Really Custom- photos from various projects

Mexican Tile and Wood Stove w/ Bread Baking compartment
in a Farmhouse Kitchen Addition to an Older Home

It's fun to be an architect, or hire an architect, and work on a design that creates something unique and personal as a result. It's part of why I enjoy being a residential architect. You can find out what the client really wishes they had in their home and build exactly that- a wine cellar? a wood stove to bake bread in? a library for a collection of books? a kitchen from which you can watch the game while cooking? I often urge my clients to dream of what they want from their home and not worry too much about how we get there. Use colors, styles, and materials that you will be happy looking at- for some that is clean and serene with a lot of white and cool colors, others keep wood accents natural and unpainted. And still others enjoy whimsy with bold and bright checkerboard patterns and unique tiles.

Red Tile, Wood Beams and Kitchen open to Living Room

Bold Colors and Patterns in this Home Office

Understated Custom Tiled "Tree of Life" Back-splash over cook-top

Colorful Tiled Back-splash

A Bench and Cubbies in the Entry

Panels built to match cabinetry hide appliances for a very clean look (not painted yet)

I like to incorporate features into the design that will make life easier and work for the way my clients live - a bench, wall hooks & cubbies near the entry or a room with a dutch door to contain the dogs. I also like to problem-solve to use space and materials efficiently - like when I tucked a little shower seat into a nook created when an addition was built around an existing fireplace or when a sink was tucked into an artist's closet rather than using up the corner of a room. No room to call a library? How about shelves at the top of the stairs? An easy place to personalize is a tiled design over the stove.

Book shelves create a Library in the Hall

Artist's sink hidden in closet of Painting Studio

Dog Room has Dutch Door, Doggie Stair up to
Doggie Door leading to outdoor Fenced Kennel

Shower Bench tucked into an extra bit of space

Sometime we want to highlight a beautiful piece of art or re-purpose a found object into art- I encourage this, as long as we are not using old single-pane glass in our new building envelope. (Always use insulated doors and windows that exceed energy code! Reusing old windows or doors is NOT being green - but that is another post...)

One client had a stained glass window we placed among bookcases between the library and entry and back lite for a marvelous connection between rooms. Another had antique heavy wood doors that were re-used as a laundry room and panty door. Objects and antiques as art can be placed in your home for you to admire each day.

Art House- from left Stained glass window set in bookcases,
Iron gates mounted and lite on far wall at end of long view,
Large-format tiled wall wraps around side of refrigerator

Closer view of the Iron Gates as art - and Antique Columns used to partition the Room

Sometimes custom can be more expensive, but not always! So go for it next time you renovate or paint! Be brave! Chose a funky tile or different light fixture or an antique piece of furniture. Plan for a built-in so you can put stuff where you need it and save space. Add a root cellar or a greenhouse or even just window boxes, if you are a gardener. Put wood on the ceiling instead of the floor. If you want to bake bread, get an awesome oven and use cool tiles to accent it. Find an antique barn door or column or metal hinge that you love and re-purpose it inside. Make your space personal & beautiful so it brings you joy and ease in your daily life!

Antique Dry Sink re-purposed as Vanity Cabinet

Painted Kitchen Cabinets and Built-in Bench under Window

Built-in shelves in a Mud Room Entry

Wood and Not Wood

I am a residential architect, so my projects are built mostly out of wood. For example, we don't tend to frame houses with metal studs or build house walls out of masonry (brick or stone) -at least in my area. Some parts of a house that have traditionally been made from wood are now being built from non-wood materials (that look like -or try to look like- wood). Sometimes the material swap is for reasons of durability or sustainability. Sometimes it's to make construction easier or to reduce future maintenance. Sometimes using non-wood is a necessity, as in when wood is not strong enough for supporting open spaces and long spans or a village or city has a fire code.

Here are some photos from various projects illustrating this point.

Decks are a common place that, in today's home construction, wood has been replaced with various composite materials with success. This Trex composite material has integral color, concealed fasteners, recycled content, and is virtually maintenance free and easy to install. Being on the southern side of the house, it will have to deal with a lot of UV, so using non- wood makes sense. It makes sense on the shady side too, since nobody likes mildew on their deck. And it makes sense in a home that folks want to grow old in and hope to reduce the work they need to do to keep things in good shape.

