an architect plan better for making changes,” Humberto notes — “understanding the geometry better, understanding more about the different stories behind the changes. I look to convey these findings in my plans. And I always update my technologies as they improve in order to paint a better picture.”

Furthermore, because of Humberto, the principal of Blue Circle Studio, I don’t have to spend a day and a half on site measuring. I don’t have to draw exterior elevations. I just introduce the well-mannered guy to the homeowner and let him do his thing. Or, as Humberto puts it, “It has always been a very nice relationship. Daniel interacts with me here and there, but he lets me do what I need to do.” 

In the meantime, I’m freed up to have a fruitful conversation with the client that otherwise wouldn’t have been built into the visit. I can say, “While Humberto’s working, let’s you and I walk the house and review the scope of the work and see if you want to change or add anything.”

The interior of a home overlooking an ocean bluff in Truro that I’m redesigning is a prime example. Humberto and I made it a field trip — a day trip down to the Cape. While he documented the house with his fun gadgets — a camera that spins around and other accouterments — I was listening to the client talk about what he wanted out of the finished product and learn his overall hopes for the reno. It was a nice, relaxed walk-through, in part because I wasn’t trying to do two things at once but also because Humberto is very disarming and gets along well with people. Raised in Bogota, he speaks Spanish in addition to English, which can further help put clients at ease. One of my clients once said to him, “Oh, you’re from Colombia? I’m from Venezuela,” and that set the stage for an even more pleasant site visit.

 Of course, by the time of the visit to assess existing conditions, the contractual stuff is usually taken care of. We can really drill down into the business of making the home exactly what the homeowner wants it to be.

At the same time, I can say things to Humberto like, “Did you see that funky condition in the basement? How are you going to document that?” So there are multiple productive conversations happening at once, all in a convivial atmosphere.

The day of the Truro trip, I learned from the client that he was prepping for his retirement and had been looking for a place on the Cape for three years, with prior deals having fallen through. This house meant a lot to him. I also learned that he sought a more involved scope than we had originally discussed, including pulling up all the floors to install radiant heating and replacing all the windows.

After a productive tete-a-tete between the homeowner and me, the three of us broke for lunch by driving to Far Land Provisions in Provincetown and conversing over mortadella sandwiches. In four hours total, Humberto finished, and within two weeks he produced all the output products I needed to do my design work.

Metal As Hell

When I was a kid my dad ran a sheet metal shop that had been started by my grandfather, who grew up on a North Dakota farm helping his own father raise cattle. My brothers and I would go into the sheet metal scrap bin and bend and corrugate the leftovers. We were always making. Come winter time we curved the metal into crude luges and raced down snow banks. Our dad, meanwhile, was shaping the metal for more utilitarian reasons, producing chimney flashing and ventilation hoods for barns — until one day he crafted a bronze sunburst that stretched decoratively across our raised living room hearth. Thus began something of a foray into true metal crafting.

It always stuck with me, as impressions made on you when you’re young do. That’s why, decades later as an architect, I was particularly glad to meet Rene Paradis, principle of Paradis Metalworks. A true metal artist, he not only crafts beautiful bespoke detailing that I spec for him — an unusual staircase railing, an integral part of a column in front of a house, a design of birds on branches etched into a metal doorway. He also intuits ahead of time how the pieces he makes will feel — and sound — and how they will reflect light. A handrail may be solid bronze — you’ll know the heft of it haptically as it protects you on the stairs. The way the sunlight glints off a metal cabana frame adds mood and meaning, as does the sound of raindrops on the metal when everyone runs into the cabana for cover during a summer rainstorm.

That is, Rene makes his art for people to experience rather than just to see. He knows when he applies a dark finish to a banister that over time, the first rail at both the top and the bottom of the stairs will patina out as people touch it for steadiness — the evidence of a family. He knows when he shapes something for a landscape architect how it will weather, depending on the effect of sun and precipitation over the seasons.

