Visual Harmony

By “flow” we are talking about room to room relationships and how sight lines and room dimensions shape that space.  Improving flow generally means removing road blocks or snags that cause visual and physical interference.  In so doing, we achieve visual harmony and improved function.  That is the value of an interior renovation approach to solving a problem related to room dimensions or room relationships in a house or larger condominium.  By making very small adjustments and by selectively enhancing finish details, an architect and interior designer can completely transform a dysfunctional layout.

Here is an example of an interior renovation project in progress in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington DC.  As you can see in the photo, it is very much in the midst….

Walls between the kitchen, dining room and sun room were demolished and relocated to balance the rooms.

It’s a mess!  What this shows us is how much work is being done to relay the floor plan by removing and relocating walls.  The purpose of this project was two-fold:

• enlarge the sun room at the rear of the condo
• open up the sight lines from the rear so that natural light from the sun room could reach into the adjacent rooms

Steal From the Large and Give To the Small Room

Since this residence is in a condominium building, a sun room addition was not an option.  Fortunately, the turn of the century time period when this condo was built favored generous room dimensions particularly in formal dining rooms.  So the designers and clients agreed to steal a few feet from the dining room and give it to the sun room.  In the process they decided to create wider passages between the rooms giving an overall effect of open-ness and light that the clients wanted.

Gaining Space Without An Addition

Interior renovation can be applied just as well to a single family home provided the overall square footage is sizable enough to reconfigure.  The before (left) and after (right) floor plan of a Bethesda French colonial show how effectively interior renovation can improve sight lines and room to room flow.

Instead of an addition to this suburban Bethesda home, designers proposed an interior renovation to open up the main floor plan

The owners wanted a large center island in the kitchen–but the room simply wasn’t large enough to accommodate that feature.  Several remodelers had told them to build an addition.  They didn’t want to do that because it would mean having to sacrifice a backyard patio that they treasured.  We suggested removing a couple of walls (note highlighted areas on plan left) and adding a couple of box bays (bump outs) at the rear of the house to give the kitchen just enough room for that center island–which was very important to the owners.

The floor plan and kitchen lay out were transformed and made fully functional without the expense of a large addition.  This is not to say that this approach was cheap–quite the contrary!  But less expensive?  Yes.  Smart use of resources?  Yes.  Good design solution for the house and the family?  Yes and yes.

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Sometimes prospective clients will start a conversation by telling us they’ve decided they only want to work with a design build firm.  The return question from us is “what made you decide that?”

It is not uncommon to find that interest in a design build only approach has been prompted by a prior home renovation experience that left bad memories. The project usually turned out OK, but the process was memorably unpleasant for the homeowners.  Here’s a real-life quote from a homeowner who said he is “still taking pepto-bismol” after his bum remodeling experience:

“The problems were with coordination between the contractor and his subs.  There was a lot of down time that slowed things, so work wasn’t done when we had to take delivery of our household effects.  There were also some quality control issues…”

Snippets of similar conversations with others include:

• builder not on same page as architect
• architect didn’t maintain control of the project
• contractor took shortcuts
• there were unannounced changes

Things like that. These types of problems begin long before construction begins and then intensify during construction when it is usually too late to resolve them.  Here are two of the most common scenarios:

• Accurate estimates based on an accurate scope of work should have been completely spelled out during the planning phase–but weren’t.
• During the construction phase project management was lax and poor communication between architect, builder and homeowner led to misunderstandings, mistakes and frustration.

These problems simply can’t exist within the context of a design build approach to remodeling.  Ongoing communication and project planning are deeply stitched into the fabric of a design build firm.

Design Build Is All About Accountability

After all this foolishness, the caller has come to the conclusion that hiring one company to take complete responsibility for the entire process and project outcome is the way to go.  So they call a design build firm.

Oddly, some of these unfortunate homeowners say they loved their architect–even though that same architect left them to their own devices with the builder.

When the architect and builder are on the same team, it’s easy to love them both because the entire project is customized for the client.  In design build we determine what the homeowners want and ensure that doesn’t get lost as the design ideas evolve.

As an approach to custom home renovation, design build works because the decision process is based on all around communication between the design build firm and the client.  Obviously, we at Gilday Renovations think it’s the only way to go.

In a design build approach, the entire project is customized for the client.

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Montgomery County has issued rules about rain water management as relates to residential remodeling–especially for projects involving home additions.  If the design plan shows an addition exceeds 400 square feet, the architect has to produce a rain water management plan for the property.  Chevy Chase Village takes a more strict approach by eliminating the size allowance.

