1970’s Townhouse Remodel

Posted on: September 14th, 2010 | 18 Comments

For those of you who were unable to watch the LIVE workshop, click on the player below to see the entire broadcast.

Today is Tuesday, September 14, 2010 and at 6pm Mountain time (5pm Pacific and 8pm Eastern) we are doing a LIVE design workshop that we want you to participate in!

Today’s workshop is a remodel of a 1970′s townhouse in Calgary. This project was completed by Housebrand a few years ago and we are excited to share the design process and some before and after photos with you.

We would also like to see how you have designed this space, so we are including all of the plan materials for you to work on the project and submit your design ideas by posting them to the site.

The clients are a soon to be retired couple that are downsizing from their 3,000 sq foot house into this much smaller 2,000 sq foot, 2 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom townhouse. We are going to be working on the main floor today.

As you can see from the before photos, the kitchen is completely closed off from the rest of the house and is very dark with only a small pass through.


The fireplace is on an awkward 45 degree angle and really disrupts the furniture layout and dominates the room.


The town house is a split level and therefore there is a handrail between the dining room and the living room, that currently has some really terrible spindles.

Click on the link below to look at the main floor plan before the renovation. There are some major problems that need to be addressed:

1. The entry is really a dark hallway.
2. The kitchen is a closed off room.
3. The “den” is more like a bedroom and is not furnished very well and has no connection to the rest of the space.
4. The dining room is awkwardly furnished and does not fit a party of 6 – 8.
5. The corner fireplace in the living room shifts the focus of the room to the side and disrupts furniture placement.

We need you to re-design this space and improve all the of the elements listed above. The clients have specifically requested a space on the main floor where the husband can watch sports on TV that can be closed off from the other living spaces (for noise control) as required. Can you come up with a solution for this?

1970′s Townhouse Remodel – PDF
1970's Townhouse Remodel – Existing
1970's Townhouse Remodel – Demo
1970's Townhouse Remodel – Full Symbol Library

Post your schemes to the site and let’s have a discussion. Then, join John and Matthew tonight at 6pm Mountain time for our 30 minute LIVE design workshop where we will demonstrating our solution, showing you the after photos and taking your questions!

  • Ugur G.

    [img]1_shs11ugur02.jpg[/img]

    i hope, the clients dont’t insist to have a fireplace :)

  • Matthew North

    Ugur G. – thanks for posting! Just in time for our LIVE session that is starting in about 20 minutes!

  • Terri

    [img]calgaryth.jpg[/img][img]1_calgaryth.jpg[/img]

    Ugur G, Glad to see I’m not the only one who took a crack at this plan! I found the kitchen to be an awkward space to redo and the living room quite straightforward (as long as the fp can be moved).

    The den has a glass door to allow some light transfer when shut. The entry closet has been turned to allow light from the window by the main door to permit light deeper into the entry space. The shelves that separate the dining and living would match the millwork of the kitchen cupboards.

  • Terri

    Ooops. Sorry about the duplicate. I might also say that those shelves are three feet high on the dining side.

  • Matthew North

    Yeah Terri! Anyone else?

  • Matthew North

    Don’t be shy now!

  • Ugur G.

    thanks for the live session!
    its very interesting and informative to see the similarities and differences between usa and europe…

  • Mid America Mom

    [img]9.14reno.jpg[/img]

    I know late! I thought 8 Central :(

  • Matthew North

    MAM – great scheme! Interesting that you had the same spatial organization as Ugur G. but you put in a peninsula kitchen to address the relationship between the kitchen and dining. We missed you in the workshop tonight!

  • Matthew North

    Hello All Slow Homers! We had a great LIVE workshop tonight – we still have a couple of hiccups to work out with the broadcasting, but we are almost there! We had great comments and questions and were very happy to see many “new” login names! For those of you who could not watch us live, we will posting the entire broadcast tomorrow morning. We are also really excited about the Saturday session where we will be working on an actual project in Toronto. We will be posting the before plans and project brief on Friday and would like to see how many design schemes we get before our LIVE broadcast on Saturday at 10am Pacific. 1pm Eastern! If you have not logged in to watch a LIVE workshop yet, the next one is tomorrow at 2pm Pacific/ 5pm Eastern. See you then!

  • Mid America Mom

    Thank You Matthew. I channeled John in my head with the double galley.

    *******
    Ugur Great posting and dedication with staying up late!

    Another note on TIME DIFFERENCE for those in Europe and how about some of those Aussie’s -enjoying Spring?

    For those who are not on the North American Continent … Calgary is UTC (universal Time, Coordinated) / GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) minus 6 hours . This and other time/clock information can be found at timeanddate.com

    Mid America Mom

  • BradW

    During last nights live session Safari on my Apple crashed and now I can no longer load the SlowHome site with Safari. It hangs and I have to force quit the app. Anyone else have this problem? Any ideas?

  • John Brown

    BradW,
    Thanks for heads up about this. I will have Eric, our webmaster investigate this and get back to you.

  • Paul C

    Just watched the taped replay and for the second go at “live” I thought it was excellent. I particularly liked the ability to delve deeper into those little architectural details.

    I think that is another key element to consider when comparing fast homes to slow homes. It is those subtle details and moreover the fact they are subtle that sets them apart. Fast homes tend to/or maybe even want to hit you in the face with the “features”, the BIG tubs, the voluminous spaces etc .etc. which can almost create an agitated sense or feeling, almost akin to a carnival ride whereas slow seeks to create a space which has a more calming effect.

    “Lawn care equipment knobs”…. too funny.

  • Terri

    I really enjoyed the live analysis last night. Matthew, you did an excellent job with keeping up with the questions we raised. All those little details made all the difference with this renovation (as with any renovation, as Paul C says). It would be nice to have the time to learn even more about such details, like when you drew a sketch of the detail for that fireplace reveal. Great stuff!

  • Jim G

    I watched the replay of the Tuesday design project and thought it was excellent.
    - I liked the interplay between John and Matthew.
    - The explanation of construction details, such as the fireplace surround, the use of the floor-to-ceiling window in the kitchen, the appliance garage.
    - I liked the money saving tips: the materials used for the fireplace, the range hood etc.
    - Guys tools are supposed to have big nobs. Lawn care equipment, especially leaf blowers, should be big and loud, like the scream of a plane taking off.

    Jim G

  • Anonymous

    For those who may have had Safari issues during last night’s broadcast, I reinstalled Safari 5.0.2 and all is well (for now). My Mac configuration is OS X 10.6.4, Safari 5.0.2 and Flash 10.1.

  • BradW

    Yeah last one was from me…