On Koi ponds, water-views and sunlight – Fairfaxtimes.com

This is the time of year when homeowners revel in indoor-outdoor continuum. The more the home provides a window, a perch, a platform intertwined with green vistas, pretty flowers and bright sun light, the better it is.

Of course, it's the architectural appropriateness of this critical juncture that determines what is distinguished and enduring, and what is merely to be endured.

If the goal is to marrying the house and its setting effectively, you got to start with accurately assessing your home's fundamental architecture, says Craig Durosko, founder and chairman of Sun Design Remodeling. Nothing that is seminal to the basic look of the property as a whole can be regarded as out-of-the-picture.

Durosko should know. His firm has been helping homeowners find distinctive ways to open-up the house to its setting for 29 years, and his seasoned staff of designers is among the nation's most lauded by peer groups, other professionals and the home and garden press.

But it all begins with a sensitive reading of what's already there, the remodeler contends.

Three recent projects illustrate the point.

On Lake Barcroft

Owners of a circa-1950s Eichler-style ranch house in Lake Barcroft were seeking big changes within a budget, so the Sun Design team focused on well-integrated incremental solutions: an upgraded kitchen visually linked to main rooms; a remade foyer; interior rooms reconfigured as a master suite; an artfully redesigned powder room.

Among challenges, the existing residence featured a butterfly roof, a rare period detail that earlier remodeling projects had obscured.

Our plan called for restoring the original sense of the house, Durosko recalls. This is fundamentally a mid-20th century style that relies on clean lines, so it made sense to pare back extraneous elements and to create more visual continuum.

Greater cohesion also being an owner priority, designers transformed a dated, closed-in set of main-level rooms into interactive activity zones perfectly configured for graceful socializing.

One of our core decisions was to enhance the connectivity between the kitchen and the living room, Durosko recalls. When this house was built, custom called for hiding the kitchen, which meant blocking the view of a lakeside wooded setting. Today we are well-practiced in applying techniques that discretely incorporate the kitchen into a homes primary socializing areas.

By implementing a handful of structural changes and developing a less obtrusive kitchen interior, the plan achieved a balanced spatial integration, and established sightlines to nearby Lake Barcroft.

The original kitchens drop-down soffit was replaced by a ceiling-flush horizontal beam supported by a single column. This innovation enabled the designer to eliminate a small window-sized pass-through and to introduce a well-defined open plan that includes a black granite bar top/serving counter replete with the stools.

Espresso-colored maple cabinet facings and textured travertine backsplashes tone down the existing kitchens utilitarian ambiance. A sculpturally eye-catching stainless steel cook top vent is both functional and a focal point in an effectively neutral canvas.

Recessed ceiling lights in both the kitchen and the living room reinforce the understated unity. A small adjacent home office was also upgraded and visually re-incorporated into a more open floor plan. Replacing its small hopper window with 54-by-66 glazing turns a dark corner into a favored, sunny nook.

Meanwhile in the front of the house, a seldom-used guest bedroom was reconfigured into square footage now allocated for the new master bedroom suite. The hall was converted into the suites new foyer. The re-designed footprint provides space for a dedicated luxury master bath and an adjacent walk-in closet. A new wall surface created by eliminating the door to the former bath allowed owners to reposition their bed, gaining a recumbent view of the lake.

The homes front foyer attains heightened aesthetics even while giving up a few feet of floor space for a first-level laundry. The original existing door and single sidelight have been replaced with a glass facing double door with retractable screen. Ivory travertine flooring (replacing quarry tile) segues to tasteful white oak that defines a processional from the front door.

The first level powder room inspired by colors in a framed poster art promotion of a Matisse exhibition is both playful and elegant.

Oak Hill idyll: Dining deck with glass-topped sunroom weathers all seasons

We think of an outdoor living plan as a creative response to an owner's personal requirements, says Bob Gallagher, Sun Design's president. The important point is not how much of it is open or enclosed, but how well the whole supports a lifestyle in which exposure to nature is the primary goal.

A recent dining deck plus sunroom solution in Oak Hill illustrates the point. After years of occupying a home custom-designed precisely to exploit a pretty wooded setting, the owners had decided they wanted a stronger link to the outdoors. Low-maintenance was an essential ingredient, but they initially envisioned an outdoor room, free from insects yet with dramatic visual continuum in all directions.

They had looked at screen porches, Gallagher explains. The idea was an enclosed space on the new dining deck, something of a place apart; A transitional footprint between house and open air.

As the conversation developed, extending the room's seasonal usefulness gradually became the rising aspiration.

If we could create a dramatic connectedness to nature and extend the room seasonally, we were heading to the right solution, Gallagher recalls.

At a glance, the resulting 10.5 '-by-12.5' sunroom is a neatly balanced space plan that seems neither closed nor overexposed to the elements. Floor-to-ceiling windows define the room on every elevation. Overhead, two skylights installed on a hipped roof allow 25 square feet of natural light. Ceramic tile flooring and other neutral finishes reinforce the natural, open ambiance which is visually linked to the welcoming dining deck.

To preserve generous views on the existing rear elevation, Gallagher and team placed the sunroom directly off the kitchen to the left of the family room. Built-ins and a fireplace comfortably integrate the space to the existing interior. The room is a favored spot to watch the trees, and is mostly opened-up for cross breezes on temperate days.

Since upkeep requirements were to be restricted to an annual pressure wash, even the sunroom's exterior paneling is low-maintenance. Hardiplank siding, Trex decking, aluminum balusters and vinyl-clad posts further articulate a decorative outdoor design scheme that is also easy to maintain.

Vienna by the pond

A remodel in Vienna points to how a screened-in porch can be thoroughly mainstreamed yet visually thrust into an intimate relationship with varied landscaping.

Initially conceived as a rear elevation addition that would replace a small deck outside the existing breakfast room, after studying the plans for a while the homeowner decided a porch would be more useful. Still, Sun Design's team made adroit use of the earlier drawings, incorporating fine exterior trim detailing into the new porch.

Architectural appropriateness is always critical in an improvement of this caliber, Durosko explains. We decided early on that the best way to rationalize the re-made exterior elevation was to match the pyramid-shaped roof over the breakfast room. By contrast, the entrance from porch to patio was designed as a hyphen between two clearly defined enclosed spaces. This approach enabled us to avoid too much massing on the rear of the house, and to keeps the scale accessible and comfortable. Overall, the new exterior presents a very appealing rhythm.

To further conjoin house and garden, the porch design calls for a ground level course of local quarry stone that matches those used in the existing patio. The new elevation is architecturally sympathetic, and the fine exterior trim work has been constructed from wood.

Taken as a whole, the owner's program concentrated on several specifics: a bug-free family outdoor play area near the existing patio barbecue; generously unencumbered zones for dining, cooking and conversation; open sightlines to the well-developed Koi pond and lovely backyard landscaping beyond.

Given the emphasis on sightlines, one of our early decisions was to bring the footprint for the new porch further into the backyard so that the pond would be a focal point from the sitting area, Durokso explains. That said, the porch is much more a product of specific use requirements than a traditional L-shaped wraparound porch would have allowed.

Sun Design Remodeling frequently sponsors tours of recently remodeled homes as well as workshops on home remodeling topics. Headquartered in Burke, the firm has a second office in McLean. For information, call (703) 425-5588 or visit

http://www.SunDesignInc.com

John Byrd has been writing about home improvement for 30 years. He can be reached at (703) 715-8006, http://www.HomeFrontsNews.com or byrdmatx@gmail.com

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On Koi ponds, water-views and sunlight - Fairfaxtimes.com