Cottage Tudor

Approaching 100 years old, this old house in a historic neighborhood was ready for a refresh.  The original floor plan, designed before kitchens were the center of daily life, lacked a proper mudroom, connection the backyard and enough cooking space for entertaining in the kitchen.  An addition on three levels, seamlessly extending the house into the backyard, transformed the old galley kitchen into a mudroom/back entry, added a new kitchen space with adjacent library/lounge, a primary suite on the upper level and workout room and bath on the lower.  Care was taken to match the details of the original house – window style, stucco and plaster, materials and scale to give it the feeling that it had always been there.  New arched openings, matching the profile of the originals in the house, align the original wood burning fireplace in the living room on axis through the dining room, library/lounge and out the French doors to a deck and trellis in the back garden.  Thin red oak was spliced into the original flooring and refinished to seamlessly extend the flow into the new spaces.  Well-crafted exterior stucco patterns and interior plaster textures eliminate the line between old and new.  Ceiling details, crown moldings and cabinetry details, borrowed from the old parts of the house and replicated in the new spaces.  And appliances, doors, fixtures, cabinets and hardware were refurbished and reused where possible to make the project more sustainable, affordable and authentic.  The resulting renovated project still feels at home amongst its 1920’s neighbors and is ready for the next century.