As an architect, Greg Wiedemann may do additions all the time, but when it came to his own house, he had to do more than satisfy a client. He had to please his whole family. The result is practically perfect.
Getting Started and Making Choices
When their second child was born, Greg and his wife, Liz, decided it was time to move out or renovate. So he started planning
an addition to their Bethesda, Maryland, home. I'm very attracted to houses of the 1920s, so it was hard for me to find anything
I liked as much as ours," says Greg, explaining the couple's decision to renovate instead of move.
The Wiedemanns' lot allowed room for an addition while still maintaining a kid-friendly backyard. Our house is very close to a Sears catalog plan, so it wasn't designed with the property in mind. With an addition, we took advantage of the site's positive attributes and designed around those," notes Greg.
Because the addition is on the back, the vintage facade was basically preserved. We wanted to keep the English cottage quality and the scale of the house from the street," says Greg. A small entry porch addition was the only change; it leads directly into the expanded kitchen and houses an open stairway to a new basement playroom. Greg and Liz went back and forth on whether to have this open stairway. Greg thought he wanted a built-in banquette in the spot, but in the end, the stairway prevailed. It was a good decision," he says. We can hear the boys below while we are up in the kitchen. There are so many possibilities; you have to make trade-offs throughout the planning process."
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