Remodel strategies: 3 ways to grow

To gain 18 inches of added height for the living room below, the architect raised the floor level of this sunroom and the outside deck three steps. Because the glass roof slopes sharply up, the sunroom's reduced headroom isn't noticeable. The lesson here is to think about trading headroom in one place for added height in another.

Look at what you gain when you remove or replace walls

A useful tactic in many remodels is removing walls to clear sightlines through a house or create a more gracious flow between rooms. These two pages show exemplary ways of doing that or of replacing walls with partitions ways that may help you see how to achieve greater openness in your own house.

Karen and Bob Goldin wanted a place where the whole family could gather at the end of the day. By taking out the walls between three adjacent rooms, San Francisco architect Roger East created a combination kitchen breakfast alcove-family room that is more than 38 feet long.

Since none of the old walls carried structural loads, they were easy to remove. In their place, East added an island and a 36-inch-high wall that serves as the back for an L-sbaped bench in the breakfast area. These divide the overall space into sections but don't block views.

Telescope-style, the separate sections grow progressively wider. The kitchen is 9 feet wide. The middle section, or breakfast area, measures 12 feet across. The family room space, previously a garage, is 17 feet wide.

After 15 years in their pleasant threebedroom Craftsman-era house, Barbara and George Gnoss needed more room. It wasn't possible to add on at the side, so San Francisco architect Howard Backen looked for ways to squeeze more spaciousness out of the existing structure.

By remodeling space in an under-utilized basement built into the lot's slope, he was able to create a new master suite. Above, on the main floor, he removed walls between the kitchen, the living room, and an enclosed front porch to create a unified space enhanced by its view of San Francisco Bay. Only the supporting posts remain, showing where walls once were and helping to frame the many vistas.

To make a more useful and graceful approach to the house, Backen moved the entry from its original position at the front of the house at the top of a flight of steps and opening onto the enclosed porch-around to one side. Now a new interior staircase leads from the remodeled basement up to the main level. Like large balconies, the expanded kitchen and living room areas overlook this open stair hall and share views across it.

They opened and brightened the celling for a single sweep of space

The inside and outside of Judy and Tom Buffaloe's ranch-style house seem at odds. The exterior implies the usual 8-foot ceilings. But the living room ceiling has been removed to create a bright space that soars to what was once the ridge line.

Incorporating even a shallow attic's volume into the room below can make a space seem much grander. There's nothing sacred about a ceiling. Its joists serve mainly to tie the outside walls together and structurally reinforce the triangular shape of a pitched roof. Of course, if joists are removed, the roof will want to flatten, so something must be done to maintain the integrity of that triangle.