Plasma-cut art panel after being installed in this Wellesley home. The art panel is a collaboration between DGS/a Architecture + Design, Paradis Metal Work, and the client’s daughter.

Fortunately, Rene likes working with me as much as I enjoy working with him and seeing visions come to life. “I’ve been doing projects with Daniel for the last 10 years or more,” Rene says. “He’ll give us a set of architectural drawings, then we turn them into drawings for fabrication that he redlines or approves, and as soon as he gives us the blessing, we fabricate, finish, and install the project on site.

“It’s a true collaboration,” Rene says. “Daniel takes the time to look at our drawings and figure things out. He’s ready to listen. His projects are really cool. We did a staircase with him where balustrade terminated into the bottom ‘shoe’ of the woodwork with a distinctive ring around each spoke — a great detail.”

Rene’s attention to detail can be seen in the way the balustrade and wood staircase meet each other.

That light is shed right back on Rene. He’s always listening, too.

Rene didn’t happen to go to art school. He trained as a welder at a voc. tech high school, but metal artistry was in his blood. He really followed his passion. In fact, I’d call him “metal as hell,” a term Taylor Swift has used for Travis Kielce. 

My dad, too, by the way — metal as hell.

But They Let My Neighbor Do It!

The Ins and Outs of Getting a Renovation Approved
by the Local Historic Commission

I once had clients who owned a Beacon Hill townhouse with a top story that was recessed from the ones below it. That allowed them space for an outdoor deck with a jacuzzi. The jacuzzi wasn’t a problem in that historic neighborhood, whose appearance is carefully controlled by the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission. You couldn’t see it from the street. The problem was the taller privacy fence the couple wanted erected, which would be visible from the public way. When I went before the commission, I argued that the fence was not a permanent structure and therefore was not altering the existing facade. It could be removed without damaging the antique brick. It worked.  The couple was able to build their fence.

Call it inside architectural baseball. Knowing the hot-button issues for local historic commissions allows me to help clients and designers make changes to the exterior of period homes that might otherwise be denied. It also helps explain the age-old question: How come the local historic commission allowed one person to make a change to the exterior of their residence but won’t grant someone else the same permission?

Can you find the detail added to this Beacon Hill streetscape that required me to obtain permission from the local historic commission?

Granted, it’s not all about finessing the argument. Local boards do consider each project independently, and there may be something about the streetscape or overall design that alters their requirements for a particular residence.

Still, knowledge really is power when it comes to dealing with a historic commission to make a change to the exterior of a home, and there are a number of ways I use my professional skill set to help clients avoid disappointment. One of them is to submit a very detailed packet of the changes requested at least two weeks in advance of the in-person hearing with the local historic commission. That way, not only do I make the strongest case possible, but I also don’t have to spend my formal presentation getting down into the weeds. The weeds are all in the write-up and drawings. I can spend the time creating an overall impression with strategic details sprinkled in.

I also go to the historic commission while I’m writing up the presentation and ask questions. That helps me learn the reg flags for a project and lets the commission know in advance that I’m really trying to get it right. They appreciate that I’m going the extra mile to do my homework, and it gives me the edge if approval for a project is on the line.

 At the same time, I’m researching that particular locality’s rules. In the Back Bay, for instance, it’s not just about what you can see from the street. It’s also about changes that can be viewed from the public alleyway behind the building and from a taller building where someone could look down at the change — maybe a contemporary deck or skylight. In Beacon Hill, it’s just about changes that are visible from the public right of way in front of the residence. If someone on the Beacon Hill commission starts talking about renovations that can be seen from the rear, I know I can successfully push back by politely reminding them that’s it’s not in their purview. In Cambridge, they have one person in charge of paint colors; you speak just to her about the exterior palette.

 These idiosyncrasies from one local historic district to another are true not just for Boston and Greater New England but for anywhere in the country that I work. In Boca Grande, Florida, where I’m currently rehabbing a home, the rules for a historically zoned residence are different than the ones for Sanibel Island to the south.

