8/24/11

Do over!

Proposed kitchen viewed from the back door

View from the entry to the kitchen

We see it all the time: additions to Central Austin homes that ended up more of a liability than an asset.  This house in Rosedale was a perfect example.  A previous owner of this wonderful little stone cottage had tacked on a "master suite" to the back of the house that robbed the home of its connection to the amazing back yard.  The result was a room that never really worked as a bedroom or anything else useful (it ended up being used more as a mudroom/study/storage space).  This is one of the most common problems we encounter, as so many additions go on the back of houses, creating a "buried" kitchen and stealing the daylight and access to the back yard that's so vital to a home.

There's a different solution every time, but in this case we opted for a really dramatic change.  We're converting the unusable master bedroom into a cool new kitchen and splitting the former kitchen area into dining and bedroom areas to make it all right again.

In the renderings above, you can see the proposed kitchen.  It's loose and airy, really functional AND very inexpensive to build.  It's set up to allow the base cabinets to be anything from "freecycled" Craigslist finds to Home Depot utility cabinets.  We're also ripping out a storage loft that blocks the view to the wall of windows along the back wall of the house (yes, they're all existing) and opening up the vaulted ceiling to add light and space to the room.  We'll also expose the original stone wall between the house and addition.  Because the kitchen is so loose and simple, the materials, colors, surfaces can go in any direction our clients choose.  It's a great example of a kitchen that "fits like a mitten"- it will look like it's been there a while right from the start, and it can evolve as time goes on.

It's going to be a great kitchen on its own, but the solution it offers to the rest of the house will be truly life-changing for our clients.

Wait till you see what we're going to do with their old garage!!  Stay tuned...