Remodel strategies: 3 ways to grow

Sunset, April, 1989

1 Staying within the footprint

In the next 7 pages, how to remodel when you can't go beyond the existing foundation. What can you accomplish? Improve circulation, link inside and outside, increase airiness

2 Going up or down

In next month's Sunset, how to gain space on a tight lot. Where can you go up (or down)? Where to put the new stairway? Creating dramatic volumes. Blending old and new

3 Adding on laterally

In June, what to consider with a horizontal addition. Where do you attach it? What kind of connection or transition? What's the potential for shaping outdoor space?

You decide to remodel. You have many options-and probably just as many constraints. How do you describe what you need and want to an architect, or a designer, or a contractor?

The answer is, by understanding the basic design strategies open to you. This month we begin a series of articles (outlined above) to help you conceptualize your own remodel. In the seven pages that follow, we present strategies for reshaping existing space-staying within your house's present foundation, or "footprint." Subsequent articles will offer other choices: going up or down to gain space, or adding space through lateral extension.

Along with previous Sunset reports on general design ideas such as daylighting with roof-spine skylights (February 1989) and enlarging mass-built houses from different eras (May 1988)as well as our ongoing monthly descriptions of specific makeovers-this series is meant to serve as a design primer for any homeowner contemplating a remodel.

Where to begin? Try an architect's approach

When an architect talks to a homeowner about a potential remodel, he or she usually follows a step-by-step informationgathering procedure. It's a useful model to adapt, regardless of whether you actually hire an architect.

Start with the basics. Why do you want to remodel? Do you need more space, more convenience, more light, or more privacy? Do you want to improve views, improve traffic flow, or both? How do you want each room to function? What is your budget? Is building equity in your house important? Do you care if you "overbuild" for your neighborhood? In other words, what are your priorities, and where are potential trade-offs? Next, outline the physical limitations. If no reliable original blueprints exist, an architect or designer can make new measured drawings to identify which walls are load-bearing, where plumbing lines and beating ducts run, where the sewer or septic tank and gas and electric connections are. There may also be permit requirements, codes, and ordinances to consider.

Then, narrow down to the design strategy that's best for your situation. The six houses featured here illustrate various approaches to consider: changing the circulation pattern, opening up two-story volumes, linking indoors to outdoors, removing or lowering walls, raising the ceiling.

Remember that frustrations, disappointments, and delays are an inevitable part of remodeling. As one architect says "Our job is to eliminate surprises-but unexpected things always seem to happen." A well-thought-out design helps make the process worthwhile.

They reconfigured the circulation for easier flow, greater openness

How do you uncramp the floor plan to improve traffic flow and make your house feel more spacious-without adding a lot of new space? The remodels on these two pages show two ways to accomplish this. In Berkeley, designer Jim Zack bought a decrepit 1880s Victorian cottage and completely reorganized its dark, warrenlike interior. Originally, the house had no hallway; you had to go through the living room to get to the kitchen, and through the kitchen to get to one of the bedrooms. Zack opened the boxes by rethinking the relationships between living spaces. He pulled rooms apart and inserted a new circulation artery an open hallway that angles from the front door to the back of the "Once I decided on the angle and the openness of the hallway"' he says, "everything was freed up."

The hall functions as an interior street, allowing easy access to the back of the house while at the same time skirting the perimeter of every major living space.

Zack treated a new load-bearing central stairway as a divider between living room and dining room. Cutouts in the stair walls allow partial views between the two rooms, emphasizing the spaciousness of the design.

The exterior is little affected. The only hint of the internal developments is a new porch that continues the angle of the new corridor. In a postwar tract house in Los Angeles, David Voorhies, of Voorhies, McMurray Architects, freed the interior from its rigidly boxy design and connected indoor and outdoor spaces.

His method was to reconfigure the house as two distinct zones: a more open, public area for eating and entertaining; and a more private, enclosed area for sleeping and dressing. He replaced the house's central load-bearing wall with a series of load-bearing posts, which then allowed him to move nonstructural interior walls at will. The living room, at the front of the house, remained intact.