We don't renovatehouses. We finishthe argument they started.
Atelier North is a design–build studio for whole-home remodels in the Pacific Northwest. One team holds the drawing and the hammer — so the idea that survives the first sketch is the one that gets built.
01 — Position
A remodel is a second draft of the house. We read what's already there before we propose a single line.
Most remodels are a slow negotiation between a drawing nobody owns and a crew nobody briefed. The gap is where budgets break and rooms lose their nerve. We close it by keeping design and construction inside one studio — the architect who drew the wall is in the room when it's framed.
That continuity is the whole product. It is what lets us name a fixed number at the end of design and hold it, and what lets a 1912 foursquare keep its bones while it learns to hold light.
02 — Process
One studio, four movements.
Survey
We measure the house and listen to it — structure, light, the way you actually move through the day. No proposals yet.
Design
Drawings, materials, and a fixed scope resolved together, ending in a single construction number you can plan a life around.
Build
Our own carpenters, weekly walk-throughs, and the architect on site. The drawing and the hammer never leave the same hand.
Hand back
Punch list closed, house cleaned, and a bound record of every decision and offcut left on your counter.
03 — Work
Selected remodels.
01 — Portland, OR
Hawthorne Residence
Whole-home · 3,200 sq ft
A 1912 foursquare opened to its garden without losing its bones.
02 — Hood River, OR
Alder House
Kitchen + primary suite · 1,400 sq ft
Two additions stitched into one continuous oak datum.
03 — Portland, OR
Sellwood Cottage
Whole-home · 1,850 sq ft
A dark cottage taught to hold the morning light.
04 — Columbia Gorge, WA
Skamania Cabin
Remodel + studio · 2,600 sq ft
Concrete, fir, and weather, kept in conversation.
04 — Material
We design in the things you'll put your hand on.
Specification is not an afterthought here; it's where the drawing becomes real. A short, honest palette, carried the length of a house, does more than any feature wall.
Quartersawn white oak
Floors, millwork, the oak datum
Honed basalt
Hearth, thresholds, wet rooms
Unlacquered brass
Hardware left to age honestly
Lime plaster
Walls that hold and move light
06 — Word
“They handed us a bound book at the end — every decision, every offcut, the whole reasoning. I've never trusted a project more.”
“The number they gave us in week ten was the number we paid. In a remodel, that's close to witchcraft.”
05 — Studio
A small studio, on purpose.
Margaret Voss
Principal Architect
AIA · M.Arch, Oregon
Daniel Reyes
Head of Build
General Contractor · 22 years on site
Priya Nair
Project Architect
AIA · interiors & detailing
07 — Begin
Start with a conversation, not a quote.
We take a handful of whole-home remodels a year. The first step is a paid design consultation — ninety minutes at your house, with the people who will actually draw and build it.
08 — Questions
Before you ask.
What does “design–build” actually mean?
Design and construction live under one roof. The architect who draws your house is on site while it's built, so nothing is lost in a handoff to a contractor who never sat in the design.
Do you take on single rooms?
Rarely. Our work is whole-home and primary-space remodels, where design and build genuinely need to stay in one conversation to be worth it.
How do you price the work?
A fixed design fee first, then a single fixed construction number set at the end of design — not an open-ended hourly bill that drifts all year.
Where do you work?
Portland and the Columbia Gorge, roughly within ninety minutes of the studio, where we can keep our own crew on site every week.