The homeowner hired a contractor to put in foundations and some of the framing, but did most of the work themselves.

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Another important design feature was to address the differing floor levels between the two structures, requiring careful placement of the stairs to work with the spaces and not against the intended flow.

We designed all roofs to be sloped so they could all be shingle type, which we also designed to have vaulted ceiling spaces.  The owner elected to keep the connecting addition roof a low-slope flat roof to simplify construction.

In the 3d images you can see the existing structures as the masses with the roofs which are not green.

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We worked with Saint Paul Lutheran Church of Villa Park on both the renovation of their church, and in converting this house into their new parsonage.  It was after we were hired for the church project that the church saw the opportunity to buy this adjacent property. Their original parsonage was adjacent to this house and their initial thought was to tear this down for parking.  While this house lacked aesthetic value, we encouraged the church to renovate this house and tear down the old parsonage so that all parking could be together and not surround the old parsonage.  In the future event that the church was sold, this property could then be treated as a separate property.

We did three studies for the house, two to add above and one encouraged by a construction manager who convinced the church that a two-story addition on the back would be cheaper, which turned out not to be.  it turned out to be more and that contractor was not hired.

The interior was fully gutted and renovated.  A central stair to the basement was removed and replaced with a new stair along an outside wall to allow for an open plan concept with the narrow house.  For the upper level addition, the stair to this level was stacked above the new basement stair.  The front stoop became a covered porch with a small sitting area.  The basement was originally not going to be renovated but remedial work was necessary and once this became living space, an egress window and window well had to be provided.  The village initially required three new egress windows to meet light and vent code, but we were able to talk them down to one window to minimize budget in that there were no sleeping rooms at this level. We added a small roof to the south side of the house to keep direct sunlight out of the living room windows and patio door, reducing cooling costs.

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The homeowner came to us with a design used for another house he wanted to incorporate into his master bedroom and garage addition.  We massaged the design a couple of times to both work with existing roof lines and meet city height requirements.  The upper level master bedroom has a dramatic cathedral ceiling.  The addition was asymmetrical to the existing house to preserve required bedroom windows.  Another unusual feature was to cantilever the floor structure for the master bath to get everything the homeowner wanted to fit, which added to roof complication but we worked it out.  A last minute request was for the large round window in the center of the master bedroom gable, right where we had a roof beam support post.  The solution was use four quarter-round windows to create the large round-window look and keep the support post.

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Our client contractor wanted to add a six-car garage to his home with a full second story, and as with all additions make it not look like an addition.  We did a makeover to the house to help existing and new blend in.  A new front porch helped immensely to take away the look of the cantilevered upper level and it created a deeper porch than what the new porch roof would suggest.  The porch roof extends to a useful powder and mud room off the garage.  We replaced and reoriented the upper level windows on the existing house to improve on the aesthetics as well.  The before-after transition is dramatic!

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An engineer client developed a plan to add on and wanted an architect’s input.  We developed it into the images here.  This was a simple rectangular house where a front porch was added and a great room addition was done at the rear.  The owner wanted skylights in the great room and the kitchen open to it.  There was an existing bathroom with a skylight and we had to build over that roof.  We created a light box up to the higher roof and put three new skylights in to replace the lower one.  in the basement of the great room addition we created two steps down from the basement level to create a higher ceiling area. We also had part of a beam removed over the basement stair to meet code required head clearance and improve basement access.  The front porch creates a very attractive presence along with a small vaulted entry gable to give the home an arts and crafts feel.

Another unique dynamic is that the client has automated holiday light displays in the front yard and wanted to be sure the roof vent types would allow him to run wiring where necessary.  Client also did his own general contracting and landscaping.

Finally we convinced the client to have soil borings done, which indicated substandard soils some of the worst we’ve seen.  This added about five digits to the construction cost which the client knew early because of taking this measure. Despite the budget overage, they chose to proceed.

The last two images show the before images of the front and rear.

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