Timber frame homes offer unique challenges during a remodel. What often makes them beautiful and attractive to most homeowners, also makes them challenging for space requirements. Context: The lovely couple that owned this home were struggling with some interesting floor plan challenges that just didn't work for their family. The loved the beautiful timbers and woodwork of their home, but the dramatically sloping ceilings on the second floor, particularly in the bathroom, just didn't work for this 1 1/2 bath home. Needing to use the skylight to approach the toilet was a less then ideal scenario. Although the bathroom footprint was more then adequate, the sloped ceiling only made half of the space useable. Check out the Before/After post on our blog to see the photos of the house pre-renovation. As much as they loved all the wood features in their home, another challenge they had was light. The wood ceiling made everything inside the house darker, even with a fantastic array of south facing windows, there were spaces in the home that felt dark and small. When they contacted us they wanted to know how could they make their brighter and more inviting, were there solutions to the 2nd floor sloped ceiling issues, and if they were going to do all of this work, how could they make their home more comfortable and efficient. A nagging water leak in the upstairs bathroom spurred them into action and here is how we solved their dilemma. Conclusion: First, we added a little dormer to the rear of the house so we could get full headroom in nearly all of the upstairs bathroom! Then we decided to extend that dormer one more timber bay over to create a walk in closet with natural light and plenty of space. Since we were contemplating energy efficiency, we resolved a nagging issue that is present in a lot of timber frame construction, air tightness. Commonly found in timber frame construction, fiberglass insulation is installed in the rafter bays and board ceilings are installed over top. Unfortunately, board ceilings are anything but air tight, and fiberglass insulation needs to be in an airtight cavity for maximum effectiveness. So we were able to solve two issues at the same time for this homeowner. We removed the board ceiling and fiberglass insulation, we dense packed the rafter bays with cellulose insulation, and installed sheetrock in place of the boards. The boards were salvaged for re-use by the homeowner, and the space and light quality was dramatically improved. Some may think that losing the board ceiling took something away from the space, but what you'll see in the pictures is that it highly accentuates the heavy timbers and really makes them stand out in a beautiful way. Now with this added airtightness, better insulation, and brighter space, the homeowner hardly runs their wood stove, and it's so quiet in the space, an added bonus from changing the insulation. It became necessary to also add a sheetrock ceiling to the living room to hide the plumbing from the new bathroom layout above. Changing this ceiling gave the homeowner some real quality lighting that was lacking in the living room before. The brighter ceiling and new lighting layout completely transforms the living room into a space you want to hang out, even though the layout didn't change at all. When the homeowner saw the finished spaces she said "I can't believe this is my house, I want to live in this house" Energy Efficiency: I touched a little on the efficiency above, but like all projects done with Mottram Architecture, we always want to leave you with a little extra. Timber frame construction with board ceilings and fiberglass insulation are notoriously leaky! If you want to know what we think about fiberglass insulation, check our our blog post on Why Fiberglass Insulation Sucks. By installing cellulose insulation and covering it with sheetrock we were able to greatly reduce the heat flowing out of this home. It not only improves cashflow it improves the comfort level in the space. Who wants to sit in their living room and feel a draft? Let us remind you, we are not saying cellulose insulation is an air barrier, we use the sheetrock to help with that, but it does significantly reduce the air flow over fiberglass insulation. And when we reduce the airflow, we reduce the heat flow. And when we reduce the heat flow, we reduce the need to re-heat that drafty air from outside. When it comes to energy efficiency the first and best place to start is air infiltration. We greatly reduced the air infiltration with the new insulation, but we also added a hat and warm boots. What I mean by that is, we improved the insulation in the roof, and we installed insulation in the basement. Maybe it's a silly analogy, but when you think about keeping warm, we always start with the hat and boots! With sustainability in mind, the next project will be to add a deck to the front of this house with rain catchment barrels from the metal roof. They are planning to plant a garden in the spring and the rain catchment system will help to irrigate the new garden. Builder: East Shore Builders Photographer: Michael Eric Berube

Photo: Nanette Wong © 2014 Houzz
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The front facade was retained but reinterpreted with a “new” third floor cleverly birthed by raising the roof. Exposed cedar eaves, a navy front door, and modern materials, match the neighborhood pattern, hinting at what’s inside. Interior Designer: Amanda Teal Photographer: John Merkl

Renovation of a 1952 Midcentury Modern Eichler home in San Jose, CA. Full remodel of kitchen, main living areas and central atrium incl flooring and new windows in the entire home - all to bring the home in line with its mid-century modern roots, while adding a modern style and a touch of Scandinavia.