Buildings and homes are designed to shed water.  That’s a good thing.  When rain falls on your roof, water is directed via downspouts and pipes into storm sewers.  That results in high velocity volumes of water barreling through the system.  That’s not good.  Over many years, all that fast moving water has unmercifully gutted and eroded our beautiful stream valleys (Rock Creek, Sligo).  Further down stream the problem gets worse.   All that soil erosion contributes to dead zones (oxygen depleted areas) in the Chesapeake Bay.

So… rain water from my roof top is suffocating oyster beds?  Well, of course there are other culprits (roads, sidewalks, parking lots, etc etc) but, yes, buildings and homes are a contributing factor.  It’s a big problem–especially since the infrastructure is all set up to move water as rapidly as possible to ….. someplace else.

Someplace Else Is Here

In the Village of Chevy Chase, someplace else is now designated as your -not your neighbor’s- yard.  So, as we planned a modest kitchen and family room addition for our clients on Hesketh Street in Chevy Chase, we were asked to comply with Village rules about water management.  Our client had two choices:

• collect the water in rain barrels (which can be used for garden watering), or
• dig a rain garden and pipe water from the downspouts to that location in the yard.

They chose rain garden.  A rain garden is a landscaping solution for controlling water on a residential lot.  An area is excavated about two feet deep and filled half way with gravel and then soil and plants that can thrive in a damp environment.  The rain garden solves the problem by providing a place for water to naturally collect and slowly be absorbed into the ground.

As it turns out, our clients have always had a low, wet area toward the back of their lot that they avoided.  So, it was a perfect match.  In this case it will provide the homeowners an opportunity to do something nice (and useful) with a hereto unattractive part of their back yard.

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You wouldn’t expect this but some of the most exciting moments take place once construction is under way.  This is particularly so, when the program calls for major additions or whole house renovations.  These can be huge and complex–there is a lot of change and a lot of anticipation bundled up with them.

One of our clients said that she loved being able to see inside the part of her house that was ripped open to make way for a kitchen addition.  She also expressed how serene it felt to stand in an unfinished space later in the day after the craftsmen had gone home.  There she would be, walking on a bare wood subfloor, looking through the framing into the open walls and ceiling.  It all feels so open and ripe with promise of the finish work that is to come.

There is no denying that there are highs and lows during the process.  It’s a bit different for each person. Most people experience some dip in the excitement level at transition phases in the construction.  For example, when we proceed from the exhilarating open space of rough framing to the close in phase with drywall.  The beginning of that next stage in the process can make rooms feels small and painfully bare.

These two photos may give you a sense of how this works.  First, we show the rough framing phase, then the same scene after drywall has been hung.

THE WIDE OPEN SPACES OF THE ROUGH FRAMING PHASE OF CONSTRUCTION

THE EARLY DRYWALL PHASE MAY INCITE A TEMPORARY SPELL OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA

“Oh no!  We should have made the room bigger!”  That might be the initial response to this very big change that has taken many weeks to develop.  The drywall appears quite featureless and dull compared to the framing.  But, be assured, that “smallness” is an illusion.  Trust your designers.  Trust the design.  It is going to turn out precisely as you planned except for one thing:  it will be slightly better than planned.

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We have talked about the kitchen work triangle and how it effectively makes or breaks a kitchen design.  If the geometry is off, the kitchen -no matter how beautiful it looks- will not work successfully.  Sometimes clients refer to this problem as a “dysfunctional layout.”  This has all to do with the location of work centers (aka task areas) and the logic of work flow.

The work centers are

• storage (pantry & refrigerator)
• food preparation (sink, countertop, butcher block)
• cooking (range, stove top, wall oven/s, microwave)
• clean up (sink, dishwasher/s, garbage disposal and recycling bins)

The individual task areas (work centers) must be organized so that the cook has all the utensils, vessels and supplies easily at hand.  Each area needs to be planned for efficiency and ease of movement–which leads us to work flow.

Work Flow

Work flow relates to the order in which kitchen work centers are used in various steps of food handling.  In simple terms it is this:

• food and supplies come in the kitchen door
• are stored in the pantry and fridge
• are selected and set up at the prep center
• then to the cook center
• and finally utensils, pot, plates and waste go to the clean up center

Ideally, kitchen work centers are located strategically along that work flow path so that they are in close proximity and minimize the number of steps needed to move from one process to the next.

