Seattle artists Jethaniel Peterka and Yvette Endrijautzki were looking for a rental where they could live and operate when they came across an empty storage space above a pet shop in the heart of the town’s Georgetown arts district. The distance had potential, but it was little. They peered through a couple holes in the wall, and realized the living space could double, and so were sold.
The transformation of the storage space in their residence took a year and a halfhour. They gutted the distance and reclaimed the attic, including plumbing and warmth. Everything was created with the efficacy and style of a ship in mind.
Now, Nautilus Studio acts as a living room and studio with artwork built into the walls. Found objects and salvaged materials like pipes, valves and gear are practical and decorative. The result is a house that is diverse yet effective, and also an intriguing function of evolving artwork.
at a Glance
Who lives here: Artists Yvette Endrijautzki, Jethaniel Peterka and their feline Gobi
Location: Georgetown area of Seattle, Washington
Size: Around 600 square feet
Louise Lakier
The bedroom has been reclaimed from attic crawlspace. The inclusion of skylights created a comfy sleeping space. Carpet has been salvaged from a rug business in the Seattle SoDo — or south of downtown — neighborhood.
Louise Lakier: what’s your decorating doctrine?
Yvette Endrijautzki: I suppose I have a problem with the contemporary world and its forgotten treasures and worth. I believe it is very important to bring the good thing from the past back to the today and break away from the faux and artificial like plastic, plastic, rubber, styrofoam, etc.. Recycling and salvaging materials is an important aspect that runs across the whole house. The previous times rule here at the Nautilus using a nautical soul, combining industrial remnants using traces of Victorian times, older world curiosities having an oriental flai, and a mad scientist’s lab with a puff of gypsy dust.
Jethaniel Peterka: A puff of mummy dust, instead… I want to live in a world teeming in older universe natural science: botany, zoology, novels, specimen, instruments and charts. My set of animal and botanical specimen are important parts of the decoration. They make me feel at home in a sort of previous life nostalgia. Create the world you wish to live in!
Yvette Endrijautzki: Or the planet will create you!
Paint, windows, and building materials: Habitat for Humanity
Louise Lakier
Swinging doors provide a solitude to the bedroom, allowing the light from the skylight to filter out in. The timber counter was found at Secondly Utilization.
Louise Lakier
The decorative metal screen and porthole window in the doorway allude to the interesting experience outside. The porthole was found at The Seattle Antique Market.
LL: What’s your proudest homeowner second?
JP: Installing a skylight that didn’t escape.
YE: The day we opened the doors to friends, family and people. (Georgetown Artwalk).
Louise Lakier
Creative and innovative transformations of space and storage are abundant during their house, beginning with the outside. On the front porch, a little table pops out for outdoor eating with seats.
Louise Lakier
The pair found the stove on Craigslist. The taps, windows, sinks, cabinetsand light fixtures and wood cut are from Secondly Utilization in Seattle.
LL: Where are your favorite places to look for your home?
JP: Little city antique shops and of course Secondly usage, but my eyes are always open for the free signs!
YE: Thrift stores, antique shops, Habitat for Humanity, Second Use and Earthwise but a lot of good things is to be found on Craigslist and eBay as well. But better than shopping: Do it !
A boat’s ladder leads up to Endrijautzki’s second-floor studio, which did not exist prior to the redesign. Peterka and Endrijautzki opened up the dividing wall to let the light flow in from the dining window.
Louise Lakier
The 1890s bar chairs in a breakfast corner come from Jules Maes Saloon. The table surface is an original resin creation, assembled and installed by Endrijautzki.
Louise Lakier
Another tile mosaic enlivens the kitchen wall behind the sink. The trim is a metal conveyer belt salvaged in the metal yard in Germany.
Louise Lakier
The living room is filled with artwork and antique furnishings. An opening in a wall encourages one to look through to find something new. A ladder encourages one to explore. Furniture from Goodwill, The Seattle Antique Market and Craigslist.
LL: If you could have four famous people over for dinner, you would invite:
JP: Though maybe not very famous per se: my painting teachers out of Loire Valley, France, Timothy Stotz, Michelle Tully, Anthony J. Ryder and Ted Seth Jacobs.
YE: Madame Blavatsky, Albert Einstein, Friedrich Nietzsche and Harry Houdini.
Louise Lakier
A shared studio occupies the attic space. Skylights and a new window attract in light, plants flourish amid the art materials.
LL: Where’s your favorite place or room in your home?
JP: From the studio in the attic in the late afternoon, when the older brewery is glowing with beautiful light from the sunset and my skylights are glowing gold with no leak!
YE: It really depends on the weather in my mind along with the weather outside. As Jethaniel says,”Light plays an important role!”
