Keppers Design is moving Downtown! Our new office at 301 West Superior Street will be an exciting design showcase, with upgraded conference facilities and hands-on displays. We have started renovations and plan to formally open the office sometime in May, 2019.

For many, the kitchen is the true center of home life. A place to cook, to congregate, to socialize, to organize. But sometimes this can lead to trouble: clutter trouble. The Home Central can come to your rescue. It's a small office just off the kitchen that provides a discreet but handy place to store those useful but pesky cookbooks, magazines and tax files. When properly designed, it's also a pleasant place to enjoy a cup of coffee while perusing those favorite recipes or

Check out this link to learn about a Community Education class I'm teaching on March 12 and 19, 2019.

A grand staircase can't be beat for making a statement. It's even better when it's framed by openings from other rooms in the home. In this case, an arched opening from the lower level bar helps show off the beauty of this curved stairway with its intricate metal pickets. This stair is also a testimonial to fine craftsmanship. The rough-in carriage for this stair was built off-site and delivered IN ONE PIECE, which fit perfectly. Thanks to Bergstedt Builders, the general cont

Interested in learning about windows? Check out this excellent introduction to the basics of window design from Domino. Thanks to Erick Filby from Marvin Windows for bringing this to my attention.

Design challenges are opportunities, not problems. In this case, the owners wanted to open an existing kitchen island to the adjacent breakfast/living area and provide better seating around the island. That sheetrock arch had to go! The challenges? Keep as much existing cabinetry and flooring as possible. (It was all still like new.) Provide electricity to the island without disrupting the whole house. (The existing electrical feed came from the ceiling.) The Solution? Keep t

This home harkens back to an earlier time in Duluth's history, when many of the affluent built homes inspired by the architecture of Mediterranean Italy and Spain. The home itself is quite formal, with formal terraced gardens and a broad lawn facing the lake. Its beige walls and red roof stand out from its green wooded surroundings. The contrast between the home and its wild wooded context makes a powerful statement, making the home feel more formal and the woods wilder. Yet

Here's step 2 in this foundation installation. The perimeter walls are up to the level of the basement slab, and the basement slab has been poured. Plumbing was installed under the slab before the pour. Here, you can see a number of plumbing elements peeking out from the slab. In the center, the black hole is the sump pit. The sump pit collects water from under the slab and stores it until it drains out through a pipe that leads to daylight. In homes with a full basement wher

Some projects are an exercise in good planning and code compliance rather than aesthetics. Here, we reconfigured part of a church basement to improve access to the Fellowship Hall, update the kitchen to modern sanitary codes, and provide larger and better restrooms with showers.

Here we see the footings and frost walls of the new home installed to the level of the basement floor. The frost walls are created with Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs), which are foam blocks stacked like Legos and then filled with concrete. An excellent system. Inside the frost wall perimeter, the area under the future slab is filled with sand. Sand is used because it compacts well and allows good drainage. The sand is placed in layers, with each layer compacted by a vibratin

It's important to understand your house addition (or new home or office project, for that matter) before it's built. Three-dimensional sketches and videos can help you accomplish that goal. At Keppers Design, they are a standard part of the design process. This movie shows a deck addition project that radically improves an early 20th century bungalow style home.

For you Building Science nerds out there, here's an animation about the history of home siding materials that was recently published by Fixr. Click on the picture to see it move. It's based on U.S. Census Bureau data. The blog post also includes some good info on the pros and cons of different siding types. Siding use differs radically by region. Up here in Minnesota, both brick and stucco would play a much smaller role in home design today. No doubt stucco would dominate if

This sun room/entry porch addition fits seamlessly into the original home and provides a much needed entry vestibule and enclosed porch for the owners. Even before the project was done, when I drove up I found the owner already relaxing inside, reading his newspaper and basking in the sun while avoiding the crisp, cold fall air.

As an architect, I'm trained to consider aesthetics when designing a home or remodel. By paying for good design upfront, you can avoid design mistakes that cost a lot of money to fix later. In this case, even without the addition, better placement and design of the windows and front entry would have made this home much more attractive. The owners would have been spared many years of living in a home they really didn't like. After corrective design work, the owners are now h

Some great photos of one of my projects as well as info about one of my favorite products. The earthy colors and textures blend perfectly with the stucco piers and curved balusters of this Mediterranean style home. This Facebook post is worth a click if you'd like more details about the product. And for sure check out the "how to" installation photos at https://dektektile.com/albums/roof-deck-album if you want technical details.