This dream of a home has two 1,560sf of GORGEOUS units and we wanted to share all about it here with you on the blog!
This project has been a collaboration of many wonderful creative professionals, and I wanted to start by recognizing everyone involved in it from start to finish.
Contractor: WR Builders
Staging: Boston Staging & Design
Photography: Lightshed Photography
Architect: Derby Square Architects
This was such a fun project to work on and I can’t wait to share the details with you all!
This project was a flip project and was actually started by a developer. I was brought on the team along with the others mentioned above, and it was a collaborative effort to get everything looking exactly the way we wanted! My role was to reinvent and reimagine the floor plan, and make space the most efficient it could possibly be.
Before:
The building itself was a two-family building with one single-story apartment (a 1 bed-1 bath on the 1st floor) and one double-story apartment (2 bed-1 bath including the second floor and attic). The building had a very dingy old basement with all the utilities spread throughout, definitely not the most functional way to use the space.
After:
Both units have now been turned into a 3 bed – 2.5 bath. The developer demolished everything and we have completely reutilized everything in the house, including the basement and attic, in order to make it all come together the way it has!
And here are a few before and after photos of this project:
A little about the project and the process:
Everything in this entire building was gutted! And, I mean everything! Even the stairs. I loved this because it gave me a lot of freedom when it came to the interior layout which was fun and exciting! A designer’s dream really… I believe it can be inspiring to be constrained by a space and to find perfect solutions in response!
In this particular project, due to zoning laws, we were not allowed to expand the attic too much, so only one dormer was added and all the other parts of the building remained the same. The dormer was added to accommodate the master bathroom.
The biggest transformation in this home renovation was an excavation of the basement down by 2 feet to give the space more ceiling height. Sometimes you can find room even when you don’t think you can! For this to happen, the foundation had to be underpinned. But that wasn’t the only thing! All the utilities had to be replaced and relocated. It’s amazing how much space new technology can save.
My favorite new feature in this project is the stairs going down to the basement. We have done a few projects with this developer/contractor before and the problem with the lower unit (basement-first) is that the basement still wasn’t getting a lot of natural light. We knew we could add windows and such but the lighting was still low, so on this one, we did the stairs all the way in the front. This is a bold move in terms of taking the potential real estate of what could have been a living room and filling it with stairs, but it allowed us to have an amazing family room downstairs that feels so well connected to the space above!
The problem:
The wood slats on the first floor were a special added element. As the construction was wrapping up, my client and I realized that we really wanted to extend and shift the sitting space into the center of the room, but the TV would be off-center and we were hoping to avoid a really long empty space.
The solution:
We decided to add these wood slats to make the wall appear longer and give it a fun and light look!
The problem:
Like many New England homes today, the existing rooms were small and very separated. Each room, of course, had its purpose, but it did not have the flow and efficiency of the space that we truly desired.
The solution:
We knew we could change that! We opened up the walls to make the space flow. Sometimes, it’s a simple solution like extending the size of an opening and placing one beam, but in this case, it required some serious engineering and some decent room in the budget. Anything is possible with the vision to do it!
Some of our favorite project views:
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