Compromise benefits colonial
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Jan and Harvey Rosen.
She's Southern, gracious, with an accent soft as peach fuzz.
He's hearty and hails from Brooklyn, with many stops along the way.
She's into airy spaces with an interior designer's eye for detail.
He's comfortable kicked back in the shadows of his rustic "sports cabin" with one eye on the scoreboard.
But the Rosens had a meeting of the minds on expanding their 1930s Mount Lookout colonial, keeping its baseball history intact, and collaborating with their remodeling team.
"He wanted to keep the cabin. She wanted a Homearama house," says architect Sally Noble. "The challenge . . . was to mesh how they came together . . . , to figure out how to make an older home flow like a house recently built."
The Rosens' wish list included "first and foremost a first-floor laundry," says Jan. Then, an open kitchen, family room and garage with the charming cabin as the focal point. Also, more storage and bath space upstairs.
"We wanted to make the addition match. We didn't want to change the rest," she says.
In the end, only a few rooms remained untouched by updates, according to builder Jim Schwertman, who says construction was complicated by uncharted sewer lines and excavation surprises.
The two-story addition includes an open hearth room with fireplace and hidden TV, bookshelves, a generous kitchen with a zig-zag granite-top counter with bead board facing and an informal dining area opening through French doors to the original patio, and cabin.
The original first-floor rooms stayed the same, though their function flip-flopped to fit the addition. The old living room became the new formal dining room. The galley kitchen, across the back, became a study and homework room for grandson Andrew, 11. The old dining room became a living room.
Above the addition, the master bedroom grew, remedying the stingy closets of the '30s, and a generous bath was added
The kitchen is the centerpiece of the new space.
"We went through several different designs to make things work," says designer Kevin Thorpe of Nisbet Brower.
"It's fully functional with all today's amenities" - wine cooler with an 18-inch glass door, four high stools, double ovens, stainless appliances, open shelves for display and an extra island sink.
"Harvey wanted a bar, and I gave him the idea of putting scotch in place of the soap dispenser," Thorpe says. "He picked right up on it."
Structural problems in the foyer led to removal of a half-bath and closet and creation of a sunny foyer and larger front door more in proportion to the new home's size.
"There was no wow factor before," says Jan. "The house was nothing special, except for the cabin."
And now, "Most places you finish and you look at it and say, 'I wish I'd done this or that.' I don't think that. Not even once."
Source: http://news.enquirer.com/
Jan and Harvey Rosen.
She's Southern, gracious, with an accent soft as peach fuzz.
He's hearty and hails from Brooklyn, with many stops along the way.
She's into airy spaces with an interior designer's eye for detail.
He's comfortable kicked back in the shadows of his rustic "sports cabin" with one eye on the scoreboard.
But the Rosens had a meeting of the minds on expanding their 1930s Mount Lookout colonial, keeping its baseball history intact, and collaborating with their remodeling team.
"He wanted to keep the cabin. She wanted a Homearama house," says architect Sally Noble. "The challenge . . . was to mesh how they came together . . . , to figure out how to make an older home flow like a house recently built."
The Rosens' wish list included "first and foremost a first-floor laundry," says Jan. Then, an open kitchen, family room and garage with the charming cabin as the focal point. Also, more storage and bath space upstairs.
"We wanted to make the addition match. We didn't want to change the rest," she says.
In the end, only a few rooms remained untouched by updates, according to builder Jim Schwertman, who says construction was complicated by uncharted sewer lines and excavation surprises.
The two-story addition includes an open hearth room with fireplace and hidden TV, bookshelves, a generous kitchen with a zig-zag granite-top counter with bead board facing and an informal dining area opening through French doors to the original patio, and cabin.
The original first-floor rooms stayed the same, though their function flip-flopped to fit the addition. The old living room became the new formal dining room. The galley kitchen, across the back, became a study and homework room for grandson Andrew, 11. The old dining room became a living room.
Above the addition, the master bedroom grew, remedying the stingy closets of the '30s, and a generous bath was added
The kitchen is the centerpiece of the new space.
"We went through several different designs to make things work," says designer Kevin Thorpe of Nisbet Brower.
"It's fully functional with all today's amenities" - wine cooler with an 18-inch glass door, four high stools, double ovens, stainless appliances, open shelves for display and an extra island sink.
"Harvey wanted a bar, and I gave him the idea of putting scotch in place of the soap dispenser," Thorpe says. "He picked right up on it."
Structural problems in the foyer led to removal of a half-bath and closet and creation of a sunny foyer and larger front door more in proportion to the new home's size.
"There was no wow factor before," says Jan. "The house was nothing special, except for the cabin."
And now, "Most places you finish and you look at it and say, 'I wish I'd done this or that.' I don't think that. Not even once."
Source: http://news.enquirer.com/
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