Clapboards and other siding materials that were traditionally made from wood boards are often now made of cement on many, but not all, of my projects. Cementitious siding, such as those made by James Hardi, is durable, fire-resistant, rot/mold resistant, and installs similarly to wood siding. In addition it can be ordered with a factory-applied baked-on finish in your color of choice. That finish should last for many, many years longer than paint lasts on wood. Like the Trex decking material, it can still look traditional and carpenters can use the same tools and some of the same installation methods they are familiar with for installing Hardi siding.

High-Tech Material that can look quite traditional

Installing Hardi Siding is just like installing wood siding

Wood is still the primary material I specify for framing. (unless the loads are too large, and steel must be used for its superior strength) In addition to various grades and species of 2x material at the lumberyards, we also have choices like engineered lumber, which is super strong compared to simple sawn lumber. It's made in a factory from pieces of wood and glue and also comes in many grades and looks, like beams and I joists.

Most of the House Framing is 2x sawn lumber

At the NHND to the Mountains, I had to use a steel beams to hold up both the second floor over an open kitchen/dining space and the roof over an open wide dormer. The steel I beam is nothing nice to look at, and super heavy to install. Holes come in it so wood can be bolted to it so that we can attach finish wood trim or sheet rock to box it in and cover it up. (it becomes invisible!)

Hidden Steel Beam holds up roof (top left corner of pic)

At the NHND to the Pond, we have some "ugly" and some "pretty" wood beams carrying loads that regular sawn lumber couldn't handle. Wood beams can be covered up with other finish materials (like the wall studs and roof rafters are covered with sheet-rock inside or trim boards outside) If they will be covered, I use LVLs - which are strong and readily available, but not so pretty; they look like a stack of plywood. I can also use ugly metal fasteners, if I know they will be concealed from view.

Hidden LVL beam supported w/ metal joist hangers
 is above ceiling line and will be covered by ceiling

But sometimes, we want wood beams to be exposed and become an architectural feature in the space, not just a hidden item holding things up. That is the case in the open Living Room and Kitchen area. Like many houses being built today, the floor plan is open front to back, and a long beam was needed to hold up the floor above. Rather than use an LVL and cover it, I specified an "architectural grade" or "appearance grade" glulam beam. It is beautiful and strong, and we can sand it, leave it exposed, and wipe a varnish finish on it for protection. It, along with the wood staircase and wood windows in the corner of the Living Room, will contribute to the homey feel of the space.

Exposed Glulam wood beam supports floor above and creates
a distinction between LR & Kitchen in open plan

Exposed Glulam wood beam supports roof-
(R&L This is NOT your house :)

Wood Beam above Metal Frames for Double Pocket Doors

Another place that we find metal instead of wood in my projects is pocket door frames. I like using pocket doors, and this house has 5 or so. They don't use up space the way a swing door does, so, like built-ins, they are worth having when you are designing small. And in the case of a wide pair like we have between Kitchen and Office, they can enable the floor plan to have flexibility so that rooms feel wide open to each other if you want or they can be private when you need. They are also great in toilet compartments or for openings that may rarely get closed, like the mud room/hallway connections.

Part 2: Modern Addition and Renovation to Classic Village Ranch- AFTER

To read Part 1 of this Post (and see the BEFORE photos and demolition floor plan) click on this link:
http://cwb-architect.blogspot.com/2016/09/modern-addition-and-renovation-to.html

To solve some of the issues and meet the needs of the current family living here, I designed a  17' x 32' single floor addition on the northeast side of the house. I set it 29' back from the front wall of the current house, so the front room would have more privacy from the street, and so the new master bedroom could have a door leading to the existing back deck. In addition, this "recessed" placement allowed for a new side entry door that one day can lead to a detached garage or carport in the right side yard. (A covered place for parking the car was part of the original design and a reason they hired me, but the owners decided not to build it at this time)

Larger windows toward the back (see new A/C heat pump)

New Addition w/ vertical dark gray siding and Ebony Windows

Since the exterior of the house (built in stages) was already a variety of different materials and not really matching, I decided it would be fun for the exterior form, color, and materials of the addition to be different as well and more contemporary. Instead of a more traditional gable roof, I designed the new roof to be a low-pitch shed that lays atop a side of the existing gable roof on the back. I used a dark color (to further recede) of vertical "board and batten" style siding and windows clad in black to add to the modern aesthetic.

New Addition - Back View

The new space has two bedrooms and 3 large walk-in closets. (A lack of adequate storage space is a typical issue with older homes.) The ceiling in the new rooms soar upward to follow the slope of the roof-line. (Changing ceiling height is a great way to vary space - especially here in a ranch home where all spaces had the same flat ceiling height.) High, square windows dot along the front elevation, with larger windows on the more private side and back of the house. A a glass door with a transom window above is located in the highest wall at the back of the master bedroom to connect to the deck. An exposed engineered wood beam supports the long roof rafters above that door at 10' above the floor, adding some interest.

