A couple restores an old house, leading them to open a home design business focused on the region’s vernacular styles.
New Old House
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Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2012 |
Editor’s Note
With many of us holding onto our homes longer than we used to, spring is a great time to rethink our dwellings and how they might become more functional and aesthetically pleasing. Whether it’s improving your outdoor spaces by adding an outdoor kitchen or vegetable garden, incorporating classical exterior detailing, or remodeling an outdated kitchen with historically appropriate materials, there are hundreds of great ways to create a new old house with the home you have.
Russell Versaci seconds the principles relayed in architect Duo Dickson’s book, Staying Put: Remodel Your House to Get the Home You Want (Taunton Press, 2011), in his own column. Versaci offers home improvement advice for those deciding to stay in their homes longer. Simply adding the appropriate traditional doors, trim, siding, and windows can create a new old house aesthetic. Barnes Vanze Architects also has advice for enhancing your existing backyard. The firm shares some tricks of the trade when incorporating an outdoor kitchen into your traditional setting. Matching materials such as foundation stone or brick walkways in your outdoor kitchen space will offer a cohesive look to the design.
Architect Anne Decker takes an old Foursquare with dark, drab interiors and lightens the spaces with new trim detailing. She also adds a cheery traditional kitchen—our cover model—that visually connects to outdoor spaces such as gardens and porches. The home is timeless and elegant with added contemporary spaces, including a master suite and home office.
Pat and Liz Pritchett purchased a rundown old farmhouse in Vermont and renovated the space, bringing the house into the modern world while preserving its historical integrity. The couple incorporated appropriate porch detailing and sensitive additions to the 19th-century structure. The house sits beautifully amidst green rolling hills. The project sparked Pat to start a design firm, Vermont Vernacular Designs, which continues to bring new old houses to the Vermont landscape today.
Leo Casas of Braulio Casas Architects in Florida redesigned a kitchen in a Seaside, Florida home. The existing kitchen was too small for the amount of entertaining the homeowners do, so Casas borrowed from a small porch to extend the kitchen and introduce the latest space-saving technologies and tricks, all wrapped in a traditional shell. Today the efficient handsome kitchen offers the perfect spot to prep dinner for 6 or serve a buffet for 25. We hope you enjoy this issue that fully expresses the famous line: “There’s no place like home.”
Nancy E. Berry, Editor of New Old House
