With the other guys, you can get the house they sold you. With us, you can get the house you know you paid for. Before The Architect
INTRODUCTION
This house remodel design plan unfolded in three phases -
Phase 1 - Can you really open up L1?
Phase 2 - Can you really get two beds and two baths over only the backside of the house on L2?
Phase 3 - Can you do something distinctive and attractive with the Front Of House (big river view straight ahead) facade?
Comment: Buyer beware.
The Pawtuxet riverbank substrates beneath the house are soft. It's that way all through the neighborhood. The physical concern is that there'll be a moment when more weight on the foundation's footing will sink it some, which is not devoutly to be wished.
The oldest part of this house is forward, has an old foundation which is judged inadequate to hold its place with more compression force on it, and it will not be burdened anymore in this designing. The backside - about half the central footprint - is newer.
Will it hold its place with a 2nd story?
Ask an engineer.
But do not ask an engineer who runs a construction business.
Ask an engineer or two who have no dog in this hunt. Took almost no time for engineers with construction businesses to come up with humongous construction projects for humongous bills to keep the house steady as she goes. OK, it took 2 passes and about 6 months total, waiting for engineers without construction businesses to green-light the project. But no humongo construction. But no humongo bills to pay.
PHASE 1
For starters, this was that which we had to begin our work
"Before" Before The Architect, Front Of House
L1 way back when was -
A shack of sorts, then
A small summer cottage, then
A larger year-round cottage, and then
It was ours.
While there are peripheral areas of some interest on L1
The primary focus was on a core of spaces at the back shank of the L-shape
On the left from front to back –
Open deck,
Bed #1 with half-bath
On the right from front to back
Screened porch
Living
Dining to left of Bed #2 with full bath
Kitchen on the left opening to Utility opening to Storage on left and back door
Our target for adding L2 ran from the back wall of Living to the articulated Back Of House.
There was plenty of upgrading to refunction L1
First, open it up on L1 to
Circulate traffic
Majorly improve lines of sight and
Majorly improve daylight penetration
Plus, Before The Architect needed space for an interior staircase to the new L2 still ahead of us
Demo
Down came the walls between
Dining and Bed and
Both and Living
Both and Kitchen
With revealed beams taking their place side to side
These openings allowed redefinition of
Dining to Foyer (the latter needed for the main entry door that wasn't there - folks entered through utility or, rarely, walked all the way around the house to come through the front porch) and
Main front-back passage on L1 and
Bed #2 to Dining.
Separately, Bed #1 was redefined as Sitting - a private space off Living with a river view
PHASE 2
L1 After, Plan View
Now to finish our L1 designing
The new Foyer needed an
Exterior door
Tuscan-columned portico and
Stepped landing
All of this since this face of the river house was the major traffic approach that developed over the years
L1-L2 stairs run skewed to one side of the new Foyer-Dining space to
Giving as much surface area to Dining
While not cramping Foyer
Storage goes
Under the stairs on both sides and
To a Pantry facing Kitchen below head of stairs
Comment: Note please that the principal load of the stairs is at the foot, the further foundation of which Before The Architect proposed and on which an independent structural engineer signed off 3 months later.
This delay isn't on the engineer; residential work is chump change to most of these pros.
Their bread and butter is in bigger structure - buildings, roads, parking lots, entertainment centers, etc.
What Before The Architect implores and implies in this regard is this: Never underestimate just how long it'll take you to get from here to there when engineering aspects need engineering ok or further development before your house gets built.
PHASE 3
L2 After, Plan View
This layout did not start out this way
It started squared-off left to right at the stairs' head
The extension of both the Guest Bed on the left and the Masters on the right under dormers extending forward all the way to the left-right line of the stairs' foot unfolded...kind of got discovered as Before The Architect mulled how to get more space for L2.
The extension of the two beds on L2 forward over a larger area above L1 needed engineering approval which took upwards of another 3 months. And we got it.
Each Bed
Is entered through a shared head landing
Has its own closet or more and
Has its own full bath
No fooling, getting all this L2 functionality into that space took hours and hours applying decades of home design and home construction experience.
Most important from these designers' vantage is the majorly bigger surface area of the Beds for their forward extension below dormers with river views
Oh yes, there's the dormer over the stair case for a 2-story stairwell and lots of daylighting. Glorious.
. . . . . . . . .
Let's look outside.
First, an elevation of the Front Of House
After – Front Of House, Elevation
This ultimate vantage occurred to us in layers of discovery and developing interest in a look that was both formal and relaxed –
Looking
Business casual or
Lunch at the Four Seasons or
Saying someone with a sense of style lives here and enjoys it
The two-fer in this redesigning is that we could substantially increase L2 habitable space crucially without burdening L1 anymore much at all particularly over older foundation, as subsequently, fully determined by those who fully determine those things
In this designer's opinion, the dormers work, because they're rigorously symmetrical even while not appearing so at first sight
The roofline from front porch screen wall back is correct in slope
The 3 slopes from below dormer window sills forward are correct
All front-facing gables are correct, noting that the gable over the porch is an apparent portico to focus the entry from a water or waters' edge view.
Its column supports are Craftsmas
Partly in whimsy
Part to lay back on formality
Partly in an interest not to remove existing masonry columns in order to make classical columns correct
Finally, an isometric to get our last bearings and perspective
After – Left Front Of House, Isometric in Wireframe
Note, please
The covered main entry
The egress windows on L2 at Left and Right Of House
The over-staircase dormer
The cascading roof pitches
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