 After learning a locale’s particular rules, chatting up commission administrators, and preparing all the necessary documents, I practice my formal presentation out loud beforehand, the way you might practice a speech — no stumbling in the moment. I make sure to include a line about how I look forward to the commission’s feedback, so it’s clear I’m ready to talk about making adjustments if need be rather than just shoving something through.

 But the preparation goes well beyond that, starting with the client.

 •   I tell the client — or the designer — up front that trying to do something they know is out of bounds is going to end in frustration. The minute a historic commission gets the sense that you’re aiming to pull a fast one, their hackles go up. Much better to be fully transparent — if for no other reason than if you have to go back a second time to resubmit drawings and the new plans are on the line of what’s acceptable, the commission may be more inclined to rule favorably

•   Saving an architectural element goes over better than replicating it.
A designer I worked with on one of the gracious Queen Anne Victorians along Cambridge’s Brattle Street wanted to replace all the front-facing windows with energy-efficient ones. Unlike antique windows, they would be easy to open, wouldn’t stick, would prove energy-efficient, and all the other good stuff. I knew that would never fly. Instead, I submitted a plan to reglaze the existing windows, rebalance them with a pulley system hidden inside the framing that would allow them to open with one finger, and put well-sealed storm windows in front of them to keep out the weather. The Cambridge Historic Commission went for it. A storm window can be removed, but nineteenth-century windows cannot be replaced.

Retaining the historic “fabric” of a home is important to most historic district commissions.  Rather than replace the windows, the original 1880’s double hung windows were retained and new storm windows installed over them to increase the energy efficiency.

•   If you do need to replace something, plan on using authentic materials.
On a brick townhouse in the South End, the corbels needed to be rebuilt; there simply was no saving them. The contractor said he could save money and complications by making them out of AZEK or another composite material. I knew we would need to make them out of mahogany, just like the original. I was right. That’s what the South End Landmark Commission required.

The specificity that historic commissions sometimes demand can be difficult, maddening. But if you have chosen a knowledgeable architect to get you through the process, it goes much more smoothly. And he can run interference for you, if necessary.

It helps to keep in mind that strict regulations reward you by protecting the value of your house.

You may not appreciate that a local board seems like sticklers, and you may not always agree with their decisions, but their ruling helps protect the quality and character of your neighborhood — and the value of your real estate. The more true to character your neighborhood remains, the more reliably your home’s worth will continue to appreciate.

They filmed ‘American Fiction’ in my house. Can I get an Oscar?

My architectural gem of a house just launched me to stardom. Well, sort of.

Author’s house during filming. DANIEL G. STEGER

The first time I saw actors Jeffrey Wright and Tracee Ellis Ross waiting to open my front door, I felt as gobsmacked as you might imagine.

How our house, a Victorian built in 1895 with a turret and wide front porch, became a set in the recently Oscar-nominated film “American Fiction” is a story that began the day Rolando and I closed on our new home. Newlyweds who had been married just six months, we arrived at the house in the Bellevue Hill section of West Roxbury — and found a note from a local scouting agency. They wanted to know if they could view the interior.

Rolando is a lawyer. He immediately sniffed a scam. I’m an architect. I immediately said yes. If Hollywood found the sweep of our square footage and the detailing on the fireplace surrounds worthy, who was I to stand in the way?

It all started with a walk-through by an assistant who made it clear she was at the bottom of the pecking order. (Her name was Andie, just like the lowly assistant played by Anne Hathaway in “The Devil Wears Prada.” I took it as a sign.) Then came the film’s screenwriter and director Cord Jefferson. Our home was auditioning. It got a callback when yet another group came through, and then it finally got the part. Our house was ready to take its star turn.

The set designer arrived to see if there was any of our furniture she wanted to use (no), and the crew stashed all our stuff in rooms they weren’t going to shoot in. They stashed the two of us and our 9-year-old Labradoodle, Gus, at the Residence Inn in Dedham, stressing that this was “an independent, low-budget film.”

Setting the stage in the author's front hall, complete with the set designer-chosen chandelier. DANIEL G. STEGER

I’m pretty sure the actors didn’t stay at the Residence Inn. At least, Rolando and I never ran across them. We never even got a chance to find out what Jeffrey Wright thought of his assigned half bath off the kitchen — a tired powder room with a wall that didn’t reach all the way to the ceiling. Or what Tracee Ellis Ross thought of her half bath under the third-floor eaves.

Before shooting began, the house had an appointment with hair and makeup. Dozens of people descended like a SWAT team of grips, wanting to know things like where the electrical panel was and pulling out tools to replace our front-hall chandelier with a set designer-chosen one. The drapes were swapped out for sheer panels with blue velvet overlays. One afternoon a van approached and the crew pulled out what seemed like 20 different rugs to see which they wanted to use in each room.

The crew also had meetings with the neighbors to garner local buy-in. We were taking Gus for a walk at some point when we saw a gaggle of people standing around the site location manager. But any concerns, whatever they were, were assuaged. After all, our neighborhood was going to be famous.

Quiet on the set, please. DANIEL G. STEGER

Although there were easily 75 to 100 people on site during filming (someone really did have the job of calling “Quiet on the set!”), things usually proceeded smoothly. The only real scuffle occurred when we walked into our kitchen early one morning to find dishes and other things strewn about — wedding gifts that we ourselves had barely used, salt and pepper shakers, an heirloom lamp handed down from my grandmother. We had been promised that none of our personal items would be picked through. The worst part: The scene — a discussion over a meal in the dining room — was cut from the movie.

Tracee Ellis Ross, starring as Lisa, and Leslie Uggams, playing her mother, Agnes, during a scene filmed in the author's dining room. CLAIREFOLGER

But when you finally go and see a film more than a year after it wraps, and there’s Leslie Uggams coming down your staircase, Jeffrey Wright sitting in your office reimagined as his childhood bedroom, and Sterling K. Brown swimming in a backyard pool that you don’t actually have, all is forgiven. We’ve now gone to see the movie a number of times (how many is not important), and I marvel that I had the architectural vision to choose a house that would be home to a movie great enough to garner five Academy Award nominations — for best picture, best actor (Wright), and best supporting actor (Brown), among others.

What I would like to suggest, in fact, is that it’s my home that’s up for an Oscar. And since my home is just an extension of me, it’s really I, the film’s starchitect, who have gotten the nod.

I’d like to thank the Academy.

Daniel G. Steger is the founder and principal of DGS/a Architecture, a Boston-based studio that specializes in custom residential design, renovations, and additions.

Aging in Place, But Without Design Sacrifices

I was recently tasked with re-designing various aspects of a lovely home in Cambridge so that its owners could stay there as long as possible as they grew older. They were only middle aged but were thinking ahead. They loved their neighborhood with all of its boutiques and gourmet food shops, its proximity to Boston, and its familiar sights and sounds. They loved the memories they were making there. And they knew that if they planned for the future now, it would be easier to stay put than if they had to work through remaining in their home in the midst of a life-changing emergency.

One of the things I designed for them was an outdoor lift. It was three and a half feet from the driveway up to the first floor, and the electric lift would someday allow them to access their front door with ease if they needed a walker or wheelchair.

How do you accommodate stairs without changing your home’s architecture? An electric chair lift is the solution to traversing the entry stairs into this Cambridge, MA, home. Architects will think creatively about accommodating your Aging in Place needs which means you will have a great looking solution.

It was an unusual accommodation for an unusual situation. Most preparation for aging in place translates from house to house. 

In New England, that often means making sure that a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom can all be created on one level. Here are ways to work through the design challenges, which, if played right, become design opportunities. That is, aging in place does not mean turning your house into a small-scale nursing home with utilitarian fixtures and ugly finishes. If you properly deploy the right design elements, your home when you’re 90 can look and feel just as terrific as when you’re 40 or 50. Here’s what to consider.

