Modern Balcony Creates Wine Enthusiasts Retreat

The renovation and addition of a modern balcony to a single-family, two-flat home in Wicker Park is now complete. This white trellis, Mediterranean-style addition creates a spacious, multilayer rear exterior that maximizes living space and draws in natural light.

Our clients—a young professional couple with a baby on the way and a well-curated wine collection—approached us with a clear vision: to transform the basement into a livable, welcoming space for entertaining and future family life. At the center of the challenge was the removal of a larger-than-life labyrinth rear stair, which made an M.C. Escher painting look navigable by comparison, and this was the main impetus for the renovation. We began by removing the oversized rear stair and reclaiming the basement as a functional, adaptable lower level. The space, previously isolated from the backyard, is now visually and physically connected to a new garden.

We also reworked the front elevation, replacing a clumsy stair and ill-proportioned fence with a refined limestone staircase and a custom corten steel fence that slowly weathers to a rich, bronze tone.

MAKE WAY FOR A MODERN BALCONY & GUEST SUITE

Perhaps the most noticeable project intervention was the rethinking of the rear of the house. Like most Chicago buildings and the City’s legacy of ugly back porches glued to the back of structures, we tend to completely ignore access to natural light and a meaningful connection with usable outdoor space.

This project set out to resolve several spatial and functional shortcomings while introducing a modern, well-scaled rear addition. Though the building grew by only about 300 square feet, the impact was significant. By lowering the basement floor closer to grade, we connect the lower level and the yard through a large sliding glass system.

Above, a new trellis-covered deck extends from the kitchen and dining area. This green screen provides shelter for the glass below while creating a partially protected outdoor dining space. The deck acts as a transitional zone—open to the air yet screened from neighboring views. The new rear volume is clad in our standard rainscreen assembly: a waterproof weather barrier, furring strips for ventilation, and crisp white aluminum composite panels that give the balcony its clean, modern profile.

Above – sketches from the schematic design phase featuring the balcony addition.

Lowering The Basement Floor & Installing Hydronic Radiant Heat

Typically, dated basements aren’t the most welcoming spaces. Sure, they’re great spots to store your CSA fall bounty of root vegetables or a welcome environment for our spider-eating centipede friends. But it’s not a place people tend to gravitate towards when they get together.

To create a more inviting, usable, and flexible space, we began by removing the existing wood floor, excavating down to the footing, and lowering it to grade. Sinking it to grade adds extra room height while making it easier to join the indoor space to the outdoors without adding stairs or a deck.

Rather than replacing the wood floor, we poured a new concrete slab using colored concrete and sealed it with five coats of polyurethane. The organic material and texture create interesting patterns for a more modern floor aesthetic. Below the slab, we installed a drain tile and a sump pump to prevent groundwater intrusion into the space.

Aside from design malleability, the concrete provided an ideal conduit for installing the hydronic radiant heat. Radiant floor heating is an energy-efficient feature that we installed in several projects, including Carmen House. Using hot water from a boiler, the radiant tubes heat the entire floor, with the warmth rising to heat the rest of the room. As an added luxury in the guest bathroom, we connected the radiant system to the heated towel bar — no more chilly towels!

Wine & Books, In That Order

Wine is an integral part of our client’s business, and housing a small proportion of their wine collection in the relatively climate-controlled basement was a key project priority. Similar to our other wine storage solutions, we base the design of the cabinets on the bottle sizes. We created a custom walnut frame for the wine cooler that nests in, flush with the rest of the millwork. The dowel layout, used throughout the space, accommodates sideways bottle storage—ideal for keeping corks moist—from long, slender Austrian Grüner Veltliners to fuller-bodied Proseccos. Pockets of concealed cabinet storage provide storage for glasses and other liquor paraphernalia, and the bookshelf caps off the millwork piece, leading to the open family room.

Wine storage, stairs, and millwork sketches below.

Casing Elimination

A holdover of the traditionalists, door trim, and casing (or molding) are largely meant to hide the intersections of dissimilar materials and the accepted tolerances of on-site fabrication. Since all of the interior doors and millwork pieces were custom-designed and constructed in an off-site shop, we eliminated the need for casing and finished the drywall with metal reveals. Now, all that is visible is the wood door frame profile, making for a more modern opening.

There are two types of interior stairs. The most common are those framed on-site by carpenters from rough lumber and then clad with a finish material. This universal method produces a generic-looking and bulky product that isn’t sexy or exciting. Custom-designed is the other designation. And when provided the opportunity and project budget allowance, we prefer the custom design route. We customized the interior stairs to respond to their specific location in the project, and we fabricated them entirely in our millwork shop.

Here we crafted an ‘open-riser’ stair (meaning light can pass through and down the stair to the floor below) constructed from stained white oak with a glass guardrail and an integrated, cove-lit handrail. We were pinched for space in this corner of the building, so the first riser acts as a larger landing, and the stair takes off along the white oak panel clad wall to the main floor. The space beneath the stairs holds the AV equipment cabinets and provides a disguised spot for the return air grill. Lastly, the open stair and the project’s passively designed nature allow warm air to naturally rise through the stair shaft and exhaust through the clerestory windows.

Second Level Kitchen Playroom Annex

As home, work, and play life blur the boundaries, so do our living spaces. Now more than ever, we desire flexibility and less fussy, formal rooms, like the dining room, solely used for, well, dining. We continued the flow of the warm-toned wood upstairs to the kitchen and playroom level. The custom wall bench stores toys and creates a cozy nook for idle hands and imaginations. The open play space can easily be converted from a hot lava field (oh, you remember the floor is hot lava game) to a dining overflow area when entertaining. Having the playroom next to the kitchen makes the task of food prep and keeping an eye on little ones a bit less stressful.

Modernizing Front Exterior Entryway

We redesigned the front entry to feel more welcoming and intentional. The original out-of-scale stair and fence were replaced with a refined limestone staircase that appears to float above the landscape, paired with a custom corten steel fence and gate. Over time, the corten develops a warm, bronze patina—adding depth and character through natural weathering. A new oak front door, custom-designed for the project, is paired with a powder-coated steel awning that offers shelter and a minimalist design. At the garden level, new windows bring light into the formerly dim lower floor and help connect the lower floor to the outdoors.

Next to the door, a white panel serves more than just a visual purpose—it discreetly holds the mailbox, house numbers, porch light, doorbell, and a concealed downspout. It keeps the entry neat and organized, with every detail considered and built in.

Construction & Existing Conditions

Before images and stages of construction to the rear exterior; basement floor removal and plumbing rough in. Below, guest bathroom and images of newly poured concrete and electrical rough in.