Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Conversions

At some point, the way you think about your home begins to shift. The house that once felt like enough starts to look like a place with more to give: more room for the people you love, more room for visitors, more room for the life you want to be living. Lives change, and a good home makes room for that. Across the Columbia River Gorge, this is often when an ADU conversion begins, when a homeowner is ready to invest in their property and how they live in it every day.

An ADU, or accessory dwelling unit, is a second, smaller home on your property, and a conversion creates one from space you already have. ADUs can:

• Hold a parent or a grown child, so generations can live close without living on top of each other.

• Welcome the friends and family who come to visit, or travelers new to the area, as a short- or long-term rental.

• Add real value to your property and a new kind of ease to your days.

The best conversions solve something along the way. A garage that has gone unused. A basement that has never known daylight. A corner of the yard that never drains well, and that you've been meaning to fix. When you're already building the thing on your list, that is the time to settle what you never loved, so the work is done once and done right.

We approach every conversion as a design problem first. We look at the path between the main house and the new space, which is a threshold worth designing, at where the light comes from, and at how a smaller place can feel generous instead of tight. Then we build it with care for the details no one will ever see. Each project below began as something else and became a place that brings people closer.