decisions, decisions

What should be added? Bathroom, naturally.Done

Center mass is the new bathroom, where the pantry is now

Eating together has always been a tight proposition in that small dining room and with the added cabinets and appliances in the kitchen, eating in there will be pretty much out of the question from now on. Why not make the parlour, which was the dining room when the house was built, the dining room again? Lots more space for a big table, but then, where do we sit when we are not eating? New larger living room, away from the bedrooms for noise control, but close to the kitchen and bathroom, with a wood burning stove, like the old parlour had many years ago. Done

Where should the addition be located?

New Living Room

New living room from the outside

The site is constricting so there are only a couple of places that allow for expansion. I don’t want to obscure the view of the front and the kitchen, and the west side is the last side of the main house that is completely original so I didn’t want to change that either. The original cellar hatch is at the low point of the site which makes sense so I wanted to access the new basement from roughly the same point, with straightforward access outside. So, replace the later additions of the pantry and sun porch, which have to come off anyway, with the addition.

Done

What should it look like?

This was my biggest challenge. I want the house to be recognizable and keep from changing the original lines and profile. I played with the idea of making the new living room on the back an expanded version of the sunroom we are removing, but this was limiting. Even now, Dad can hit his head on the ceiling in there, and making the room bigger would just make that worse. So the addition needs its own roof. I finally came up with the idea that the addition can look like a stand-alone building that lightly touches the original. When I design additions to old buildings, I like to get inspiration from the same style that the original was inspired from. The style of the addition could be called Scottish Colonial. It has its roots from a crofter’s cottage, much like Joyce’s house in Scotland, and possibly similar to what the first Munn’s on the Island would have lived in 200 years ago, with a “hearth” and large chimney at the end. It is newer and older than the house with its own identity. You will be able to tell what is old and what is new, which is what I was after. Done

The living room will have a wood burning stove. All of the exterior shingles will be replaced with new cedar. The kitchen will be updated with a refrigerator, more cabinets, an electric stove and all the modern amenities. The heating system will be hydronic radiant floor heating, which means running tubes in the basement slab and in all of the floors to circulate hot water, a relatively easy thing to install when all the ceilings are down. The quality of the heat is very comfortable, it is a cheap system to run once installed, and the best part is, the system is invisible with no radiators or vents to look at. When we get to the point where finishes can be installed, the new trim in the additions will match that of the old house, I will get an antique clawfoot tub for the bathroom, and do other things that will be true to the period of the house.