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This well used but dreary bathroom was ready for an update but this time, materials were selected that not only looked great but would stand the test of time. The large steam shower (6x6') was like a dark cave with one glass door allowing light. To create a brighter shower space and the feel of an even larger shower, the wall was removed and full glass panels now allowed full sunlight streaming into the shower which avoids the growth of mold and mildew in this newly brighter space which also expands the bathroom by showing all the spaces. Originally the dark shower was permeated with cracks in the marble marble material and bench seat so mold and mildew had a home. The designer specified Porcelain slabs for a carefree un-penetrable material that had fewer grouted seams and added luxury to the new bath. Although Quartz is a hard material and fine to use in a shower, it is not suggested for steam showers because there is some porosity. A free standing bench was fabricated from quartz which works well. A new free standing, hydrotherapy tub was installed allowing more free space around the tub area and instilling luxury with the use of beautiful marble for the walls and flooring. A lovely crystal chandelier emphasizes the height of the room and the lovely tall window.. Two smaller vanities were replaced by a larger U shaped vanity allotting two corner lazy susan cabinets for storing larger items. The center cabinet was used to store 3 laundry bins that roll out, one for towels and one for his and one for her delicates. Normally this space would be a makeup dressing table but since we were able to design a large one in her closet, she felt laundry bins were more needed in this bathroom. Instead of constructing a closet in the bathroom, the designer suggested an elegant glass front French Armoire to not encumber the space with a wall for the closet.The new bathroom is stunning and stops the heart on entering with all the luxurious amenities.

Beautifully customized combination pantry and desk with furniture legs to unify. Inset door construction.
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When the client first came to us, they were looking to update their bathroom and to make the space to feel bigger and brighter. We were able to achieve this by installing Emser Tile’s Metro Cream Honed Hexagon tile flooring and an American Standard soaking tub. We also upgraded their cabinetry to a Foremost prefabricated cabinet with soft-close doors and drawers. Some other features of this bathroom include Kohler drop-in sink, a floor to ceiling tiled shower with a clear frameless glass, and Capital lighting.

Kitchen - contemporary l-shaped medium tone wood floor and brown floor kitchen idea in Boise with an undermount sink, shaker cabinets, white cabinets, white backsplash, subway tile backsplash, stainless steel appliances, no island and white countertops

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This was a great kitchen transformation with great clients. The original kitchen was dark and closed in. We removed a support column and added a new steel beam so the dining area could be fully open to the kitchen space. We enlarged the opening in between the front room and kitchen to further open the space. Adding a large new window bump out behind the sink added the illusion of extra space as well as allowing great natural light and beautiful views of the property. The clients wanted simple lines and warm tones so we chose the Tacoma door style by Fieldstone cabinetry in cherry wood with a butterscotch finish. The Kashmir Gold granite countertops have a great natural pallet of colors that tie the whole look together. The new stainless chimney vent hood with adjacent floating shelves add to the clean open feel. The large format tile back splash from Porcelanosa Tile provide a great seamless look to the back wall. The original tired wood flooring was refinished and brought back to life showing all the great natural character with the new lighter brighter finish.

Photo: Vicki Bodine
Large transitional l-shaped light wood floor eat-in kitchen photo in New York with beaded inset cabinets, black cabinets, white backsplash, stainless steel appliances, an island, an undermount sink, stone slab backsplash and marble countertops

The homeowners wanted to turn this rustic kitchen, which lacked functional cabinet storage space, into a brighter more fun kitchen with a dual tap Perlick keg refrigerator. For the keg, we removed existing cabinets and later retrofitted the doors on the Perlick keg refrigerator. We also added two Hubbardton Forge pendants over the bar and used light travertine and mulit colored Hirsch glass for the backsplash, which added texture and color to complement the various bottle colors they stored. We installed taller, light maple cabinets with glass panels to give the feeling of a larger space. To brighten it up, we added layers of LED lighting inside and under the cabinets as well as under the countertop with bar seating. For a little fun we even added a multi-color, multi-function LED toe kick, to lighten up the darker cabinets. Each small detail made a big impact.

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This was a great kitchen transformation with great clients. The original kitchen was dark and closed in. We removed a support column and added a new steel beam so the dining area could be fully open to the kitchen space. We enlarged the opening in between the front room and kitchen to further open the space. Adding a large new window bump out behind the sink added the illusion of extra space as well as allowing great natural light and beautiful views of the property. The clients wanted simple lines and warm tones so we chose the Tacoma door style by Fieldstone cabinetry in cherry wood with a butterscotch finish. The Kashmir Gold granite countertops have a great natural pallet of colors that tie the whole look together. The new stainless chimney vent hood with adjacent floating shelves add to the clean open feel. The large format tile back splash from Porcelanosa Tile provide a great seamless look to the back wall. The original tired wood flooring was refinished and brought back to life showing all the great natural character with the new lighter brighter finish.

Lighter and brighter – those were our goals for this kitchen, plus we reconfigured the island to make the whole space more user-friendly. We added a larger window over the sink and chose dual-colored cabinets in a cool-warm contrast of white and greige. Photo by Matt Warren Photography