Westside House Mullet

Situated on a quiet street corner on the upper west side of town, this front face of this home embodies the turn of the century less flamboyant Victorian charm.  With its glazed porch and elevated entry, the house is quite the head turner, but sadly, the interior and back of the home had long since been butchered to accommodate the maximum capacity of student renters when our clients took it on.  The house was missing the original staircase, which would have been elegant and visible from the entryway. In its place, a significantly precarious steep staircase had been shoe-horned in to access the second story accessing an astonishingly funky bedsit.  There was no sightline through the house which appeared forshortened from the entryway and the kitchen was painfully small.  

With adversity comes opportunity!  The situation of the corner lot meant that there was plenty of space to extend the house at the back to enlarge the kitchen and make an eat in dining space.  We reorganized the ground floor to provide a straight sightline to the back of the house and flood the corridor with light.  We recaptured the once neglected attic space giving the front room, used as a listening room & library, a lofty, vaulted ceiling.  The staircase was entirely redesigned to meet code and was made from solid hickey steps, leading up to what is now a comfy lounge / guest accommodation with ensuite bathroom.  The primary bedroom now boasts a walk though closet and a gorgeous ensuite shower room.  The remodel comfortably houses a laundry room and guest bathroom facility.  Most notably, however, the extra space added back of the home houses a beautifully appointed double height kitchen / dining room with a fully glazed ecclesiastical wall opening onto the generous back deck & garden.   We intentionally treated the new structure with a very contemporary, almost Scandinavian motif as a complementary foil to the Victorian frontage, wrapping the roof shingles over the entire structure.