The May 2013 edition of St. Louis Homes & Lifestyles Magazine featuring one of our residential projects on the cover.
Have you seen the May edition of St. Louis Homes & Lifestyles Magazine? (If not, take a gander at the picture right here —>) That picture on the cover? We did that.
St. Louis Homes and Lifestyles Magazine awarded us best “Before/After” for a residential project in Webster Groves. We gutted the first floor of a tired century home and replaced the patchwork of small rooms with a contemporary open floor plan.
We’re proud of this home for many reasons. First and foremost, this house illustrates that with smart planning, you can get a lot of usable living space and storage in a modestly-sized house. The three bedroom, two bathroom house clocks in at about 1600 square feet, which is downright small considering Census figures say the average new home size was 2,392 square feet in 2010. (We agree with the homeowners — who wants to clean a 2,500 square foot house anyway? After all, LeCorbusier said, “A house is a machine for living in, not cleaning in.” Or something like that. Whatever. We’re architects, not historians.) We kept it small, while making the space as efficient as possible. During construction, we created plenty of built-in storage and expansive open areas with natural light to make the space feel larger that it really was.
The living room before…..
In a Brady-Bunch scenario, this home was a new one for two merging families, and we worked with their combined furniture, art, dog beds, toys — all the stuff a family needs. SPACE managed every detail by designing the renovation, acting as general contractor and furnishing the home with some custom furniture pieces. The magazine article included two pictures, but we thought we would share a few more images with you.
…and after.
As you can see, one of the biggest changes was relocating the stair. It had to be done, but it was tight: it fit into the second floor hallway with just fractions of an inch to spare. (Previously, the stairway was in a back bedroom with several turns that limited the size of furniture that could go up to the second floor. Nothing bigger than a twin size bed could make it up there.) We made the first floor master bedroom a bit larger, incorporating a small walk-in closet and a luxurious en suite bath. To get an idea of just how much the house changed, here’s the layout of the house before and after construction:
Here are some more before and after images of the home and furnishings:
The kitchen before…
…and after. SPACE designed and fabricated the dark grey concrete countertops, and the cutting board surface on the island is made of leftover pieces of a new structural beam that spanned the length of the house.
Dining area before…..
…dining room after.
The master bath, which used to be a back bedroom. The bathroom features a double vanity, soaking tub, shower and separate room for the toilet and storage.
Up the new stairs. The new skylight illuminates the stairs, the living room and sitting area adjacent to the kitchen.
The living room. The bronze wall visually divides the house’s private and public areas.
Detail of the dining table which was made of the old back door of the house.
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