from the Dining Room. Second, new casework was installed in the Living Room alcove, creating a new work desk spanning between the building structural column and the end-wall of the unit. To partially separate this office area from the Living Room (and to hide desk clutter), casework housing a flat-screen television was located in front of the desk, facing the Living Room. Third, wood-veneered ceiling panels, forming a continuous level plane across the full width of the unit, were installed to hide the original dropped ceilings. These panels were installed over the new countertop eating bar, a portion of the entry corridor, and the new home office area. And fourth, to tie everything together, wood-veneered wall panels were used to hide structural columns. New display shelving and bookcases, integral to the wall panels, were also used to wrap and hide the building columns.

The casework and paneling are all veneered with rift-cut white oak, sealed with a clear, cross-linked acrylic finish that is stain and chemical proof. The casework was constructed with state-of-the-art C & C milling machines at Kaiser Woodworks in Ferndale, Washington and was expertly installed by dBoone Construction.

Recessed into the new ceiling panels, adjustable low-voltage fixtures by RSA Lighting provide both ambient and task lighting. In the Living Room and Dining Room, given existing power sources set in the exposed, painted concrete ceiling, new line-voltage track lighting by Tech Lighting was selected.

The Fisch Condominium is located in a new, mid-rise building located in downtown Seattle, Washington. The twelve-story building was a speculative development of moderately priced one and two-bedroom condominiums. Given upper level building setbacks, the floor plan of this fifth-floor unit is unfortunately impacted by structural columns within the unit. In particular, one central column had resulted in an awkward alcove in the main living space. A variety of existing dropped ceilings in the kitchen, the entry corridor, and the living room alcove created a tangle of odd intersections and changing ceiling planes. In addition, original interior finishes in the unit were builder basic - unexceptional in character, color, and finish.

Our clients, Jeri and Willy Fisch wished to address these problems with the original condominium design (better yet, the lack of design). Having a very modest budget of $25,000, they wished to create a new home office, add a countertop eating bar at the kitchen, improve the aesthetic character of the unit, and add additional ambient, task, and accent lighting. On our end, we were also determined to "clean-up" the architectural mess created by the dropped ceilings.

To keep costs down, the renovations consisted of simply adding casework. The only demolition required was removal of a stone slab that topped an existing parapet wall between the Kitchen and Dining Room. The design consisted of four parts. First, a new countertop eating bar, containing cabinets and drawers, was installed over and around the existing parapet wall separating the Kitchen