Redesign without the Remodel: Future Wealth Creation and Sustainable Living Arrangements

Although the bread and butter of our residential work is working with homeowners who are building or remodeling, our design expertise applies just as much to thinking about your space as it does to laying out floor plans.  In September and October, each Monday design.banter will feature "Redesign without the Remodel, " since the vast majority of us are not currently remodeling our homes or building a new one. It also goes without staying that the greenest design is adapting your current home to your changing needs.  Need some personalized advice? We are always available for consulting on an hourly basis. 

During our series Redesign without the Remodel, we have been looking at how to think outsider of the drywall box, so to say, about the rooms in your house. Who says you have to use the rooms in conventional ways, if that's not what works best for you? Here's a summary of different ways rooms can be used:

• Have only one dining area
• If you use the breakfast nook as your only dining area, just add a table cloth, candles, and dim the lights for when you want a formal feel
• If you use the formal dining area as your main area, use a table cloth to protect a nice table for everyday meals
• A breakfast nook can make a great office: it's adjacent to the hub of the home, and parents can monitor homework and computer use while cooking. Bills and other clutter can stop at the kitchen/office and never make it into the other parts of the house that are used for relaxing, not working. 
• A formal dining area can also be used as a library. Add a few nice chairs and a small table to create a formal parlor area.  
• Switch your formal dining and family room areas. Make the formal dining room, usually the smaller room, into a more intimate TV watching area. Formal dining areas are usually more closed off from the kitchen than family areas-no more turning up the TV over cooking and dishwasher noises. Family areas are usually larger and may have taller ceilings, making them ideal for a combination formal dining area/library/parlor area.
• Designate just one corner or wall of a room as office space, and allow it to be closed off with a curtain or desk with doors. Office areas can also be carved out under a staircase or in a closet. 
• Let your cars live outside and use the extra 400 square feet for active space. An inexpensive shed can house tools and outdoor and sporting equipment. 
• Think of ways an existing house can generate income or provide a community resource. Create a shared home office in the garage or rarely used formal areas. Identify areas that can be rented out.                                                                      

During the presentation of our project for the AIA Seattle 2009 What Makes it Green Awards, the judges were most interested in this graphic, illustrating the built-in flexibility of the San Juan Channel House. 

The layout of the house and garage apartment allow for future wealth creation and sustainable living arrangements for the family, through rental of different areas of the house, cohousing with another family or allowing adult children a place to live while they find their way financially or take care of aging parents. There are also options for creating a home office, for the owner or for rent to others. So far, the garage apartment has proved its flexibility by acting as a temporary apartment for friends in transition, space for a temporary live-in nanny, and a home office. 

In tough economic times, or just in looking towards a more sustainable future, we may need to use our space in different ways, whether that be working from home, adding a rental unit, or sharing what was once a single family home. New homes should be designed with this in mind, but more realistically existing homes can be retrofitted to adjust to our future needs.
           

Redesign without the Remodel: Formal Area Conversion

Although the bread and butter of our residential work is working with homeowners who are building or remodeling, our design expertise applies just as much to arranging spaces as it does to laying out floor plans.  In September and October, each Monday design.banter will feature "Redesign without the Remodel", with tips on how to "remodel" your home using furniture and items you may already own. Your home can have a brand new feel without ever lifting a hammer (well, except to hang a picture), since the vast majority of us are not currently remodeling our homes or building a new one. It also goes without staying that the greenest design is adapting your current home to your changing needs. Need some personalized advice? We are always available for consulting on an hourly basis.

OK, so I'm cheating a little on this one. This may require a little remodeling. Or it can just be treated as a room switch. This series has been about rethinking how we use our spaces and how they can used in nontraditional ways, in ways that work for the way you really live.

Why not make your breakfast nook the one dining area? Do you really need 2 eating tables? Not only are you paying for the extra furniture, but a mortgage on that space too. If your mortgage is $2000 per month on a 2,000 sq foot house, and your dining room is 168 SF, you are paying over $2,000 per year for a room you may only use for major holidays and birthdays. 

One idea is to have the nice table in the breakfast nook. For everyday dining, use a table cloth (and table protector if you have young kiddos). Then, when you want to create a special dining experience, take off the table cloth, light some candles and turn down the lights. You won't even notice that you're in the breakfast nook that you use every day!

If you have a breakfast bar or an area to place stools, this can serve as your casual dining area.

The formal dining room is usually the perfect size for an extra bedroom or a guest room. Instead of moving to accommodate another child or because of the lack of a guest room, you can use the rarely used formal dining room. If you don't want to get too much into the details, you can add some sliding doors, like those available from Raydoor or the Sliding Door Company, or DIY barn door sliders (where a track can be installed over the existing opening, so there is minimum disturbance).

A sliding barn door is a great way to partition off a room (with an opening too big for a traditional door) without creating remodeling dust. Photo credit.

Now to the possible remodeling part. The formal dining area is flexible because of its location at the front of the house, which opens up many possibilities for casual cohousing or house sharing. The formal area of a home can be turned into a separate room for an adult child or elderly parent. If the laundry room or a powder room are adjacent to the dining room, this opens up the opportunity to add a full bathroom. A separate entrance can be added to the front for renting out the room to a student. There is an opportunity for privacy in that the formal areas are usually separate from the other bedrooms. 

Use sliding doors to close off a home office or home office + foyer from the rest of the house. That way, the foyer can serve as an entrance for the office and the home. Photo: The Sliding Door Company.

The location at the front of the house also makes it ideal for a home office. It can be closed off from the rest of the house. A separate entry can be added, or if the dining room is off of the foyer, sliding doors can be added to close off the foyer for when clients or business associates visit. If you have employees, the can make them more comfortable in that they will have some separation from your house. In many homes, the most common entry is the one adjacent to the garage or driveway, so the front door is not often used. Extra income can be added (not to mention company during the day) if the home office is turned into a community office for other work-from-homers in the neighborhood. (See last week's entry on sharing a community home office).