Gabled addition pushes living room into the garden

Sunset, Nov, 1989

Gabled addition pushes living room into the garden Shaped like a Monopoly hotel, this addition expands a living room and opens it up to broad views of a relandscaped garden. From outside, the addition's simple gabled form appears notched into the roof and walls of the ranch-style house. Centered along the house's back wall, it protrudes 9 feet into the garden and is surrounded by deck.

Inside, the existing living room ceiling slopes down from the center ridge to the line of the old outside wall. From that point, the new ceiling rises at the same pitch to the addition's center ridge beam, where it becomes a greenhouse-style glass roof and outer wall. At 21-1/2 feet long, the 110-inch-tall glass wall brings the garden right into the living room. French doors at each end lead to the deck.

To make way for the uninterrupted opening in the old back wall, a steel I-beam was installed to support the load from above. (A steel beam takes up far less depth than a glue-laminated wooden one.)

On the roof above, the valley where the two pitches meet posed potential drainage problems. To avoid them, a rain-diverting cricket bridges the center of the valley and directs water toward each end of the addition's roof.

H.L. Sanchez Associates of Hayward, California, designed the remodel for Lee and Lee Thornally.