New Project: Galbraith Mountain Paradise
A1DesignBuild provides architectural design services and builds beautiful homes in Bellingham and Whatcom County, Washington. We specialize in everything from home remodels to complete high-performance home builds, and our over 70 years of providing excellent service to the community assures that your home project gets done right - each and every time. Read on to learn more.
When we were contacted by Grace and Joseph, we knew their project was right up our alley. The primary project was an exterior envelope renovation: taking an aging house with layers of previous renovation and modernizing it to align with the clients' aesthetic. This involved new windows and exterior doors, siding, roof, porch, and the removal of roof overhangs, and a portion of a deck that was unused. We also electrified their heating system and installed a robust exterior air exchange unit paired with an interior air scrubbing system to make the interior space more comfortable and healthy. The clients were also a bonus: Their level of knowledge, investment, and engagement made them very enjoyable to work with. We both shared a larger vision and an attention to the fine detail, which is always a winning combination.
One challenge: the house was originally built very close to an ecologically sensitive area, which left us with some head-scratching and additional permitting hurdles to overcome. We knew we had to preserve and protect both the integrity of the house and the adjacent environment. But by using our expertise and collaborating with Grace and Joseph, we found the way. In the words of designer Dave Kangas, who led the design phase, ‘this project was truly one of the great ones. Every expectation we had was fulfilled, and the customer felt that way too’. Read the interview to learn more.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
A1DB: What do you love about Bellingham?
Grace: You're so close to nature and every way of having fun outdoors, but you're not far from the urban stuff you also want — the cafes, the breweries, the good food. And if you need more, Seattle and Vancouver are right there. It's the center of the perfect triangle. We traveled through here for years going from California to Whistler, and every time we stopped, we liked the interactions we had. It felt like someplace we wanted to be a part of.
A1DB: When did you move here?
Grace: February of '23. It was a gradual decision. We lived in California for over a decade, and virtually every year we'd do the road trip up the Sea to Sky Highway.
Joseph: It came down to Bellingham or Whitefish, Montana. Whitefish was a great place for a holiday, but not a place we could call home — we couldn't find a single good pho place or an Asian supermarket. And Bellingham had that vibe. People talk about the Seattle freeze; you don't get that here. We've had really meaningful conversations with people at the pub, at a bar, sometimes at the supermarket. One of our favorite cheap-eat hacks is a pizza and a beer at Whole Foods.
Grace: So there wasn't one moment. The idea just built — until the COVID era, when everyone was buying houses and we thought, "Oh no, we're missing the boat."
Joseph: Biking was a big pull factor. Unlike other trail networks in America, Galbraith is constantly evolving. It's never the same mountain — new trails form, old trails become new. You don't see that in Santa Cruz or Tahoe. And the stewardship the WMBC does is amazing. There's so much good to say about Bellingham. It's small and big at the same time. The live-to-laid-back ratio is just perfect.
Watch the Customer Testimonial
A1DB: What's your next bike ride?
Grace: Ooh — we just sent two of our lighter bikes in to get serviced. We do all these short day-to-day rides on Galbraith, and now we want to start adventuring further out, closer to the Cascades. In California we did very long rides, 25 or 30 miles, but the elevation wasn't what it is here. Here our rides thave opped out around 15 miles — though we also had heavy-hitter bikes. Now that we've got lighter ones, we want to start doing the long alpine rides. So we’ll see.
A1DB: How did you find this house in particular?
Joseph: We never came up here to see the house, believe it or not. We worked with a local realtor, Jenny — coincidentally an avid mountain biker. Our criteria were short: quiet, close to the trailhead. This wasn't the prettiest house, but there was something charming about the area, and we knew the proximity to Galbraith. It's a really unfussy house — this room, that room, a quirky spiral staircase — and we saw the potential. Jenny filmed walkthroughs and was completely transparent: "The vinyl siding is a bit old. Are you still willing to gamble on this house?" We said yes.
Grace: We wanted a house we would need to work with, not one that was stock or generic.
A1DB: So you bought it without actually seeing it?
