Arizona Home Showcases Creative Uses of Building Materials
Budget-friendly building materials are put to work in quirky and unexpected ways in this one-of-a-kind Arizona home designed by Angelica Henry.
Southwestern Kitchen Features Custom Glass Details
In the kitchen, steel and glass upper cabinets disappear into an interior window, which allows as much light as possible into the kitchen and provide a spot to display art and dishes. Custom hardware adorns the lower cabinets and showcase a logo created just for the homeowners. Quarter-inch strips of glass were fused together to create the floating upper island top and are supported by steel hidden within the cabinets.
Photo by: Mark Boisclair Photography, Inc.
Mark Boisclair Photography, Inc.
Steel rebar and chicken wire may not immediately come to mind when considering interior design elements, but for Angelica Henry they were creative solutions in a project with budget limitations.
Henry, the president and founder of Angelica Henry Design, transformed these and other unexpected materials into artistic design elements at the Rock Bottom estate in North Scottsdale, Ariz.
"(The homeowners) wanted to stick to a particular budget, so they were pushing me to use materials in interesting ways," she says. "Sometimes it was a tough order to fill, but it was a fun process to work with."
The effort is evident upon entering the home, where the tall fireplace wrapped in rebar and scored concrete floor catch the eye as you transition from the entry into the main living area.
The rebar casts decorative shadows on the walls -- which were covered with burlap and then painted for texture -- and draws the eye up toward the dramatically high ceiling. The fireplace's scale helps balance the size of the room without overwhelming the desert views beyond the pocketing glass doors.
Chicken wire shaped into a cube and filled with pebbles conceals a low-cost sink in the powder room, offering a delightful nod to the home's Rock Bottom name -- a reference to its location at the bottom of a mountain. The pattern on the walls was created from woven bark layered on top of red paint.
In the kitchen, steel cabinet frames outfitted with glass panels provide displays for items while allowing light into the interior space. On the island, strips of glass fused together create the upper countertop which floats above a lower hemlock countertop thanks to the support of steel hidden within the cabinets.
The showstopping element in the kitchen is the custom art wall. Artist Rob Stenberg painted the Southwest-inspired design onto reclaimed barn wood, which masks the refrigerator doors and additional cabinetry.
"They wanted a kitchen they did not look like a kitchen," Henry says.
The homeowner, a talented woodworker, provided his own artistic touches throughout the interiors. He fashioned the dining table, countertops and hand-turned wood bowls displayed in the home office.
Other quirky details of the home include a pantry pendant light crafted from a galvanized bucket and cowhide wallcovering lining the back of the wetbar.
"It's a little bit of an experimentation when you're doing new things," Henry says. "Sometimes you do mockups and experiments and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't."
