‘just right’

It’snot too big and not too small: this house is “just right” for the Signorelli family, who designed and built it.

Ryann and Joe Signorelli wanted a house with enough space for everything they and their 9-yearold son, Trajan, need — and no extra space for things they don’t need. Every inch of their house on Greysolon Road is carefully planned to include room for comfortably living, indoor activities, and the “stuff” they need to do it. But the house has no unused areas to heat, and no extra space where the family could accumulate clutter.

A “what we need” home

“This isn’t our dream home,” Ryann said of the house they designed with architect Heather Hiner. “This is the ‘what we need’ home.”

Ryann and Joe had built a beautiful big show house in Lakeside, and it was featured in a 2012 issue of The Woman Today. But after living in the house for three years and finding that it had much too much space for three people, the family decided to design the house that was truly right for them.

“We definitely down-sized, but we knew what we needed,” Ryann said. “We use every room in this house. Every part of the home is useful. This was a minimalism move.”

Rustic, industrial design

But even though the Signorellis don’t consider this a showpiece home, the dwelling is beautiful in its smart design and careful attention to details. The house is built in a L-shape around a majestic white pine tree that can be viewed through tall windows downstairs and upstairs. Ryann and Joe purposefully kept the tree standing and built around it. An “industrial” theme appears throughout the home, with heated concrete floors, dark hardwood ceilings, metal beams and railings, stainless steel art sculptures, and gas pipe decor, including cupboard door pulls and light fixtures, designed and created by Ryann.

“We tried to do rustic,” Ryann said. “That’s where our hearts lie.”

At the home’s entrance, a handy mud room stores outdoor clothing such as hats and scarves, and it also serves as a convenient place to shut

General Contractor - MD Hoops

Construction

Subcontractors

Arrowhead Supply - Kitchen

Cabinets

Hiner Home Design - Home Plans

Tongue and Groove Store - Wood

Ceiling and Doors

Hagen’s Glass and PaintWindows

Bradley Interiors - counter tops, tile flooring, carpeting

Harbor Mechanica - Plumbing and heating

Campbell Lumber - Building Materials in the family’s dogs when someone knocks at the door. At the other side of the front door is a mini garage, which is actually used as Joe’s home-brewing station and Ryann’s coffee-roasting area. In this room is a large fermenter for holding the beer, a large plastic sink, as well as the needed venting for making beer. A main floor bathroom includes a beautiful stone basin and the “industrial steampunk” light fixtures Ryann designed with gas piping.

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It’s hard to tell where the living area ends and the woods begin

Then comes the main living area, which is open and, thanks to large windows on three surrounding walls, seems to continue on to the wooded yard of the home. The centerpiece of this living area is an industrial-style hearth, made of hot rolled steel and surrounded by a stone bench where the family can sit to feel the warmth of the fire.

“The concrete workers were amazing,” Ryann said of the crew who created this cornerstone piece.

Leather sofa, chairs and lounger provide comfortable seating in this living room, which almost seems to be in the forest among the trees. A nearby dining room table, rustic yet elegant, was made from a white pine that had to be cut down to build the house. Ryann added the legs, again made of metal pipes. Local art pieces with a nature theme appear throughout the home.

“We love the woods around our home,” Ryann said. No walls break up the space, so the beautiful and functional kitchen, with stainless steel appliances, adds to the industrial look of the living area. In the kitchen, a tap connected to a keg in the “kegerator” pours one of Joe’s home-brewed creations. Stainless-steel rolling doors hide storage areas for small appliances, as well as a desk space in the kitchen. Ryann worked with Arrowhead Supply to design this area, and again her handmade gas piping handles open all drawers and doors. The solid wood walnut butcher block countertops have a special finish on them to make them durable.

Staircase and upstairs

A dark wood staircase leads to the home’s upstairs, and tall windows provide downstairs and upstairs views of the white pine tree that the home was built around. Ryann herself stained the staircase.

Upstairs, again, includes only spaces used by the family. Instead of creating a guest room that would seldom get used, Ryann and Joe made an exercise room. Again, the Signorellis’ careful planning shows because this exercise room is above the garage, where it stays cool, and the exercisers can jump all they want without bothering anyone below.

“This is our play place,” Ryann said. “It was designed very purposefully though for resale, with egress windows and everything you need for it to be a bedroom. But we just didn’t need a guest room, because guests only come twice a year. So we made it a place to hang out.”

Overhead storage spaces in the room hold items that come out when guests visit, like blow-up mattresses.

“We got creative with storage space because we need some space, but we don’t want to accumulate lots of stuff,” Ryann said. “We decided that a basement was something that we didn’t need. We try not to get more stuff.”

Carefully-planned bedrooms

Ryann and Joe carefully measured Trajan’s furniture to plan the size of his bedroom. “Here’s the size room you need,” they told Trajan. His space includes a desk nook, and inlaid shelves to hold his stuffed animal collection.

“My favorite thing about this room is that I don’t just have one closet, I have two,” Trajan said, opening the door of shelves to expose a second hidden closet.

Trajan has his own full bathroom, but he shares it with guests when they stay.

Ryann and Joe’s bedroom is also modest in size — about half the size of their bedroom in their previous home.

“You don’t need a couch or a fireplace in a bedroom,” Ryann said. “You only need a bed.”

Yet they love their bedroom, with travelthemed posters from their favorite places, the big black exposed pipe from the fireplace stove downstairs, light fixtures that Ryann made with wire caging, and large windows giving a view of the top of their favorite tree.

The attached master bath of ceramic tile is an open space with a large shower on one side, the sink in the middle, and the toilet on the other side. Discreet partial walls provide privacy at both the shower and toilet areas. Again, Ryann’s pipe creations appear throughout the area as towel hooks and handles. Just outside the bathroom is the master bedroom’s closet space — not too large, but big enough to hold both the couple’s clothing.

The upstairs office converts into a guest room

An office space upstairs holds log cabin bookshelves and, made by Ryann and Joe, and rustic-style hickory table, chair, and stools. When they sit at the table, they can look out the large window ahead to see their favorite tree.

“We wanted a lot of wood here,” Ryann said. “Metal is cold, but wood is warm. Also, a big part of what we wanted is having windows and bringing outdoor light in.”

When company comes, the office’s sliding barn doors can be closed to hide the room, and the Murphy-style bed that’s housed in the wall behind a door can come down to make a cozy guest room.

The last room upstairs is Ryann’s laundry room. She designed the room and calls it “My Space” because she’s the only one who currently uses it. So she made it just the way she wanted it, with a large window that brings in light and provides a view outside. The room has a sterling silver washer/dryer combo, folding table, hanging rack and industrial-style garage cabinets.

The house is “just what we wanted”

Ryann and Joe appreciate their builder, Mike Hoops.

“He was incredible,” Ryann said. “The reason we picked him was his ability to communicate. I was very involved in the project. I was here every day for 10 months. He really communicated well with me.”

Mike also built the Signorelli’s cabin on the Gunflint Trail, which is very similar in style to their home.

Ryann and Joe have now helped design three dwellings together with Heather Hiner: their original “showplace” home, their cabin, and now their home on Greysolon Road. This time, they truly knew what they wanted. And Ryann said they have not once said, “We should have added (blank),” or, “We should have done this differently.” Their careful planning for every inch of their new home has paid off.

“We love it,” Ryann said. “The layout is absolutely perfect. It’s as useful as we planned it to be. We didn’t build this as a show house. We built this as our home. We built what we needed.”