Joseph: We saw the Zillow pictures and her video walkthrough. When you have a few images from different angles, you can map things in your head — I know what's staged and how much is backdrop, and I can take all that away. I knew what I was getting before seeing it.
Grace: And on a previous bike trip we'd popped out on one of these streets and ridden to Da Vinci's for sandwiches. We hadn't seen the house, but we knew the area.
A1DB: Any big surprises when you arrived?
Joseph: In California, people are transient — you don't get that neighborly spirit. Our second morning here, sleeping on an inflatable mattress with nothing else in the house, I found a printed sheet of paper under the door. "Hi, my name is Ken, I live a few doors down." He'd typed out — I kid you not — every neighbor on the street, left side and right: "These are your neighbors. You're the latest addition. This is my number. By the way, I mow lawns as well — welcome gift, I'll mow your entire place for $20." I'd never seen such a thing. It reminded me of growing up in Singapore, where neighbors really behaved like neighbors.
Grace: Everywhere we'd lived before was full of people like us — you move from someplace else, you work, you move on. To find people around you who have lived here for 40 years, that sense of connectedness and community, is very new to us. While we spent months back in California getting our ducks in a row, Ken was the one who'd write: "Hey, this is happening on your property, did you know? There's a big rain coming — I'll make sure it's handled." And our neighbor once texted because she hadn't seen me in the yard for a week: "Is Grace okay? Hope everything's fine." That doesn't happen anywhere else we've lived.
Joseph: So we've been asking what we can do too. We've done trail days with the bike association, some volunteering, some animal fostering — little bits here and there to get back to who we want to be as part of a community. Bellingham checks all that.
A1DB: How did you find A1DesignBuild?
Grace: A lot of starts and stops. Contractors kept postponing start dates, or came back with dangerously low quotes, or quietly scoffed at our budget. Then I emailed Patrick, and he was the only person to tell me ahead of time what the pitfalls of a project like this would be — over two or three long emails, why I'd need more money than I thought, more time than I thought. Nobody had given me that kind of honesty, and there was no indication I was going to give him any business. He invested in us before we signed anything. I told him, "I love your vibe, I don't have the budget right now." Six or eight months later, I came back because of that first experience.
Joseph: He took the time. That says something about someone who cares about doing things the right way.
A1DB: What did it mean to have both the architecture design + build services under one roof?
Grace: Peace of mind. The lowest-stress process you could have on a project this size. I didn't have to do any coordination — someone with far better foresight handled what needed to be handled.
Joseph: I'm a details person, and seeing something go from sketch to render — changing colors, having open discussions with Dave (an A1 designer) about materials — it was so careful and considered. People want to jump into the build, but the design phase is even more crucial. That's when you ask, "Have you considered X, Y, Z?" — not when you've ripped out a window. By the time demolition came, there were no surprises. Now that we're working with independent contractors on the little things: oh my God, I miss A1DesignBuild so much.
Laughter.
Grace: "Design" almost undersells it — it's the strategy and the planning. Everyone thinks the building is the big part. It isn't. It's just the execution of months of planning. We've told Patrick and Maggie we wish we'd had the knowledge then that we have now — we would have folded so many other things into the main project.
A1DB: Finish this sentence: "I really like A1DesignBuild because..."
Grace: This is probably the biggest investment we've ever made. For something so big — in vision, investment, and dreams — A1 was the perfect balance of human warmth and professionalism. Pure professionalism but cold and clinical would have been far less memorable; great people but constant stress would've been no good either. When the last worker packed up and left, we went, "Oh — they're gone." We'd actually come to enjoy having them around. They became friends.
Joseph: Everything you buy comes with a price tag. With A1DesignBuild, I look around the house and I know exactly where the money went. You can feel the care and attention. We can tell where every single cent went — that's how meticulous they are. It's quite rare. And with Galbraith right in our backyard, we couldn’t be happier.
Want to learn a little more? This month, A1DesignBuild is giving away 4 free hours of design and architecture consultation to the first 5 customers who sign-up. If you need a little inspiration, now just might be the time.
