By Design (Part V): Defined uses are just excuses
After eight months of construction and thousands of decisions and dollars, we are finally back in the new, much improved version of our 100-plus-year-old home.
The final installment in an occasional series in which designer Dina Holland walks readers through the process as she undertakes a major renovation of her home.
After eight months of construction and thousands of decisions and dollars, we are finally back in the new, much improved version of our 100-plus-year-old home. I dedicated most of 2016 to getting this house just right for my family, agonizing and second- (actually, triple- and quadruple-) guessing so many decisions. As a designer, there is certainly a degree of satisfaction that comes from seeing your vision realized, and, in my own home, that satisfaction is compounded by the “correcting’’ of odd, inconsistent, and sometimes frustrating design decisions made by previous owners.
Having been back in the house now for three months, I am thrilled to report that we love everything about it. In addition to modern-day improvements like energy-efficient windows, spray-foam insulation, and an updated electrical system, our project included an open-concept family room/kitchen, mudroom, and master suite. All told, we added nearly 1,000 square feet of living space to the house. It is now 2,800 square feet — absolutely paltry by current new-construction standards. Yet after three months, we are more convinced than ever that most families don’t need a lot of space; they just need space in the right places.
We spend 90 percent of our time as a family at the back of the house in what is now the new kitchen and family room. Just off the kitchen is our new back entrance, powder room, and mudroom. The latter is by far the hardest-working place in our house. Having a dedicated space to drop shoes, backpacks, and sports equipment has done wonders for my sanity and for keeping clutter out of the kitchen. In an effort not to have unused rooms, I turned the kids’ old playroom into my home office (don’t worry, they have an enviable amount of space in the now finished basement) and decided to forgo a table in the kitchen in an effort to force family dinners in the dining room (it’s working). I had grand plans to turn our old family room into a formal living room, but after just 48 hours back in the house, my boys declared it their art room, and so it has remained — with kids chairs encircling a coffee table covered in crayons and construction paper. It’s a good reminder of something I often tell clients: Don’t be constrained by the traditionally defined uses for a room. Do what works for your family and accept that a house is a living and ever-changing representation of the people who live there – even the tiny preschool artists.
Upstairs, the major changes include a laundry room (goodbye dungeon basement laundry), a much improved hall bathroom, and a new master with en-suite bath and walk-in closet. The master bedroom is actually smaller in footprint than our old bedroom, a fact I compensated for by vaulting the ceiling and adding a window seat. Friends often ask me what my favorite thing in the house is now, with most expecting me to say the new kitchen. While I do love the kitchen, the master bath trumps all. Its long and narrow space was a challenge to design, but by dividing it up into zones and creating a dramatic focal point with the bathtub, I was able to distract from that and create a spa-like retreat that I can’t wait to get to at the end of each day.
In many ways the house feels like an entirely new one, with every single room touched in one form or another. Yet in other ways, there’s a comforting familiarity that comes from having called this place home for four years prior to construction of any kind. The way the light shifts and shines through the foyer in the late winter months. The telltale creaks of the stairs when one of our young children comes bounding down. Even the slow turn onto our side street, past our wraparound front porch that immediately feels like “you’re home.’’ All of these seemingly mundane characteristics are etched in my brain, forever associated with this house. We are only the fourth family to call this place home since it was built in 1914. There’s a certain degree of stewardship that comes with inhabiting an old house, and we did our best to preserve the character while making it comfortable for modern-day use. While certainly no one will walk into our kitchen and mistake it as original to the house, I hope whoever lives here after us (in 30-plus years) will appreciate the updates and love it like we do.
Dina Holland also writes the Ask the Designer column in the Boston Globe’s Address section. Send comments to [email protected]. Sign up for our free newsletter, Address, at pages.email.bostonglobe.com/AddressSignUp.
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