Though the house met the owners’ functional needs, it didn’t align with their contemporary lifestyle or tastes. Work included replacing outdated fixtures, increasing natural light, and transforming an isolated kitchen into a warm, connected space for family gatherings. With original details such as split levels, high ceilings, and skylights still intact, the home required only subtle interventions to meet the family’s evolving needs.
PROGRAM
The project focused on opening the kitchen and primary bathroom, introducing a vaulted ceiling and a curbless shower in the bath. Recognizing the needs of the young family—who discovered they were expecting during the design process—an undermount bathtub with a spacious tub deck was incorporated into the primary bath. This provided a functional and playful area for bathing their child, while also creating space for plants and personal decor.
DESIGN
The 2,570-square-foot, three-story house is distinctly mid-century in style, featuring vertical glass windows that wrap into skylights, split-level arrangements, and soaring ceilings. These original design elements bring abundant natural light into the home, even on a heavily wooded site. With strict client requirements to limit the scope to interior work, the design focuses on enhancing connections between spaces by accentuating existing windows with new wood trim and paneling. This slight yet impactful intervention unifies the interiors and highlights areas where daily activity occurs, creating a sense of continuity throughout the house.
Although the owners appreciated many aspects of the original design, the kitchen felt isolated from the rest of the house. This was addressed by removing the wall between the kitchen and dining room and replacing it with a peninsula that serves as a central gathering point. This intervention connects the living room on the upper floor, the dining room on the main level, and the kitchen, allowing the spaces to feel more integrated. The new layout also draws additional natural light into the dining room, taking advantage of the corner windows and skylight in the kitchen. A custom breakfast nook is tucked under the expansive skylight with forest views on two sides, offering a cozy spot for informal meals. A simple steel rod, spanning between skylight beams to suspend a pendant light, adds a touch of understated elegance. By opening up these spaces, the design strengthens the connection between the interior and the site, creating a seamless 360-degree view from the kitchen and dining areas into the surrounding forest.
In the primary bath, removing the attic created a vaulted ceiling, adding volume and openness to the room. Wrap-around wood paneling emphasizes the bathtub’s placement in the corner, balancing intimacy with scale and giving the space a sense of cohesion. Crip, minimal detailing throughout reinforces the atmosphere, with terrazzo tile used as both a tub front and a flush baseboard.
