The diminutive single-story house featured an asphalt-shingled roof, plain board-and-batten cladding, and one front window that was fixed in the center with casements on either side.
Visible from the street is a soaring wall of windows contained in an arcing structure supported by bow-string trusses. A Dutch-style front door is covered with a copper overhang that matches the roofing.
In the midst of a dramatic remodeling project, Steve and Stephanie Jones’s then four-year-old son, Quinn, called their home “The Fix-It House.” Despite the fact that the job required the elimination of all but one wall, the Joneses continued to live in their Manhattan Beach, California, house. According to Steve, an architect who created the new design, “Quinn got to see how a house gets built. When he turned six, he talked about wanting to be an architect.”
For two years, the Joneses had lived in a one-story house in the Tree Section, one of three neighborhoods in Manhattan Beach, named for its many trees. The house was small and dated, yet Steve could see that it had a great deal of potential. It wasn’t until Stephanie became pregnant with their second child that the couple decided to embark on a remodel that would take more than eight months and add 1,910 square feet of living space to the house. The project included expanding the footprint, adding three stories and transforming the
single-car garage to a two-car space.
The first evidence of the house’s transformation is revealed by the living-dining area. “My biggest goal was to open the house to light and make it feel larger,” Steve explained. To bring in the California sun, he fashioned a soaring 21-foot-high room with an arcing ceiling supported by conspicuous bow-string trusses. Walls of windows took the place of solid drywall. A roughly textured stone fireplace became a new visual anchor.
By taking advantage of unused land on the sloping property, Steve was able to expand the house and create an open kitchen-family room in the rear, an area also defined by the fireplace. In classic California tradition, the design allows outdoor areas to meld with the indoors—via oversize sliding doors that lead to a deck.
To make the transition from indoors to outdoors virtually seamless, a redwood deck was built exactly on level with the family room floor.
No comments:
Post a Comment