Archinect - Sense of Space 2024-11-14T01:50:30-05:00 https://archinect.com/blog/article/71067549/a-tudor-on-the-yellow-brick-road A Tudor on the "Yellow Brick Road" Victoria Stepanov, Assoc. IIDA 2013-04-11T15:12:57-04:00 >2018-01-30T06:16:04-05:00 <p> This is a project that I've worked on for almost two years &mdash; a major renovation of a 6-storey Tudor style house built in the 1920's.&nbsp; When my clients bought this house, about a half of it was uninhabitable, with unused storage rooms, 1970's fake wood paneling and broken windows.&nbsp; The house had a good "bone structure" but was very poorly planned and unattended to for many years.&nbsp; My clients wanted to make their home bright and airy, and to take advantage of the fantastic views overlooking the town from a cliff-side.</p> <p> We came up with a game plan where we would concentrate on completing the upper three floors (what you see in the pictures below, a view from the street) first so the family could move in, then isolate the bottom levels and build those out.&nbsp; First, the new central A/C system had to be put in, which became a challenge because all exterior walls and the majority of interior partitions are hollow cement block.&nbsp;</p> <p> It was peculiar that there was no outside access from the s...</p> https://archinect.com/blog/article/70943832/a-cedar-house-transformation A cedar house transformation Victoria Stepanov, Assoc. IIDA 2013-04-09T19:15:32-04:00 >2013-04-15T21:36:01-04:00 <p> There was this house that knew better days...</p> <p> <img alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/94/94l05mc8gvxcfea1.jpg" title=""><img alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/u9/u9dxr3di5navzvce.jpg" title=""><img alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/2x/2xz9nnde8q7v9xto.jpg" title=""></p> <br><p> In it lives a very large family that was lacking basic amenities, like having a place to sit down and have a meal together (of course they had a dining room but this isn't Downton Abbey!).&nbsp; They got in touch with me to suggest some layouts for a larger kitchen, which would involve building an addition.</p> <p> What started out as a "kitchen project" grew into almost an entire house renovation &mdash; from building two new additions to reinforcing the structure, to recladding the exterior with new cedar shingles, not to mention numerous interior changes.</p> <p> We replanned the entire first floor, expanding the kitchen, adding a large breakfast area and a small office off of the dining room.</p> <p> This is what the floor plan looked like originally:</p> <p> <img alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/ar/arzlqf8tocaqtreu.jpg" title=""><br> This is what we did in the end:</p> <p> <img alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/j9/j9dk8z9bvmv6dpf8.jpg" title=""></p> <p> We started out with taking out about half of the first floor, the old second floor deck, and all of the exterior finishes.&nbsp; Once the demolition was done, the new work...</p>