by Duo Dickinson

In a 1920s hillside upside-down house — where the living area is below the entry level — walking downstairs to get to the living room wasn’t the only aspect that was awkward.

When you arrived at the living floor you were unceremoniously dumped into a tight vestibule measuring just six feet by four feet (1.8m by 1.2m) with three three-foot-wide (90cm-wide) doorways providing access into each space.

By removing one non-bearing wall between the stairs and the dining room and kitchen, and opening up the bearing wall between the dining room and the living area, all three spaces were able to flow.

It would have been easy enough just to remove walls and let the space speak for itself, but instead, a carefully crafted frame was used to make an event out of the opening from the rest of the floor to the living room.

The same playful trim-out also announces a level change (two steps down) that gives the living space a heightened sense of stature. By integrating a new fireplace front with the new trim and carefully harvesting tiles from other parts of the remodeled house, continuity was achieved without blowing the budget.

Staying Put

There are over 80 million single family homes in America, and it's estimated that in 2011, 18 million of these were underwater, meaning with a mortgage larger than the value of the house.

Millions of families feel trapped, living a life of domestic frustration in homes that do not work for them, while being unable to move to solve the problems they confront on a daily basis.

The benefits of concise, appropriate remodeling where you live now, independent of market conditions, can include improved convenience and lifestyle satisfaction, better looks, and a reduced environment impact, since improving an existing house is almost always greener than building new from scratch.

This series in ArchitectureWeek, and the book Staying Put that it's drawn from, offer tangible hope for getting the home you want from the house you have right now.

Each of these projects is a select example of the great and affordable outcomes that can be created, when a good architect and a good client team up together.

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