Good morning Team,

I see many similarities to the Ratliff project from a few weeks ago. http://theslowhome.com/design-project/part-2-%E2%80%93-ratliff-residence-pennsylvania/

John – Is there a lot plan, rear garage to be more specific? That side entrance can certainly be enhanced if the space is available between properties. And of course MA has expensive areas such as Boston, so every square foot counts. It would be nice to take advantage of the yard, front and back as well.

James,
I am on my way to orientation camp for the first year architecture class this morning and don’t have time to get the site plan for you. However, I can describe it to you from memory. There are 4′side yards. The front yard is about 20′ and has a small wrought iron fence that extends out to the sidewalk. There is one semi-large deciduous tree just to the right of the front sidewalk, near the fence. The rear yard is about 45′ deep. There is a double garage at the back that takes up about 22′ of that. The rest of the garden is pretty open. The neighboring houses were all built at the same time and the front and rear facades all line up. My sense is that it would be difficult to expand into the side yard, at least on the ground floor, for this project.

I hope that helps. I will try to check in during the day but am in the mountains.

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Open the stair case, move the kitchen towards the middle of the home, reconfigure the bathroom to incorporate the fridge, and add a small broom closet at the side entry.

I’m giving serious thought to moving the powder room over to the north side and clustering closets, stairs and wc all on one side of the house. That opens up the opportunity to use roughly 2/3 of the house’s width as an unbroken, front-to-back line of sight. My concern is the difficulty of moving the plumbing over there — but since there appear to be stairs going down to a basement, I’m going to go ahead and assume that the plumbing can be moved/extended if necessary.

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Here is my first attempt. I reversed the bathroom fixtures and the door. Added some mill work to the living space and created a walk through with the mill work to add more division between the living and kitchen spaces.

Emily,
Welcome to the site. I think that you and your are dad are the first “intergenerational” members of slow home.

I like your idea of placing the millwork on the north wall of the living room. It is an effective way to make use of this part of the room without disrupting the major circulation route to the back garden.

Leo,
An interesting strategy with the combined closet along the kitchen. If properly detailed, it could be a very striking central element to the plan.

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John Brown – I’m excited to see Emily (11 yrs) jump in and submit a plan. Beats MSN and all the other STUFF.

On my first plan the hallway is mill work that drops the ceiling down just to add division between the two spaces. On the living side it is all mill work.

On my second submission above I reversed the kitchen and dining spaces with the living space. Having the deck and a nice sized rear yard handy I can see value in connecting this space to the back yard for personal pleasure and entertaining.

During both plans I was actually tempted to remove the bathroom altogether but considering age issues and entertaining I thought better of it.

It’s also interesting that one can go nuts with mill work. Whether a little or a lot there seems to be countless opportunities in each project.

Sorry, to explain further I’m assuming the ceiling height is a bit over the usual 8 feet and that there may be room to play around.

If you prefer the anti-skid-strobe-lighting-strange-rug, try this:
http://www.albrightknox.org/Past_Exhibitions/2008/steinkamp/index.html

Actually it was very exciting and I was the only one in the museum that day.

John – I agree with your concerns about my plan. I have trouble with the powder room location when the space is as small as this one.

I was in a philosophical mood today wondering why we build large kitchens. Even in this small space we always attempt to build the biggest kitchen possible. This encourages large weekly shopping trips rather than daily trips, contributes to excess food packaging for storage, etc… During the yesterdays exercise, I looked at many New York apartment renovations and was surprised by the small size of most kitchens even in what would be very expensive real estate. Anyway, food for thought…

I’ll make a small revision to my plan but the concept will still be the same…

I’m with you Cat. The kitchen is large because life seems to revolve around it. Bathrooms on the other hand are rooms that I tend to avoid if possible.

Having said that, Brad, your idea about excess storage in the kitchen has merit. My fridge is too big, so it ends up filled with food going bad. An architect acquaintance of mine once noticed that when he lived in an area in Europe where everyone had a small fridge and had to go shopping every day, it certainly made the village a much more interesting and social place. “Small fridges make good cities” was the catch phrase he came up with.

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Small revisions as promised. I am not happy with the powder room but I understand why it is desired.

Leo – That is exactly what I was getting at – small fridges make good cities – I like that. The other consideration is environmental impact.

Cat – I agree on the bathrooms.

Grace

was that ceiling what James Scott put on his first plan?

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Hello; just wanted to submit this old-school (hand drawn) solution for discussion. I attempted to keep the entire space open inside, though not much has been done to address the back yard yet. The 1/2 bath shifted across the space, while the kitchen bridges both the living and dining rooms for entertaining.

James – nice to have Emily on the site – I thought she did a great job! Your plan is not too bad either..

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Or I suppose conversely, flipping the living/dining room, with a little bit more wall cabinet space in the kitchen and a large dining room.

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I decided to try putting the powder room between the up and down staircases, which meant moving the down staircase back to where the old door and closet area was and turning it too. I know this is a major rebuild of stairs down, but I think the privacy gained is worth it. I lived in a duplex once that had this kind of powder room and it worked.

I liked the idea of opening up the entry more as yesterday’s case study home did, especially since this couple plan to have clients over to their home–the space would be more necessary then. This eventual use of their place also seemed to require a way to close off the “business” area of the kitchen so that it would not be so visible, so I’ve indicated a sliding french glass door across the dining end. I imagined some traditional elements in this older home, even though it will be more open now.

Grace – I’m going to send that link to some of my distributors. Great way to deal with old samples.

Regarding Emily’s submission, we did discuss the hallway, a bit tight it was decided. As well as opening up the kitchen to keep the light flowing through the space. I know she would admire some of your feedback on her plan as well.

Emily,
I’m impressed with your interest and ability in doing floorplans at 11! Hope you become a regular like your dad.

Yes, Emily, your work is very impressive. I say that as one who, for the time being anyway, has given up on paintbrush. Good for you!