myers park facelift!

23 May 2013

construction is starting on our myers park facelift project! it's always an exciting moment to drive by a house and see the building permit out front. we're thrilled to be working with matt ferguson of the stirling group once again- www.facebook.com/stirlingcharlottenc.

here is a reminder of the before on this project:

13 July 2012

a sampling of some drawings. they're pared down from the original set, which included a very cool glassy dining room extension, wraparound porch, rear 2nd level balcony off the master, and covered outdoor dining area! real estate has been all over the place in the last few years, and this homeowner was very thoughtful about how much to invest, how long they might stay, etc. we LOVE the cool beam / bracket detail and hope that it stays!!!

15 May 2012

we delivered schematics for our myers park facelift last week! 

first and foremost, these clients wanted a front porch. there were some floor plan issues that we needed to work out, but this project is really about the street presence of this home and the front porch. they have a gorgeous front yard and a very small, postage-stamp backyard. so this home needs an inversion to the front!

there were some obstacles - the landscaping cues to very rigid, formal alignments. the family is not a formal family, and the house itself is misaligned all over the place. the upstairs windows don't really have any spatial relationship to each other, and there's a false sense of 2-dimensionality. The property is a beautiful corner lot in myers park and just aches for a 3-dimensional perspective of the house. We designed 4 very different front facades for this home:

simple, simple, simple - a generous front porch, a correction to the middle window upstairs, and a soft eyebrow dormer. this is a very affordable option and leaves the owners room in their budget for a lot of landscaping work.

upstairs balcony - dad really wanted to see one of these!

classic southern porches - charleston style. it's an inversion of that model - which is, of course, always seen from the short front end. but totally fitting for this corner site.

craftsman 2-story - this one had more floor plan changes than the others, and re-worked some tricky spaces upstairs.

all in all we think it's a compelling range of options that all work nicely on this site. we'll see!

16 March 2012

today we begin work on a facelift to a myers park home - for a wonderful family that i'm really looking forward to working with. i have so many ideas for this home that i can barely contain myself!

post-war conversion... progress

so much has happened in the last couple of weeks! this project is really starting to take shape. here are some of my favorite spots:

a music nook for a little boy! this 3-year-old is quite clearly a budding musician. he can rock out his guitar with amazing swagger. when i see this nook in his bedroom, in my mind it's full of guitars, subwoofers, amps...
and a peaceful view for a little girl! this family has worked hard to preserve a gorgeous old tree in their backyard. i love the view from the baby nursery...

the living room and family room in this project are really beautiful, too - but i'll save those progress photos for some before-and-after shots in a later post!

postwar conversion... sweeeet garage...

i'm really digging this little garage / guest suite schematic we sent out today:

let the sun shine! - progress

progress on our georgian sunroom project! these windows are awesome, and the sunroom feels just AMAZING inside. I can't wait to grab some photos of this project trimmed out!

let the sun shine! - new project

construction begins this week on a sunroom renovation to this dilworth georgian, so we thought we'd share a few 'before' shots!

the original 'sunroom' was 'renovated' in the 1950s. we went through several iterations of the side porch design before settling on this scheme. this home falls within the dilworth historic district and this project was approved by the HDC in september 2011.

we'll keep you posted - this is going to be a gorgeous space.

rethinking a craftsman... progress

we've been working on this wonderful 1925 dilworth bungalow for some time now... and construction began this summer! here are some updates from the jobsite.

the design includes a spectacular winding staircase / lightwell. it's critical to get the staircases in these projects just right - so that the design functions on many levels. they're an opportunity to open up the bungalow (which by nature is a series of cozy rooms) in an entirely new way, but they should also be designed consistent with craftsman principles and details. i love to use them as lightwells - this one has two skylights at the top (not installed yet). the guy building this stair is cool, and so knowledgeable about bungalow stairs... so we're really enjoying this one.

at the top of the stairs we have this great teenager's lounge leading into the kids bedrooms. it's got a built-in desk that's integrated with the stair rail design, as well as an open area that the owners plan to upfit with a tv and bean bag chairs.

and those are the girls bedrooms and bathrooms beyond the lounge. i love designing in clipped roofs this way. it's complicated and requires some really thorough exploration... but the quality of the space is just amazing in the end.

this home falls within the dilworth historic district and this project was approved by the HDC in july 2011.

post-war conversion... schematic elevations

this myers park post-war home is about to begin construction - removing the roof & adding a second story. we hope that you are as inspired as we are!

this is the elevation that we settled on after much back and forth with the clients! As you can see, it's a bit of a hybrid of some schematic elevations that we sent them back in January 2011: