A plain, white box makes a dramatic contemporary statement in Hoover.

By Barry Wise Smith
Photos by Jason Wallis
Styling by Mindi Shapiro Levine

When Roy and Liane Burns moved back to Birmingham, they planned to buy and renovate a home to suit their contemporary style. But after looking at a number of houses, making an offer on a home in an appealing neighborhood, and having the offer rejected, the Burnses began to feel defeated. But rejection turned serendipitous when, while returning from the house, Roy spotted a for-sale sign on an overgrown lot on the same street.

The next thing the couple knew, they weren’t renovating, they were building their first home. While on their house hunt, the Burnses toured a home that they liked but was out of their price range. They contacted the builders, Will Brothers and Matthew Finley of the Green Bottle Workshop, about designing their dream house. Brothers and Finley, both graduates of Auburn’s architecture and Rural Studio programs, started their design/build business in 2007. “We loved the house [we toured] and were glad to find somebody who liked the same things we did,” says Roy. Liane continues, “We jumped in not really knowing what we were getting into. Will and Matt helped us to navigate the process.”

After meeting with the Burnses—who came armed with pictures ripped from Dwell magazines, a need/want/wish list, and a desire for a single-story residence—Brothers and Finley came up with four design concepts. Ultimately the Burnses chose the only two-story design. “Being designers, we are visual people,” Liane says. “Visually, the design spoke to us.” Finley adds that the narrower, but taller, design was more site-appropriate. After purchasing the lot in June 2008, building began in July.

The house was sited 75 feet back from the street on the down-sloping lot, with the front of the house facing north and the west side staying shaded through most of the day. With budget and durability in mind, Brothers and Finley clad the home’s exterior in sturdy white Hardyboard, using different-sized boards—wider at the bottom and thinner at the top—to break up the elevation of the house. “We manipulated the size of the boards to affect the perception of height,” Brothers says. In simpler terms, “It helps make the house not feel so massive,” Roy adds. A galvanized metal roof tops the house.

To bring visual interest to the home’s front, Brothers and Finley custom welded large, steel planters and designed a 22-foot-tall steel-frame, wood-slat tower featuring a contemporary pendant light fixture, giving the illusion of a lighthouse at night. “The house is basically a box,” Brothers says. “We wanted to bring a vertical element to the front.” A custom industrial steel stoop completes the home’s entry. Steel is a common thread that runs throughout the house. In addition to the planters flanking the front, all the home’s outdoor stoops are industrial, rusted steel. Brothers and Finley learned welding as part of their Rural Studio experience and like using metal elements in their designs. “We like to bring steel into our work as it adds a unique design element to all of our projects,” Brothers says.

Upon entering, the custom-built pivoting front door leads into a soaring space separated by a 17-foot wood entry wall with a mosaic look created by using painted and stained wood blocks arranged in a random pattern. The wall not only separates the entry from the living space but also serves as the open area’s only interior wall. The 2,500-square-foot house’s main level features an open-concept design with lightstained bamboo floors throughout. The main living area includes the kitchen, a dining area, and the living room. Brothers and Finley suggested the home’s neutral color palette with plenty of white and areas of contrasting charcoal gray.

The galley-style kitchen is separated from the living room by a three-foot-wide, nine-footlong island. Budget-friendly white IKEA kitchen cabinetry is topped with durable white Quartz countertops. Stainless steel appliances and a contemporary vent hood reinforce the modern aesthetic. Wanting to bring a pop of color to the kitchen and add drama to the space, The Burnses purchased a pair of large, industrial pendant lights at an online home décor site. Unfortunately, the lights only came in black— not exactly the color the Burns were hoping for. Using some serious out-of-the-box thinking, Brothers took the fixtures to a local motorcycle customizer and had them painted racingstripe red, bringing just the right amount of color and drama to the Burnses’ kitchen.

The living room features a full wall of windows along the front of the house, flooding the space with natural light and neighborhood curiosity. “We see some cars drive back and forth several times looking into the house,” Roy says laughing.

Located behind the kitchen is what Brothers and Finley call the house’s “volume.” The square core grounds the middle of the house and contains storage and pantry space and a guest bathroom. “Because we had so much white space, we wanted some volume in the middle of the house,” Brothers says. To bring light into the space—even though it doesn’t touch an exterior wall—interior windows located at the top of the walls still bring in natural light. A wide hallway separates the volume from a guest bedroom and home office/third bedroom. “We wanted a flexible space that could adapt to our life as it changes,” Roy says. Recessed niches in the hallway feature rolling storage containers that can be moved throughout the house for easy loading and unloading.

An open-riser staircase with a glass banister in the living room seems to almost float up to the second floor. “We knew the design of the staircase was going to be important,” Brothers says. “We didn’t want to close off the house from the back, so with open risers, you can still see from back to front.” A loft-like space tops the staircase and affords views into the living area through unique Plexiglas panels.

The master suite encompasses the entire upstairs. A custom-built wood headboard mimics the mosaic style of the entry wall below. The walk-in master closet features IKEA closet components and the home’s laundry facilities.The master bathroom features more IKEA cabinets, topped with an acacia wood butcher block for a custom vanity. The vanity wall is actually a floor-to-ceiling window that looks onto a private balcony. Mirrors leaned against the window/wall back two pedestal sinks, and a walk-in rain shower/soak tub combination adds a spa-like feel to the bathroom.

Still tying up some final loose ends, the Burnses moved into their house in May 2009 and are still finding perfect pieces fluff their new nest. Liane says, “We have moved so much in the last seven years, we wanted to find a place and stay.” Roy adds, “We love it. It’s our first house and our last house.”