21st Century Tudor

This home in a neighborhood of beautiful Tudors had wonderful bones, but the segregated spaces made it dark and disconnected. After an extensive remodel, traffic nodes have been aligned to allow for easier movement and natural light filtering deeply into the interior of the home. Additions to the home include a laundry room and an attached garage. A complete energy and mechanicals overhaul also helped bring new life into this old home, allowing its occupants to live comfortably into the coming decades.

THE VISION

Maintaining the architectural integrity and quality craftsmanship of this traditional 1927 Tudor-style home was foregone conclusion. The home called for loving restoration and re-invigoration with a tasteful 1-car drive-thru garage attached on a tight side yard right up to the setback.

The home needed to have period-appropriate built-in cabinetry, with plenty of antique glass. More natural light in the home and a better flow of movement were important. We also needed to make the home efficient and comfortable for the occupants while we were here.

VISION GALLERY

The Team

Design & Architecture: Architectural Resource

Project Manager: Meadowlark Project Management Team

Professional Photography: John Carlson

DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE

Schematic Design

Early on, we saw that the current arrangement of doorways to rooms needed to be changed. Narrow hallways, dark finishes and doors that didn’t line up were causing traffic problems and cutting off any access to the windows from room to room. Our owners, while only having one car, wanted the garage to be attached to the home, but there was a lot setback issue making this difficult

The hallways were widened and lined up into a cross shape. This allowed natural light from adjacent rooms to flood into the center of the home with lots of room to move
Much of the dark wood was removed and light custom cabinets were built in place
Lighter colors and extended sight lines that bring in more natural light give the home an feeling of airiness and openness without removing all the walls
Four bedrooms upstairs were reduced to three for a spacious master suite

Design Development

The home had several “old house issues”. The house leaked energy in several places that likely made the home uncomfortable to live in. In some cases that meant changing the structure to fix underlying issues. There were areas that called for re-imagining how the spaces would function. The house’s mechanical systems were in need of a complete overhaul.

An old screen porch with water issues was rebuilt as a first floor office
Windows were replaced by efficient but period-correct newer windows
The stair landing window was replaced with a custom designed stained glass window and an adjacent closet was converted into library reading look
The home was completely re-insulated, re-ducted, re-plumbed and re-wired and is now a model of efficiency.