When kept simple, condo design shines

Todays lesson is this: Sometimes more space is not better space.

James Kuan knows it well. Before moving to the midcentury perfect Lamplighter condo tower in Seattle, Kuan lived nearby, loitering there until a spot in the Lamplighter (with its sparkling swimming pool and garden patios) became available: Theres still one person here with no cellphone, so thats why we still have the buzz box.

Patience rewarded, Kuan snagged a 1,000-square-foot unit before it even hit the market. Didnt much matter about the shag carpeting, sea-foam-green walls and shuttered closet doors. Kuan was in.

Theres not a lot of midcentury on Capitol Hill, Kuan says. A friend of mine said, What are you buying? I said, Dont worry, its got good bones. I took enough art in high school to know that it had harmony in the spaces.

Upon moving in, Kuan, now a doctor who knows about bones, did a quick five-day refresh: tearing out the floor for Marmoleum, painting the place white.

The home improvements, however, did not make it a home improved.

I just always remembered what Eames said, that furniture shouldnt be in the way; there should be traffic flow.

And Kuan wanted to go with that, the flow.

How Prentis describes it is its kind of like coming into a cave and then it opens up, Kuan says of his designer, Prentis Hale, of SHED Architecture and Design.

It certainly does, right up to the newly opened kitchen-dining-living area, 30-foot-wide deck and all that lies beyond, a Seattles-best view of the Space Needle, EMP, downtown and mountains beyond.

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When kept simple, condo design shines