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Part 1 – Donnely Fitzgerald Residence
April 28th, 2009  |  10 Comments

Part 1 – Donnely Fitzgerald Residence, Colorado (PDF) | Part 1 – Donnely Fitzgerald Residence, Colorado (JPEG)

  • Eric

    Interesting challenge. Odd that the kitchen is as enclosed as it is. Definitely needs to be opened up or moved. Perhaps closer to the back entrance.

  • Uno

    I am very curious about this house. The stair seems to be in an odd location. It seems to me that the living room should be beside the stair. In that case I would try to put the kitchen at the far end of the house in the old living room area.

  • Brad W

    Tough to limit changes. New kitchen moved in order to add bathroom and closet to master bedroom. Add skylight in new master bath. Added alternate entry into family bathroom from second bedroom. Added closet at side door. Resized large third bedroom to make room for kitchen and add fireplace and storage for living room. A tough project – very interested to see what you come up with John.

    [img]shdp10-4.JPG[/img]

  • Belle, Toronto

    John I know that it is not what you asked for, but I have to ask the question “why was building a guest suite in the basement not an option in this case?” It would give both the family and the mother some privacy and would allow one of the back bedrooms to become a den with a walk-out to the deck.

  • James Scott

    That’s a great point Belle. There must be a lot of geographical and possibly cultural or aesthetic reasons why some homes built in recent years have no basements at all or that they tend to not be considered viable living space. In southern Ontario it’s almost assumed that the basement would one day be finished.

    In this example if the basement was properly designed the living space could be almost doubled and this home would change dramatically.

  • Robert Bierma

    here is something i doodled up while in class today. the rooms might go 1 and 2 master bed and bath. then 3 and 4 bedrooms. finally 5 as the second bath.

    [img]slowhome.mix[/img]

  • Robert Bierma

    here we go :)

    [img]slowhome.jpg[/img][img]1_slowhome.jpg[/img]

  • John Brown

    Brad,
    I agree this is a tough problem, but you have come up with a nice plan.

    I particularly like the ensuite option in the main bath for the mother in law’s bedroom. The one issue with this strategy is that this is the smallest of the bedrooms. I also wonder about how nice it would be to have the front door open directly onto the side of the kitchen counter.

  • John Brown

    Belle,
    That is a very astute question and certainly the first one I would ask a client who has come to me with that sort of need and this size of house.

    The short answer is access. The mother in law has limited mobility and needs to be on the main floor. That is also why they didn’t purchase a two storey house.

  • John Brown

    Robert,
    Thank you for posting the first hand drawn sketch on the site! It is a great example of how to work on an idea in graphic form.

    I like the idea of the family bath in the old closet space. I also really admire the valiant attempt to get some sort of public access out to the back yard.

    My question is the quality of the experience of walking down the hallway to the back door and whether the cost of having to locate the kitchen so that you have to walk through it to get to the living areas is too great.

    P.S. – I hope you weren’t too distracted from whatever class you are taking!

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