Ever since his sixth-grade shop class, Matt Keller has been tinkering with saws and lumber, making his own furniture, bookcases and custom cabinets.
So, naturally, when it came time for the Everett firefighter to design, build and furnish his custom home in the Seven Lakes area of Snohomish County, he went all out.
His home, shared with his wife, Colleen, and their daughter, Samantha, 19, is a virtual art gallery featuring the fruits of his longtime woodworking hobby.
In the kitchen, mission-style cabinets stretch from concrete floors to high ceilings. Around the living room, thick molding surrounds the windows and floors. In the dining room, a built-in buffet features overlay drawers.
All of the wood is a stunning Brazilian cherry, a hardwood also known as jatoba.
Its natural color after milling is a dull brown, but the wood gradually darkens to a rich orange-red when it’s continually exposed to light, which is plentiful in the Keller home thanks to large windows.
“It’s not an expensive wood, only a little bit more than oak. It wears really well,” said Keller, who gets most of his wood from Edensaw Woods based in Port Townsend.
Upstairs, Keller built a floor-to-ceiling, 5-foot-wide bookcase rather than a door outside his daughter’s bedroom. One large section of the shelving actually swings into the room just like a door. On the other side there is a handle and a tension latch, so it can be easily be opened and closed from both sides.
“It’s pretty fun to just casually push open the bookcase and show someone the hidden room,” Keller said. “It always comes as a complete surprise.”
There are still more surprises in the master bedroom, where Keller built a one-of-a-kind bed that includes under-bed drawers and a footboard that has bookshelves as well as a large hidden chamber.
When the Kellers are snug in bed and don’t feel like looking at their lake view, they can simply press a button on a remote control to make a 42-inch flatscreen TV rise out of the chamber.
Keller was his own general contractor during the home’s construction, starting in 2006 and ending in 2008. He said his woodworking isn’t the most interesting thing about their home.
Their concrete floors are the real story, he said.
Keller had cement pumped down their steep hill to create concrete flooring on all levels of their home.
Not only are the floors beautiful, thanks to various dyes mixed into the cement, they also include the home’s heating system. Hydronic radiant-heating pipes, imbedded below the surface, are hooked to a geothermal heat pump that heats the house.
Because the home doesn’t have wall-to-wall carpeting or wooden floors to trap condensation, the floors can also be used to cool the home, Keller said.
It’s been an efficient system. Since the Kellers moved in three years ago, their combined heating and cooling costs have been about $600 a year.
The Kellers’ floors are a perfect contemporary foil to counterbalance the traditional woodwork.
“Not one in 10 people recognize it as concrete,” Keller said. “It looks like some type of terrazzo.”
Keller said the hardness of concrete hasn’t been hard on their bodies, partly because the two upper floors, where they spend most of their time, are suspended on wooden beams, which offer some natural flexibility.
Keller, 45, who built a woodworking shop in his two-story garage, said he isn’t done making furniture for their home.
He wants to expand the granite-topped dining room buffet to include built-in shelves that go all the way to the ceiling. He wants to surround the fireplace with woodwork, too.
The Kellers’ 20-year-old son, Alex, also contributed to the family home project with his own hobby, metalworking.
His fish sculptures decorate the kitchen as well as a railing outside the main entrance.
“I’m a big fan of doing things yourself,” Matt Keller said, “and I really believe that most people have hidden talents, if they will just take the chance.”
Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037; sjackson@heraldnet.com.
Resources
Keller Woodworking: Write mgkeller28@msn.com or call 360-929-0413.
Edensaw Woods: 211 Seton Road, Port Townsend; 800-745-3336; www.edensaw.com.
SawStop.com: One of Matt Keller’s favorite woodworking tools is his SawStop table saw, equipped with a breaking system that can stop the blade within 5 milliseconds of detecting contact with skin, 10 times faster than a car airbag. See www.sawstop.com or call 503-570-3200.
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