On the Boards: Bringing a Classic Craftsman Up To Date

I started a new project this week that I think is pretty exciting. The house is on a beautiful street of classic old houses of all styles, ranging from Georgian mansions to quaint bungalows.
The existing house is a brick Craftsman style, though much of the exterior detail has been stripped away over the years. Inside, the house has been largely unmolested, which is rare! The kitchen and bath have been updated, and a bad addition housing a laundry room and a porch have been tacked onto the side, but otherwise, the interior is vintage.

The client's wishlist is a very common one: a proper master suite, a bigger, more open kitchen, and generally more open, brighter interior.

Take a look at the original floor plan:

The house is blessed with a large great room and dining room at the front of the house. Original archways and woodwork provide a lot of charm. Three good-sized bedrooms lack closet space and are forced to share a single small bathroom at the rear of the house, and the small kitchen is made even more congested with four doorways coming in from all sides. Fortunately, the house sits on a large lot, so there was plenty of room to expand.

Here's the after:

At the rear, we're adding 15' across the whole rear of the house, giving room for a comfortably sized master bedroom, dual walk-in closets, and a large bathroom. A new carport, with stepped brick columns that mirror the originals at the screened porch, gives covered parking for the family's cars, and connects back to the house with a breezeway that ends at a new mudroom. The kitchen is completely remade. The original breakfast nook, though charming, was unused and far too small. By combining the two spaces, we get a much more user friendly kitchen and a ton more counterspace. We plan to echo the original archways and open the new kitchen up to the dining room. Stairs leading upstairs are opened up to the hallway and dining room, making the space above feel like part of the house rather than just an attic. The owners had requested a small sitting area off of the new kitchen if possible. We gave them that by taking one of the original bedrooms and reusing it as a keeping room (a portion of that space also now provides closet space for one of the other original bedrooms.)

We'll be sharing photos of this project as it moves forward, so stay tuned!

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