Bathroom

Often, a home’s first floor has a half bath but no shower. So, space for a 3-foot by 5-foot shower has to be carved out. People are often reluctant to add a shower on the first floor. They think it’s not going to be used often enough. But it’s not just an overflow shower as a family grows up. It allows guests to come and stay comfortably without using the family bathroom upstairs.

A good time to add a shower downstairs is during the addition of some other downstairs space, such as a mudroom off the kitchen. Alternately, the space for a shower can be carved out of a closet or utility room. Ways to keep it from looking like a bathroom in a nursing home but still accommodating someone with physical limitations: 

•   Install a zero threshold shower so bathing becomes barrier-free. It has the added bonus of making a room look bigger because the floor tile can extend into the shower without a break; the space doesn’t look cut up.

•   Design the shower for a curtain rather than a glass door. Someone with mobility issues might need a second person to help with showering, and a glass door abruptly cuts off space; you really need the full 3 feet by 5 feet for two people to maneuver.

•   Install a hand-held shower along with a shower head. If someone is seated, they can’t easily move themselves into or out of the water stream coming from a shower head. A hand-held shower will also keep the helper from getting soaked. (In the meantime, it’s a luxurious feeling to spray the water from a hand-held piece directly onto your hair or other areas or your body. It’s what the Europeans do.)

•   Vanity height is generally 33 to 34 inches. Keep it at the lower end for easy access from a wheelchair. Your eye won’t notice the difference.

•   Make sure the sink is pulled to the leading edge of the vanity so you won’t have to reach over as far, and choose a vanity layout that leaves open the space where your knees would be in a wheelchair. It needn’t read “wheelchair-bound.”

•   Instead of a medicine cabinet above the sink, just put a mirror there, and install a custom-designed in-wall medicine chest that you can roll over to, if need be.

•   The standard rim height for a toilet seat is 15 to 16 inches, which can become hard to lower yourself into or out of over time. But all the major plumbing companies make toilets at “comfort heights” of 17 to 18 and even 19 inches. Easier to get into the seat that way (and no thick, squishy, ugly toilet seat necessary to raise the height).

•   Consider installing a wall-hung toilet. The system will be adjustable from about 14 inches all the way up to 20 inches, and that flexibility zone will allow you to customize the height for your level of mobility. The higher the toilet on the wall, the less lowering yourself into the seat that will be required. You will also gain 9 inches in front of the toilet because the tank remains in the wall — great if you have a tight bathroom space, because it opens up more room for maneuvering a wheelchair or walker.

•   Consider levers instead of knobs, both on the door to the bathroom and at the sink. They’re easier to maneuver for someone with arthritis — you’re just pushing rather than twisting. Better still, at the sink, go with voice command to make the water start flowing. Why use your hands at all when Alexa can do the work for you?

•   Widen the doorway to allow wheelchair clearance, but just a little. In a healthcare institution, the door width is 36 inches. You don’t need all that. Just go to 32 inches — 2 inches wider than a standard door opening. It’s wide enough, and it will keep your home feeling like a residence instead of a facility.

Often, you can “prep” a bathroom or other room for aging in place while the walls are opened up. For instance, if you don’t need a grab bar in the shower right away (and there are beautiful grab bars ones that come in any finish you choose), put some plywood into the framing as you’re creating the shower so that one can easily be screwed into that strong substrate down the line.

A zero clearance entry to the shower is a key concept for a bathroom with aging in place features. This shower has ample space for a caregiver to help bathe someone in a wheelchair. The ample lighting is bright, cheerful and inviting!

Kitchen

With the kitchen, much of what you want to think about are reachability and clearance. With that in mind:

•   Choose a sink with an apron, like a farmhouse sink. That pulls the sink 3 inches closer to you, which means less bending toward it.

•   If you have the room, design your kitchen with at least 42 inches from counter edge to counter edge. Any less, and it might be difficult to maneuver with a wheelchair or walker. 