Master Bedroom w/ exposed beam, vaulted ceiling, & door to deck

Part of the existing interior area of the home was demolished and renovated. The large wheel-chair accessible bathroom (14.5' x 12.5') and small bedroom closet were removed and all that space was incorporated into the back room, which will be used as a family room. With that room getting so much bigger, I could cut off the north corner of it and make that space into a new beautiful bathroom for the 2 new bedrooms to share.

Family Room (same glass door to same deck as in before pics - but room is a different shape

The existing front room (that at one point was a garage) changed use to become a home office with a large storage closet for files. The out-dated small bathroom behind that room became a new half-bath (and got a window) off the family room space and near the new side entry. A coat closet and relocated laundry is tucked behind a pocket door off a new connecting service hall helping the flow of how one can get from one space to another. In my designs I work to layout hallways and doorways to make interior views that line up with windows for views and light. This makes spaces feel larger and more inviting. This project shows that adding just a little space, but re-configuring it to work better, can make a big difference in a small home.

Laundry -moved to service hall

Entry Hall- more open & uncluttered

New window in powder room adds light

 

New "service" hall connects front to back

Master Bedroom door to deck in high wall- transom above adds light and a unique feature

View down hall from new Master Bedroom aligns with square window facing the street

Modern Addition and Renovation to Classic Village Ranch- BEFORE

This project is located in a small village neighborhood. The existing home is a quality older ranch (all rooms on ground/same level) that has a stucco finish on it's exterior and nice wood floors, arched openings, and brick fireplace on the interior. What was originally a front loading garage space had been incorporated into a finished room and a bathroom at some point. Then, in the 1980s or 90s an addition was made to the back of the garage part of the structure to enable a wheelchair-bound person to live there. A large bedroom, ramp entrance, wide doorways, and handicapped-accessible bathroom fixtures were part of that project. This addition matches the light grey exterior color of the rest of the house, but has clapboards rather than stucco as the exterior material.

All the changes made over time to this older ranch weren't as well thought out as they could be, plus the new owners wanted some additional space and didn't love the institutional look of the master bathroom and didn't need a bathroom that used up so much space. I took measurements and started designing some different layouts to reconfigure the existing space and add on again to gain some new space and organize the layout/function of rooms better.

BEFORE PIC Existing View- Front

BEFORE PIC Existing View- Back (left side gable addition & deck was added in late 20th century)

BEFORE PIC Area with single window to right of red door used to be a garage

BEFORE PIC - Inside the room that was a garage looking toward street

BEFORE PIC- Handicap Accessible Bathroom felt institutional

BEFORE PIC- Entry Hall had laundry and many different doors making it feel cluttered

BEFORE PIC- Room added to the back doubled as family room and master bedroom

BEFORE PIC- Looking toward closed-off/outdated bathroom in back of original garage (a window was probably there when it was a garage and before the 1990s addition covered it over)

 Partial Demolition Plan- shows former garage door on street side

The partial demolition plan above shows the side of the house that the work will focus on. In the front you see the room that was once was a garage and was currently being used as a child's bedroom. The original ranch (floor plan is cut off, but toward the left you see the kitchen in the front and an office in the back) does have 3 small bedrooms and a hall bathroom. Those bedrooms were being used as an office/studio for each adult and a guest bedroom. Behind that garage-turned-bedroom was a small windowless bathroom that was in poor repair. Toward the back of the entry hall was a bit of a jumble of doors and the appliances for the laundry jutted out of their closet - making for a cluttered space to walk-through. Behind this is the addition that was built for the person in the wheelchair. The bedroom and bathroom are very large for that reason, but for the current occupants those rooms felt awkward and wasted  a lot of space. The family living there didn't need 3 full baths, and did want a family room/flexible space for older visiting children, a larger office for working from home, and 2 bedrooms near enough to each other for their youngest child, but still with some separation from the rest of the house, the guest and working spaces, and the street.

In my next post, I'll show you the renovation and addition I designed to solve all these issues and how it all turned out... stay tuned!

