Blog
Learn more about architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture from the B&V Team.
Our blog is a friendly resource for anyone wondering how to approach their project, seeking answers for their design questions, or simply eager for a peek inside our world.
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Commercial, Custom Residential, Interior Design
How to Create Great Outdoor Rooms
Creating an outdoor room isn't hard, but creating a GREAT outdoor room in the Northwest has some unique challenges. Here's what to look for.
Learn more.The Business of Design
Strategic Planning: Charting the Course
Strategic planning is a process in which you identify your goals and how you're going to get there. Here is a list of the values and the vision that keep Board & Vellum humming, as of 2011.
Learn more.Ask a Designer, Custom Residential
How Big Should a Bedroom Be?
Planning a bedroom is a fun exercise of managing dimensions, rules of thumb, and practical advice. Here are our tips and guides for how to size a bedroom.
Learn more.
Ask a Designer, Custom Residential
How to Match Heights of Doors and Windows
Everyone has their little issues; mine has to do with disparate casing heights around windows and doors in the same rooms. (You know, when the trim on the top of a window doesn't perfectly line up with the door it's near.) This is how to solve that annoyance.
Learn more.Ask a Designer, Custom Residential, Interior Design
Top 10 Things to Think About When Planning a Bathroom
Bathrooms are some of the most remodeled spaces in anyone's house. It is easy to see why: we spend a bunch of time in there every day. Coupled with the fact that styles come and go, and the square footage of most bathrooms is pretty small, they're an easy target. Here's what to think about.
Learn more.Ask a Designer, Custom Residential
Let’s Talk Dirty: The Wonder of Small Laundry Closets
Do you really want to haul all that laundry down to the dank basement all the time? If you're bothering to remodel, it's just not that hard to find space for a small laundry closet closer to where the dirty laundry piles up. Here's how.
Learn more.Other Tangents
Smashing Glass Blocks
Glass block is horrible. Don't use it. Please don't use it. Did I mention that it is pretty horrific? It is. Don't use it. That is all.
Learn more.Custom Residential
Oh, Gosh, You Must Love It Here!
I'm often asked for my opinion on people's homes when they show them to me. Please stop. You're torturing architects. All we know, is that you love it and think it is wonderful. Can't that be enough? And besides, I know that you must love it there. Isn't that all that needs to be said?
Learn more.Commercial
Downsize Your Retail: 15th Avenue East
There is something particularly special about very small retail spaces. The shops on 15th Avenue East on Capitol Hill in Seattle, especially on the northwest end, are an especially good example of this.
Learn more.Or, if chronology isn’t your thing…
Here are a couple of posts to get you started. Of course, it’s hard to choose, so feel free to poke around; we hope to have a little something for everyone. And, if you have a burning question you’d like us to cover in a future post, please let us know!
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Honored as a finalist for residential landscape design.
Our team includes LEED-accredited professionals.
Our team includes certified Passive House consultants.
A Certified LGBT Business Enterprise Since 2016.
Honoring companies that lead in promoting equality.