•   Get levers for the sink instead of cross handles. Better still, go with motion sensors or voice activation. Some faucets can be turned on simply by waving your hand in front of them. And voice activation has reached the point that you can instruct the sink to pour, say, only one cup of water, or whatever amount you need. The flow will stop on its own when it’s supposed to.

•   Deploy seamless floor finishes, not tiles with space between them or rounded edges that can make them difficult to traverse. The best bet might be linoleum, which comes in a sheet. This is not your grandmother’s linoleum. There are fantastic choices on the market today.

•   Choose exquisite but very low-maintenance finishes for countertops. Quartzite or Ceasarstone is going to keep much more easily than marble, which will make you worry every time you leave out a lemon or other item that can leave an acid stain —like a glass of red wine that will produce a ring if you go to bed without putting it in the dishwasher. 

•   Go under-counter for storage as much as possible. That’s true for appliances as well as storage space. That way, if you can’t stand easily in the future, you can reach everything from down low. You can now choose refrigerators and freezers that come in drawers, along with drawer-designed dishwashers and microwaves. It’s also a good idea to go under-counter for things you might normally keep on top of the counter: the coffee maker, loaves of bread, your breakfast mugs. Reaching down is usually much easier than reaching up. Dishes can go down under, too, kept in place by wooden dowels so they don’t jiggle precariously as you open and close the drawers. Bonus: The more you hide down below, the more open and clean your kitchen will look — always.

•   Make sure to put in beautiful task lighting and, where applicable, under-cabinet lighting. They will help if visiual acuity lessens over time.

Note the ample knee clearance under the countertop work area. The dishwasher is elevated off the floor by 8”, and the wall oven is lower than a typical installation height. The corner sink is shallower than a typical sink, but it is much easier to access and reach into when sitting in a wheelchair.

Bedroom

No, you do not have to put a hospital bed in the middle of the living room. But in the first-floor space that you designate for a bedroom when climbing the stairs might no longer be an option, choose a mattress that would make it easy to transfer from a wheelchair without having to jump up or lower yourself too far down. Other ideas for a bedroom that will allow you to remain in your home down the line:

•   Design closets so that your clothes hang at about half the height they normally do. That way, you can pull them off a hangar from a chair rather than a standing position. There are many closet systems on the market now that are extremely customizable for your specific needs.

•   Go with hardwood floors or a floor with low-pile carpeting. Plush, high-pile carpet is difficult to run wheels across.

•   Have enough electric outlets installed right where your nightstand is going to go. You want everything accessible to you from the bed so you don’t have to go fumbling in other locations. You also want to install items in your home that work remotely. This includes a remote thermostat in case you get too cold or warm during the night, a remote alarm system, and a keypad you can keep by your bedside for other systems as well — perhaps the electronic raising or lowering of window shades. You don’t want to have to keep getting out of bed to activate or deactivate something.

•   If you keep a television in your bedroom, have it installed at a height that is going to work for you no matter what.

•   Try to make sure the bedroom has enough room for someone to sit and monitor you if need be — or just keep you company.

The smooth, seamless flooring allow you to navigate without the fear of tripping on rugs. The seating area is a welcome amenity when a caregiver is required to monitor you or to keep you company.

An Interview with Tile Designer Rene’ Yang Becker

When a client wants the best in tile design — backsplash, floor, shower, vanity surround, wall accent — I bring Rene’ Yang Becker into the picture. A design consultant at Tile Showcase in Watertown, she applies her deep and uncanny knowledge of tile and her amazing eye to up a home’s design game — all while keeping the homeowner and the rest of the design team happy. To learn more about how she thinks about tile and brings her talent to bear while working with top-tier designers, I sat down with Rene’ for some insight on her process and what led her to this career.

Daniel: Before we get into the nitty gritty, is there a way you can describe how tile functions in the overall design of a home?

Rene’: People often approach tile as an afterthought, but it’s a critical part of interior design. I mean, yes, you can go to Home Depot and get something very utilitarian that nobody would notice. That’s fine. But tile can make an impact. 

