Charming Addition

CLASSICAL ADDITION | RENOVATION TO MEET MODERN NEEDS

After searching for and touring many, many existing urban homes all over the Lehigh Valley, our clients decided that this particular home in the beautiful West End of Allentown would become their treasure in the city! While perfect in many ways, as is common with almost any existing home, it was a little outdated, especially in the bathrooms, and lacked an important large gathering space for family and friends. Before purchasing the home, our company was consulted to help them better understand its possibilities to better fit their specific needs and desires.

After an extensive design process, we were fortunate to help our wonderful clients conceive and craft a new great room addition that is perfectly situated adjacent to both the kitchen and the dining room. As can be seen inside the home and out, it was critical that the addition not appear to be added on in an awkward manner – rather something that could very easily have been part of the original home design and construction. On the outside, our client liked the idea of bringing in the white clapboard siding used in a few other parts of the home, but didn’t want the entire addition to be clad in the same material. And since we knew that we would have some difficulty matching the specific tones and textures of the brick that our new addition would be directly touching, we opted to install a stone water table (with similar shapes, tones, and mortar pointing) around the addition to play off the existing stone around the front and side of the home.

On the inside, it was very important to keep the volume of the new space integrated with the two primary adjacent spaces. As a result, we decided to perform extensive ‘surgical’ work by flush mounting all of the beams and structural support where former exterior walls resided. Inside the kitchen, we renovated much of the space including the addition of more matching cabinetry, new countertops and fixtures, a new peninsula with seating, and an expanded pantry. And to help further designate and celebrate the great room even more, we installed a tray ceiling and tied all three rooms together with new crown molding and new hardwood flooring for a truly seamless look and enjoyable home living experience!

Another important goal of this addition project was the concept of better connecting the garage with the home. Rather than entering the home from the garage by walking outside onto the rear patio, this addition now affords the convenient opportunity to walk directly from the garage into the interior of the home without having to walk outside at all.

And to round out this exciting project, we were also tasked with remodeling both of the home’s full bathrooms that were essentially blue and pink relics of the past. In addition to updating their aesthetics to fit our clients’ tastes while still being contextual to the existing home’s architecture, we were also able to find ways to help enlarge the bathrooms from what were previously some fairly tight spaces.

All in all, we are very thankful to have had the opportunity to work with these clients on this exciting project; and look forward to hearing stories in years to come about their large family gatherings in their charming newly reimagined home!