Budget Breakdown: It Took Twice as Long, But This $266K ADU Built a Close Friendship
Architect Melissa Shin works alongside her client to create a tiny backyard house in Silicon Valley with vivid green tile and a bright pink door.
Architect Melissa Shin works alongside her client to create a tiny backyard house in Silicon Valley with vivid green tile and a bright pink door.
When BK Lin asked architect Melissa Shin to design an ADU for her home in Mountain View, California, she had no idea a worldwide pandemic was on the horizon. The project, which they initially expected to take a year or two, took four instead.
The upside? The client and architect became close friends over those four years, which enhanced Shin’s vision for the design. With two square 16-by-16-foot volumes (one public and one private), plenty of sunlight, and brilliant pops of pink and green, the resulting ADU lives larger than its approximately 500 square feet.
A pink-painted front door and fascia enliven this backyard ADU in Mountain View, California, designed by Melissa Shin of Shin Shin Architecture. To help control cost, the architect kept the exterior simple, employing white stucco walls for $11,400 and an asphalt-shingle roof (with gutters and site drainage) for $7,000.
Photo by Eric Staudenmaier
BK first considered adding an ADU to her property in 2016. The large lot has a duplex—the tech-industry executive lives in one unit and rents out the other—with a sizable yard behind it. "I’d been reading a lot about ADUs and had this big empty yard," she says. "I thought it would be a great to add more long-term income to the property, but in a way that wouldn’t require me to disturb or change the front units."
For the sake of affordability and durability, the architect employed vinyl flooring for $5,980 throughout the ADU. In the open-plan kitchen/dining/living area, a vaulted ceiling lends a feeling of luxury and spaciousness.
Photo by Eric Staudenmaier
BK immediately thought of Shin for the project, as the architect’s former firm designed a few projects for BK’s company in 2015. "We always kept in touch," says BK. "Years later when Melissa told me she was starting her own office and would mostly be working on ADUs, I thought my ADU would be a great collaboration!"
| $9,400 Site Prep | $32,000 Foundation | $55,500 Framing |
| $7,000 Roof, Gutters, & Site Drainage | $6,350 Doors & Windows | $15,250 HVAC System |
| $11,400 Stucco & Fire Protection | $10,000 Exterior Plumbing & Trench | $12,000 Interior Plumbing |
| $18,000 Electrical | $4,500 Insulation | $10,500 Drywall |
| $15,770 Millwork | $900 Hardware | $4,720 Counters (Labor & Materials) |
| $1,750 Trim | $1,800 Baseboard | $7,500 Paint (Interior & Exterior) |
| $15,150 Tile (Labor & Materials) | $6,450 Plumbing Fixtures | $1,700 Lighting Fixtures |
| $1,900 Water Heater & Vent | $2,200 Shower Door | $5,980 Flooring (Labor & Materials) |
| $1,500 Low Voltage | $7,000 Solar | |
| Grand Total: $266,220 | ||
When they began planning the design in 2018, BK knew she wanted a separate bedroom and a full kitchen and bathroom. "I didn’t want something with mini-size appliances," she says. "I wanted it to look and feel like a house."
Shin splurged when it came to the kitchen design, selecting olive-green Fireclay tile for the backsplash and custom millwork for the cabinetry. She painted the lower cabinetry a cool green tone that ties to the tile of the backsplash and finished it with a thick lacquer coating to help prevent wear and tear.
Photo by Eric Staudenmaier
See the full story on Dwell.com: Budget Breakdown: It Took Twice as Long, But This $266K ADU Built a Close Friendship
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