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| This is the view from the
street of a charming little bungalow in the suburbs of Chicago. My
clients had lived there, and raised a family, for years, and as new
grandparents decided that they wanted to have more room to entertain their
children and grandchildren without compromising the cozy and unpretentious
qualities that had made it such a wonderful family home in the first
place. The structure on the right of the photo was, I believe,
originally a porch that had been enclosed many years earlier. All
eyes fell on this space as having the most potential for creative re-use,
but in the end the decision was that it was too small for what they had in
mind. There was no
way to fix it, so we had to tear it down and rebuild something that we
wanted to appear as if it had been a part of the original house.
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One of the many challenges was
to keep the addition in scale with the main part of the house, meaning
smaller than the core, so it would read logically as original rather than
new. We also had to avoid a common pitfall when people put additions
on to existing houses, namely re-creating functions or types of spaces
that already exist. My client desperately wanted a fireplace in this
new interior, but there already was one in the original living room.
It did not quite come to blows, but we were not on the best of terms for a
week or so as I slowly convinced her that we should restore the original
fireplace and not put a new one in the addition. I wanted to
reconceive the entire floor plan as a single, integrated unit, so that it
blended both stylistically and functionally with the original in terms of
spatial flow and use of the spaces. |
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This is a view of the interior of the
enclosed porch before we began work. There are several things to be
learned from this photograph, the first being that the space was
physically too narrow to accomplish what the clients wanted. This is
no space for two grandsons to run around in! The second thing is
that they were trying to cram their entire lives into this one space,
thereby relegating the rest of the house to the role of a giant
pass-through. It wasn't working comfortably for any of the things
they were trying to do here: watch tv, read books, or eat their
meals. By spreading some of these functions back into the original
house, and keeping the use of the new space, while bigger, to as few
different uses as possible, we were able to make a small addition seem
much larger.
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Here is more-or-less the same view of the
finished addition. Originally, the dining room was on the other side
of the house, opposite the front door, but moving it here made more sense
in terms of the overall flow of old into new spaces. It also allowed
for the design of specific compositions if you will, to accommodate
specific pieces of furniture. The window arrangement surrounding the
Limbert cabinet was created specifically for this piece, and is centered
on the double French doors that open from the original living room. Paint with sand additive was used on
the walls and ceilings to give it a soft, beautiful visual texture.
New baseboard, trim and ceiling moldings were copied exactly from the
original part of the house, and new windows were stained to match.
Every attempt was made to blend the new seamlessly with the old, and
indeed when you are in the space it is hard to tell that this is all new construction.
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| This is a view of the other
end of the addition. My client is an avid and talented gardener, and
so the window facing the garden was made as large as possible so as to
afford a great view of the back yard. The broad arch that visually
creates the two areas of the addition, the dining room and the family
room, was inspired by a similar detail elsewhere in the house. |
The husband was worried that
there would not be enough light in the new space, so we added a small bay,
which again mimics a similar bay on the old part of the house, and put in
a small breakfast / game / homework table and chairs. It creates a beautiful
sense of openness and light but added very little to the overall cost of
the project. |
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| One of the reasons that no one
really liked sitting in the original living room was it was dark and
frankly a little depressing. The heavy paneling and black-painted
fireplace surround did not help matters any. When I first visited I knew
something was not right with this whole situation, and suggested that we
at least take the paneling down as a start. |
Upon removing the paneling. we
discovered a fantastic original chimneybreast and the remains of two
flanking bookcases, hidden for more than twenty years! Obviously the
painted brick was not original, but most of what we needed to recreate the
whole composition, or at least clues to what it used to be, was there. |
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| Here is a view of the finished
fireplace with bookcases. We were able to locate old bricks from a
salvage source that matched exactly in order to rebuild the mantle, and I
had my cabinet maker build the bookcases to exactly copy what was
there. It is now a fabulous, inviting and much-used space. |
This is a view towards
the entry hall and stairs. While small, the house does not feel
cramped because of the generous openings between the spaces.
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| This is a view from the entry
hall showing the original doorway into the enclosed porch before work
began. The living room had basically become a passageway to the
porch, and was little used on a day-to-day basis. |
This is the same view after we
finished. The opening into the addition was widened considerably to
give a more easy sense of flow, and to parallel the other doorways
elsewhere. Having the living room and dining room connect directly
made much better sense than what had existed previously, and,
paradoxically, reducing the amount of seating in the living room
encouraged my clients to use it more - it was more inviting and better
suited to how, and when, they most used it. |
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| The original dining room
became a wonderful guest room and full bath. We kept the
"sunroom" feel of the space by using wicker and cane furniture,
and a great chandelier that we have made for us that is a copy of a Gustav
Stickley design. |
Here is a view of the small
but functional bath. The fixtures and fittings are from Kohler and
Restoration Hardware, but still look perfectly period and correct. |
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