THE DRAWING BOARD-October 2011

The owners of this Queen Anne–style home in Cape Elizabeth had a long list of improvements they wanted to make. The house had been remodeled over the years, and as a result, a small, single-story addition on the back simultaneously serves as the main entry, mudroom, kitchen, and breakfast room, while the large living room is never used. Accessing the dining room and living room requires squeezing through a 26-inch doorway. On the second floor, a single, outdated bathroom serves four small bedrooms.

The key element of the proposed renovation plan is a new addition to replace the old single-story one, carefully designed to preserve the original windows on the main house while offering an expansive mudroom, a custom kitchen with dining nook, and a new master bedroom on the second floor. The new plan greatly improves the flow between rooms. The kitchen will overlook a landscaped backyard, and the inviting mudroom entry will be carved into the volume of the house. A new deck will extend from the ornate existing porch and be easily accessed from the kitchen.

The exterior is designed to be sympathetic to the beautiful details and materials on the main house, with a flared gable dormer in the new master bedroom, cedar shingle siding, and painted pine trim. The kitchen bump-out is meant to look like a porch that was closed in over time, in order to keep the scale of the addition small compared to the main house.