In remodeling, details matter as much as square footage

“When remodeling your home in today’s world, don’t go for square footage. Go for detail.”

That is the philosophy of Keith Ginnodo and Kirsten Kingsley of Kingsley and Ginnodo Architects of Arlington Heights.

“Adding space to solve a space problem isn’t always the best solution,” Ginnodo said.

Instead, they advocate “adaptive reuse” of your home. This involves looking for ways to make what you already have fit the way you actually live by remodeling existing areas, but also creating new spaces that are thoughtfully integrated with the rest of the house without requiring you to add to its footprint.

“Most of the houses we live in have been around for awhile,” he explained. “And if these were built reasonably well, they can continue to be viable homes.”

“After all, the highly energy-consumptive act that went into the construction is already complete. New construction, on the other hand, requires enormous expenditures of more energy for a host of activities including the demolition of existing buildings or the excavation of open land; placing waste materials into landfills; extending infrastructure to new areas; creating new materials from raw or recycled materials; and assembling those materials into new structures,” Ginnodo continued.

When you think about it, he added, doing nothing is actually pretty green.

A few years ago Ginnodo and Kingsley drew up plans to renovate their own small 1936 bungalow in Arlington Heights. Their three sons were growing and taking up more and more space, but the family didn’t want to move.

“Our home is cute and comfortable, but smallish by the standards of the early 2000s,” Ginnodo said. “So we decided to invest in our home so that we could live more comfortably as a family of five with all of the activities modern families undertake.”

They didn’t tear down the house and start over or add a big addition. Nor did they move to the hinterlands where they could afford a larger home.

Instead, they stayed within the existing footprint of their home and added living space by reworking the kitchen plan, expanding the second floor into space that was formerly attic and finishing the basement, even adding a play room for young children in the crawl space.

“We remodeled in a way that helped us to use all of our house and incorporated features that were already there, like the quaint archway and the beautiful woodwork,” Ginnodo said. “We added well-built, well-integrated space that has character and integrity. What guided our work was not what would provide the best resale value, but rather what would provide the best living value. In the end, we accomplished both.”

When they approached the rework of their kitchen, they removed five doors that originally littered the room, Kingsley said. One door led to a closet under the staircase. Once they realized they could insert a refrigerator in that cozy space, they knew they had solved one of their major challenges. An old ironing board cabinet nearby was quickly replaced with a full-length but shallow spice rack that allows the family to immediately see what they have on hand.

Between the refrigerator and the spice rack, they found they could insert a full-size microwave oven with a roomy drawer beneath it, also under the staircase. So that took up space that had been totally hidden behind the home’s original walls. To integrate those three major elements, they designed shallow wooden shelf space for the display of artwork and narrow items.

A butler’s pantry closet had formerly housed the refrigerator and some cabinetry. It was transformed into a built-in breakfast booth where the family can dine informally. A built-in breakfront adds storage on the rear wall, above the nook seating.

They also expanded the kitchen slightly by breaking through the original brick wall and building a small cantilevered space that now holds the kitchen sink and surrounding cabinetry and allowed the extension of the kitchen by a couple of feet.

“We saved ourselves thousands in concrete work by not putting a foundation under it and, in the process, were able to preserve the basement windows that were under there,” Ginnodo said.

Inventive use of interior wall space also led them to fit a cubby storage system for shoes into the wall alongside the stairs leading to the basement and the back door.

On the second floor the family gained lots of usable space. They added a third bedroom and a large bathroom and increased the size of the original two upstairs bedrooms by tipping up the roof and adding “shed” dormers, in the tradition of many Chicago bungalows. Liberal use of skylights and awning windows now allow light to flow into the three roomy bedrooms and full bath up there and closets are tucked under the roofline wherever nothing else fits.

The youngest son even has the luxury of a hidden playroom behind his closet. The triangular-shaped room with a window at the end is an offshoot of the original home’s attic and now is very popular for sleepovers.

A similar play area in the former crawl space was created when they finished the basement.

“The economic climate that favored tearing down and starting over has been replaced with one that favors holding on and maybe even hunkering down,” Ginnodo explained.

But even when economic conditions eventually improve, he and Kingsley believe that, in the future, people will take a more sensible and reasonable approach to home improvement.

“This recession was the cold shower all of us needed to reawaken us to what is important,” he said.

“A home doesn’t have to be so many feet by so many feet for it to be comfortable and for people to love living there,” Kingsley added.

“Lifestyles have changed over the decades, so existing homes are often either stylistically obsolete, functionally deficient or energy-wasting,” Ginnodo said. “But, when something needs to be done to make our homes more livable, the strategy should be to spend the dollars wisely. Improve energy efficiency with unseen and un-sexy things like insulation and sealant first. The larger investment in high performing windows or other green gadgets like solar panels can be your luxury items.”

“Then make existing spaces work and respond to how you actually live. Add the right amount of space, thoughtfully planned and beautifully designed, so that your home feels like home,” he said.

“We need to be smarter, building ‘right-sized’ houses that are well designed and fit within a normal person’s budget,” Kingsley said.

Oftentimes homes feature a good amount of space that is poorly laid out. Good architects can reorganize existing space in a home and often make a huge difference in how a home works for someone. They can also make cosmetic overhauls to an existing home when people enjoy the inside, but hate the way it looks from the exterior.

“But it is very important that you manage to define your opened-up spaces with something like an existing archway or a fireplace. You don’t want to just create a big empty room like you find in many of the new houses they are building,” Kingsley said.

One client of Kingsley and Ginnodo had an outdated 1970s-era kitchen that did not lend itself to them cooking together, which they love to do. So they recruited Kingsley and Ginnodo to design something for them that was more modern and workable, without extending beyond the room’s original envelope.

“We raised the ceiling a bit and added a copper roof over the kitchen to add character to the room and keep the hottest air away from the room’s occupants,” Ginnodo said. “And we added a wall of windows looking onto the backyard pool area, built a telephone nook deep into wall space that was just waiting to be captured and transformed an adjoining full bathroom into a multifunctional mini-butler’s pantry and powder room.”

They also made sure there was plenty of room for side-by-side cooking and hid countertop appliances like the stand mixer behind doors and inside nooks.

“The family now enjoys group cooking, dining and socializing in a beautiful, but functional environment,” Ginnodo said. “Money that would otherwise have been spent on additional concrete and an exterior wall, if increased kitchen size had been the driving force, was instead used on quality, detail and intimate charm. Attention to detail kept the long-term energy costs under wraps, too.”

In the end, Kingsley and Ginnodo believe, building smarter allows better living without too much extravagance or expense.

For more information, visit kingsleyandginnodo.com or call (847) 975-5008.