Our latest residential remodel and addition project: the updated kitchen, bathroom and backyard room for the Sawyer House.
The owners of this pleasant two story house on Sawyer came to us looking for an update to their kitchen and bathrooms (the two most standard focal points for a remodel) and for a serious re-vamp of the ramshackle “three season” room attached to the back. Big fans of both cooking and gardening, they wanted more of a connection with their backyard space and a real multi-season room which could expand their living areas smoothly from indoor to out. With a number one priority of sustainability we pulled together a bunch of ideas and proposed a strong flow from kitchen out into a stepping deck with a new dining/living room that can be almost entirely opened to the yard in summer with a combination of sliders and overhead garage-style glass door.
Our drawings are all wrapped up and the project is about go to permit so expect to see some construction updates in the near future. Here’s an introduction to the project.
Early Inspirations
Our interests were strongly weighted to making the most of small spaces. The collage above shows a few of the images we pulled together on our pinterest page to tag ideas for incorporating into the design. These early design idea phases are always key to nailing down the important details. We have living roof elements, plumbing pipe shelving, tiny bathrooms and even kick-plate sized shelving in the final design.
Interior Sketches and Diagrams
We like to begin with interior sketches to illustrate the possibilities of various design schemes. For the kitchen we emphasized maximizing space, using the above mentioned kick-plate drawers, little alcove shelves notched into the wall dividing the kitchen from the new powder room and making use of a kitchen island element to divide the space from the adjacent living room without cutting it off entirely. Small is sustainable as well as beautiful and we always aim to make the most of small spaces.
As always, we looked for ways to cut down on waste AND capture the interest and integrity of on-site materials. Kitchen shelves are made from reclaimed wood and supported with plumbing pipe. We transformed an existing pantry space into a new powder room and created a barn-style slider made from the former pantry door.
Upstairs, we proposed a remodel for the existing bathroom, adding an angled skylight over the shower to flood the room with natural light while maintaining privacy. One key element of green kitchens AND bathrooms is plenty of daylight, meaning less need for electric light during the day as well as all the aesthetic and psychological benefits.
Indoor / Outdoor Living
Out back, in addition to an extensive and dramatic deck with planter space, we have a multi functional room which opens straight off the kitchen – connecting it to the yard. The roll up garage door in the space means that in summer it can be almost entirely opened to the outside. But the new structure is also intended to serve the house in winter, being more effective than the “three season” nature of the previous space.
Since the space will have a flat roof (complete with living elements and rain water collection going to a storage barrel below the addition!) we made sure to account for some shading to keep the heat off of the space in summer but allow for plenty of winter solar heat gain!
More Sawyer House news coming soon! Watch this spot for updates on construction and the final photo shoot before the project is complete!