Years and years ago I met a contractor who was certified by the Tile Counsel of America. He said to me, ‘Rene’, did you know that when you put tile in a bathroom or over a kitchen sink, you really don’t need it. It’s all decorative. You can waterproof a shower without tile; you can just install a waterproofing membrane.’ It drove home to me that tile’s main purpose is  decorative, not protective. So why not lean into that? It has only become more important, not less.

A custom glass & stone backsplash is the focal point in this kitchen renovation.
Tile Design: Rene Yang Becker

Daniel: How is that?

Rene’: Just think about kitchen trends — bigger kitchens with great lighting, so people want beautiful tile there, too. And you need a lot more of it. There used to be an average of 30 square feet of tile for a kitchen. Now it’s an average of 60 square feet. I’ve done $20,000 kitchen backslashes — not often, but people are really thinking about how the tile can be the art in a space.

Daniel: How do you help clients work up a tile motif that will both serve and augment the overall design sensibility being brought to a home?

Rene’: A homeowner may come in and say ‘I want pink tile.’  That’s very common — for someone to start with the color they’re looking for. Of course, pink looks very different on cement than on ceramic, so that doesn’t get us very far. And there are so many materials to choose from: porcelain, glass stone. And then even within just stone there’s limestone, slate, marble. And there’s mass-produced versus artisanal. 

So what I often like to do is step further back and ask a client to just say some words that describe how they want a space to look — glamorous, zen, organic, spa, sumptuous — and then I can begin to understand the kinds of things to show them. If they say ‘organic,’  maybe I’ll show them tile made of pebble, or even hand-poured glass. 

Or if they tell me they went on vacation once to the Bahamas or to Morocco and they have wonderful memories of how they felt in those places, I can begin to pull together a motif that will evoke those feelings — something Moorish, or perhaps something beachy. And, of course, the beach on a Caribbean island is going to lead to a different tile than happy memories of the family beach house on the Cape. There’s actually a tangible thing to it. People like to reach out and touch it.

Your home, and even the small spaces in your home like your bathroom — they are your sanctuary. Why shouldn’t you feel in your sanctuary the way that most pleases you?

In small spaces - like a bathroom - let your fantasy be expressed in tile.
Tile design: Rene Yang Becker

Daniel: What about mixing and matching different types of tile?

Rene’: I do it all the time. Do you know the reality show Chop? Each chef gets a basket of the same ingredients, and they all make up different combinations, different dishes, different flavors. Tiles are ingredients, and you can put them together differently for different effects.  

Daniel: So different tile combinations become like different meals?

Rene’: Exactly! Do you want a very rich dinner? Then maybe it’s an all-marble bathroom — marble on the walls, marble on the floor. 

Or maybe you want a ‘lighter’ meal — a marble wall with a marble mosaic that’s offset by a concrete floor with some porcelain. When you ‘cook,’ it’s not just about salt and pepper. It’s herbs. It’s all about layering. And it gets very technical, too.

Daniel: What do you mean? 

Rene’: Nobody’s bathroom or kitchen is a perfect square or rectangle. There’s always something going on with a corner or an angle. And you have to think about how the tile is going to terminate, how a border might work. What is the finishing edge going to be?

Tile is technical: Daniel & Rene lay out a tile backsplash in a client’s home before the final installation.
Tile Design: Daniel Steger & Rene Yang Becker

Daniel: Clearly there’s more to it than meets the eye. How did you get into this field?

Rene’: I have a bachelor of science in interior design from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, which is FIDER-accredited. That was my first stop in the U.S. after moving here from Taiwan. My first job after college was selling rugs in a store affiliated with a design center there. The store also sold tile, and I fell in love with it.

Daniel: What brought you from Hattiesburg to Boston?  

Rene’: Hurricane Katrina. My sister was up in Massachusetts already, and Katrina was terribly devastating, so she said, ‘Why don’t you just move up to this area?’ Once I moved to the Boston area, I never looked back.

Mix traditional tile shapes with contemporary patterns & bold colors.