Louise Lakier
Gobi has his very own porthole into the outside. The mini porthole window and nautical gear are all finds from Second Wave.
Louise Lakier
The entrance hall features a gallery display. The Nautilus Studio hosts an open studio for your own Georgetown Artwalk once a month.
LL: Do you have a favorite designer or performer?
JP: Lloyd Kahn for his debut into primitive and alternative design across the world. My Dad for showing me amazing transformations from shacks to temples. Leonardo DaVinci for the inspiration for a real Renaissance man. The Vitruvian man is burnt in my mind.
YE: Gaudi for its stunning beauty and grace, the organic shapes as well as the intricacies. Keith Lo Bue for his wonderful, dreamlike imagination and the multi-use of unthinkable materials. Al Farrow for his architectural mind as well as the sociopolitical value. Gropius for being a pioneer of combining arts and crafts in design and architecture, and all the unknown architects of the past that have given us a foundation for our contemporary world ar(t)chitecture.
Louise Lakier
The bathroom comes with a lace-like mosaic that makes the sense of a personal bathing grotto. Peterka and Endrijautzki designed and created the installation with tiles salvaged out of a Dumpster. Tile work are available accenting walls and backsplashes throughout the house.
LL: What was your biggest design issue?
JP: The simple fact that we needed to revamp the bathroom plan, since the bathtub and bathroom needed to be elevated a foot to permit for proper drainage. Also, as inexperienced house designers, we forgot to consider ventilation in the rear of the house. It can get quite stuffy in the summertime! Another difficult problem was our reduced budget, which slowed the process down, working from paycheck to paycheck.
YE: I can’t think about that which was worse: the delay with the plumbing and not having any water for so long, or the area where we needed to climb in through a window before we had a doorway, to get in the house. Not to mention, I needed to take in my previous shepherd dog. Ahh… enjoyable memories! Another thing: This house is from the early 1900s, so try and find to construct something which’s level?
Louise Lakier
A tiny ship in a jar sits within a porthole in a bathroom cabinet. The installation changes from time to time.
Louise Lakier
A workspace occupies a sunroom on the first floor along a bank of windows. Here, one has the sense of inhabiting a scene for a still-life painting.
LL: what’s your ultimate dream house thing?
JP: A 19th-century cast-iron drafting table.
YE: A Swiss-style kitchen island with an actual fireplace.
Light accessories, accessories: Earthwise
Louise Lakier
A fish tank entangled in a fishing net sits on a low wall between the studio and the breakfast nook.
LL: What is your next home project?
JP: to construct our dream house and art studio in Hawaii from the bottom up, with chickens, goats and a tropical garden.
YE: Doing the same thing again but on a larger scale and more thought… My biggest dream is a studio/gallery space having an industrial ground aquarium, a fountain and a open peristyle court garden. And not to overlook the outdoor fire oven! Horses? Goats? Donkey?
Louise Lakier
The set built storage space to the staircase. Shoe cupboards lie underneath the wooden treads and fabric risers.
Louise Lakier
Brandon Bowman created the flame pit. Peterka and Endrijautzki did the plaster and tile work at the fountain. Relics and decorations came out of Earthwise.
Louise Lakier
The metal fence and gate in the entrance garden, complete with foldaway bar counter, were built by Ben Hornburg.
LL: Who or what inspires your personal style? What about your artwork?
JP: Personally I’m inspired by 19th-century labs, libraries and curiosity shops, as well as the artwork of the era, particularly Russian and French academic painting. Also, tall ships and the Pacific Islands are consistently a fascination with me. People and places, sketches and studies — there’s no lack of inspiration if you look around. A bow to Caravaggio and all the Italian masters of the Renaissance!
YE: My job is frequently the end result of findings and accumulated relics of a throwaway society with the objective of reuse, recycling or upcycling. Inspirations can come to me in mundane moments, like walking the train paths, a conversation, riding the bus or celebrating interactions. Steampunk is frequently a definition of what’s used by people describing my job (and same for Peterka’s) but we don’t subscribe to the steampunk cosmetic. We do our best to create and find our very own reality.
Louise Lakier
The gate handles and latch are secondhand tools and gears.
Louise Lakier
A portrait of the artists and curators for Nautilus Studio: Peterka and Endrijautzki, in Georgetown.
LL: What do you love most in your town or neighborhood?
JP: The older architecture, the gritty industrial cityscape and the arts community. Also Seattle is surrounded by stunning nature. Though we live in some kind of industrial wasteland, it’s not hard to escape gorgeous landscapes and oceanside coves.
YE: What I like about Georgetown is that it hasn’t yet been gentrified yet and still is distinct and raw. Additionally, it has a great deal of history! Seattle itself though is a contemporary city with major companies specifying the town where it is not easy to keep an artistic/alternative civilization alive.
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