Who lives here: Kate Morris, a retired art teacher
Location: Great Falls, Montana
Size: 900 square feet (84 square meters); 1 bedroom, 2 bathrooms
That’s interesting: This house was constructed from a grain bin.
BEFORE: So there the grain bin (shown here) sat for nearly eight years. After Morris retired from her teaching gig, and after a couple of years she spent taking care of her older brother, serendipity came calling. She knew she needed professional help to make her dream a reality, and by chance she was reunited with Nick Pancheau, an architect whom she had taught in grade school, and whose younger brother she had also taught. She explained her grain-bin idea to him over the phone, and “he just got it,” Morris says.
A deck that extends off the living space is a great spot for watching migratory birds around the reservoirs below.
Pancheau swooned when Morris told him she wanted a bridged entryway connecting a hill to the second-floor living space. “It’s a dream statement from a client,” he says. “Very rarely do you have the opportunity to do something like a bridge. It’s practical and beautiful, and a great opportunity to work with the site.”
With high winds in the area, he had to protect the entry. He did this by carving into the bin and creating a recess entryway wrapped in yellow painted siding. “It’s like a warm beacon that you immediately recognize as the entry if you’re a guest coming across the hill,” he says.
For the exterior color, Pancheau looked to the corporate logo of the grain bin manufacturer MFS, whose bright yellow logo remains on the portion above the entryway. He matched the yellow from that trademark to accent the punch-outs.