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Ask the Remodeler: Bringing air and light to a contemporary home, and revolutionizing a 1761 Cambridge church
A trip down memory lane recalls hammering out two of our favorite projects.
A question that comes up more often than you might think is, “What are some of your favorite remodeling projects and why?” I am lucky there are a fair number to choose from, both large and small.
The parameters for what makes a project interesting and fun are as varied as the projects themselves. Some are about accomplishing the very personal vision that clients have for their homes. Others involve a major transformation of how a space is used — for instance, making an older home work better for a growing family. Others feature the invigorating challenge of overcoming obstacles and coming out on the other side with a successful result.
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Here are a few projects that I continue to celebrate:
I think companywide, our all-time favorite is a large contemporary home north of Boston that was purchased by a professional couple with a passion for music. We worked on the entire home in several stages, which allowed the clients to live in the house while the work was being done. This alone made the project interesting because we were able to engage with the clients in real time when the inevitable challenges and necessary changes reared their heads. (Typically, a project of this size would have the clients living elsewhere, which slows down communication and can bog down progress.) From a design standpoint, two key features made this project special.
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The first was a focus on increasing natural light and views while also creating beautiful and accessible outdoor living spaces. We opened up multiple exterior walls and installed sliding doors that exited out to multiple decks and patios. We added or enlarged existing windows to bring in more light. We even built a rooftop deck with views of the Boston skyline. What had been a house with too many dark corners and very little open-air gathering space became an oasis of light and outdoor living.
But the most enjoyable part of this project was catering to our clients’ love of music. We finished part of their basement to feel like a downtown Boston nightclub, with dark, subdued finishes and marquee posters lining the walls and band equipment always set up in a stage-like area, ready to play. It is like entering another world when coming from upstairs, where there was all the natural light and bright finishes. Very unique.
As if that wasn’t enough, we established a very large, open living area in the heart of the home for hosting live shows by professional musical groups and solo acts. The space, set up for professional lighting and sound, features room for a comfortably sized crowd. To see a unique space that we all worked so hard on being used to its full potential has been a real source of pride for our company and our clients.
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Ironically, the second most interesting and enjoyable project that we have done over the years was the polar opposite of the beautiful contemporary project I just described. We were hired to do an exterior renovation on the Cambridge Christ Church, opened in 1761, that George Washington attended while commanding the Continental Army in Boston.
What an undertaking. Working with the Cambridge Historical Commission, we sourced wood siding and other design elements that had to be replaced. The exterior paint had to be carefully removed to get down to the original siding we were able to keep. With all the lead paint and the building’s prominent location, this was quite a challenge, but we were also careful to isolate a small area that had layers of all the paint that had ever been put on the building. We did not strip or replace this: We preserved it and protected it for future generations.
Doors were removed, reworked, and reinstalled, and window glass was replaced with antique seeded glass. There was another element that we made sure to preserve: A musket ball hole from a Revolutionary War battle in the front of the building that is enclosed behind laminate glass.
Finally, the original wood elements of the building that had been stripped and blended with the new wood were covered with multiple coats of fresh paint. The cherry on top was a new gold leaf treatment on the church’s cross that sits atop the bell tower.
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This was by far one of the more challenging projects we have ever undertaken, but with a great collaboration with the city and the church, we breathed new life into an old and very important building.
Mark Philben is the project development manager at CharlieAllen Renovations in Cambridge. Send your questions to [email protected]. Questions are subject to editing.
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