NHND to the Pond - A Sheltering (& High-Tech!) Roof

In the book "A Pattern Language" the authors state that there are "patterns" that can be used to design a town or a home. They really take the language of house design away from square-footage and number of bedrooms and instead refer to big picture, not-quantifiable ideas like:

• Sheltering Roof
• Car Connection
• Entrance Transition
• Indoor Sunlight
• The Flow Through Rooms
• Dormer Windows

There are 253 "Patterns" in the book- and I am sure I will write future posts about some of the other patterns I tend to use... But today we will focus of the "Sheltering Roof" -Pattern #117- because the New House Next Door to the Pond offers us a really good example.

A roof is the iconic symbol for shelter- as in the phrase "a roof over one's head". Some of the most primitive shelters are only a roof- and Christopher Alexander and his co-authors had some serious thoughts about our building's roofs and all they must do: (the following list is directly from the book)

1. The space under a roof must be useful space, space that people come in contact with daily. The whole feeling of shelter comes from the fact that the roof surrounds people at the same time that is covers them.
2. Seen from afar, the roof of the building must be made to form a massive part of the building. When you see the building, you see the roof. This is perhaps the most dramatic feature of a strong, sheltering roof.
3. And a sheltering roof must be placed so that one can touch it. If it is pitched or vaulted, some part of the roof must come down low to the ground, just in a place where there is a path, so that it becomes a natural thing to touch the roof edge as you pass it.

There is even a 1914 John Burroughs quote (really!) placed in the text after item #2 with nostalgic ruminations about roofs- such as the "charm to the eye of the old-fashioned country barn with it's immense roof"... "it's amplitude suggesting a bounty that warms the heart". And how those barns "covered their inmates as a hen covereth her brood".

WOW! How can you not be inspired to design an awesome, sheltering roof after reading that?!

Front of the House

Back of the House

When designing a house, addition, or outbuilding, my thoughts often start with possible roof forms. For the New House Next Door to the Pond, my clients knew they wanted a sustainable house, a metal roof, porches, and that they wanted most of the living spaces located on the first floor, with only the kid's bedrooms upstairs. These ideas lent very nicely to the house having a 'sheltering roof'.

Touch a roof as you walk out of the kitchen door? perhaps...

1. The space under the main roof is useful space - it is bedrooms and a bathroom. In the case of the master bedroom and the screen/sun porch, the ceiling is vaulted so that the space under that roof increases the volume of the space, creating a feeling of being surrounded by the roof.
2. Seen from afar, the roof is a very prominent feature because of it's covering of the second floor with dormers poking out. Using metal as the roofing material will also call attention to it and make a dramatic, strong visual statement. 
3. Now... touching it from the ground... maybe... my clients are quite tall and athletic. :) And we do have some awesome thick eaves and bracketed overhangs over some doors. Building codes do require a minimum headroom height, and I don't know if physically touching the roof inside or out is likely, but figuratively, this roof and the sloped ceilings in many of the spaces will call attention to themselves in a way that another less sheltering roof (or flat ceilings) would not.

Sheltering roof over a door

In addition, the NHND to the Pond has a super well- insulated building envelope- and the sheltering roof is part of that envelope. The roof eaves (white edges) may look thick to you, and that's because they are; this roof is covered with 4" of continuous rigid foam. (Exterior walls have 1" C.I.) Click HERE to go to a former post to learn about continuous insulation, and if you want to use it in a project, be sure to have someone knowledgeable work on dew point calculations for your climate zone. CI means that there is not just insulation between framing members, like typical construction. You've see photos of framing here on this blog - there is a lot of wood, and everywhere there is wood, there would be no (cavity) insulation. (And yes, wood does have an R-value - about R-1 per inch- but that is a pretty negligible number and more importantly the studs provide a "thermal bridge" conducting and transferring heat and cold from inside to outside and vise versa)

We used pre-fabricated Hunter Cool-Vent panels on this project. They were installed atop the roof sheathing and the metal roof will then go atop of it. (after some other high-tech barriers and membranes that you see covering the roofs in the photos) A one inch air space above the insulation vents the underside of the metal roofing, keeping it cool to prevent expansion and contraction. This house will be quiet, warm in winter and cool in summer, have low energy bills and very little air infiltration. (Yes, it needs mechanical ventilation) With rooms in the roof, this system is extremely valuable at keeping those second floor spaces comfortable.

So the roof is doing many jobs both practical and aesthetic - and maybe even a little psychological as well. It is a high-tech, advanced performance system with the appeal of traditional forms and materials that does the important job of meeting our most basic human need for shelter. It evokes protection and contributes as a prominent design feature of the building while enclosing useful spaces that surround those who live there. It creates one of the most important layers of insulation between inside and outside, and, of course, it will keep out the rain & snow, too.