Economy of Movement

Set up your work space so that you don’t strain and don’t waste energy that should be going into the work at hand.  I was taught this lesson in one of my first part time jobs in high school (back when kids used to do part time jobs in high school).  Mr Leonardo, the Leonardo family patriarch and owner of the Four Corners Bootery in Delmar NY, taught me this when I was training in as his assistant.  ”Economy of movement,” he said to me, emphasizing with a shake of a wing tip shoe in his black smeared hand.  ”Don’t waste time.”    Don’t waste time or materials.  Follow the formula and you can produce.  I don’t think Mr. Leonardo ever cooked a meal in his family kitchen upstairs from the shoe repair shop, but he had the right idea.

And that is precisely what kitchen design and planning is all about.  Eliminate unnecessary effort so that all your energy goes into the task at hand.  Organize your work centers and plan your work flow so that they support the task at hand and don’t in any way interfere.

There is a beauty and a sort of extravagance in this sort of “economy.”   It is the sort of economy -or mindfulness- that sets you free rather than restricts you.

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TRANSITIONAL STYLE LIVING ROOM BY SKIP SROKA

The Washington DC area is home to a big, busy interior design community.  It makes sense that residential design and renovation are big business here because the DC market itself is constantly changing–and design and renovation are all about change.  Whether the work is built on riveting simplicity or genre-bending extravagance, the effect of change achieved by interior designers can be transformative.  How do they do it?

Indeed, the design process may seem impossibly magical and mysterious.  To shed some light on it, Washington Design Center recently invited interior designers Marika Meyer, Barbara Hawthorn and Skip Sroka to a panel discussion titled “De-mystifying Interior Design.”  Of course, talent is a mystery, just as creativity is magic.  But as Marika, Barbara and Skip spoke about their work, the audience got to peek inside the process.  The discussion ranged broadly over many topics.  What follows here is just a snippet.

So what does an interior designer do?  Marika summarized:  ”a designer creates cohesive and consistent space”.  The key elements of design are

• lighting (natural and artificial)
• scale (room size)
• proportion (relationship between objects,furnishings and built pieces)
• the finish (accessories and color)
• sight lines (points of interest that draw you into the space)

All three designers put lighting at the top of the list.  Is the room naturally bright or dark?  Is it used mostly during daylight hours or in the evening?  Balancing the natural and artificial lighting is key to achieving color balance.  Marika feels very strongly about this point “because you can spend all the money in the world on furnishings, but if you have poor light…. well there is very little point.”  So understanding the assets and limitations of a room are the first step to creating the space the client desires.

Both Skip and Barbara noted that they look for thematic relationships that tie rooms together, though each space has its own unique character and purpose.  Barbara says she tries to create themes “major and minor… visual cues that resonate from room to room” as you pass through.  The designers compose their rooms making music of the space.  Focal points minor and major all contribute to the total picture that embodies the atmosphere they are attempting to capture in the design.

And finally, all three designers agree:  know thy client.  You can’t design anything until you’ve really taken the time to engage, excite and listen to your client.  Though each approaches it differently, all three spend time  ”playing” with the client by showing different combinations of colors, textures, images to gage their responses.  The process may unlock preferences and illuminate interests that the client didn’t realize they had.  By the end, it seems the designers end up knowing their clients better than their clients know themselves.  Skip recalled a client who wouldn’t even look at a particular color combination, then ended up choosing -and loving- that color when it played out in the design.

Final word from Marika:  ”Working with an interior designer is a luxury and you should enjoy it.  It should be fun.”  It’s difficult to imagine that working with any one of these three wouldn’t be a LOT of fun.

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The glass back splash fits that contemporary style quite well, particularly when the client and  kitchen designer are going for a very sleek, minimalist Euro look in the kitchen.  Here is a a glass backsplash we designed for a contemporary kitchen remodel in the Rock Creek Forest neighborhood.

CONTEMPORARY KITCHEN WTH TEMPERED GLASS BACKSPLASH

THE AIRY PAINT COLOR ON THE BACK SIDE OF THE GLASS BALANCES SERENELY BETWEEN THE DARK CABINETS AND MEDIUM DARK GREEN OF THE COUNTER TOP

The product and installation method are themselves spare and minimalist.  The back of the glass is painted a custom color at the glass cutters shop and the sheets are attached at the edges with a clear silicone adhesive that “disappears.”  The glass is cut to fit the under cabinet space precisely with -ideally- no vertical seams.  Because the cabinet run was interrupted by the windows in this application we did have two seams.  One on each side of the range.

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In the design development phase, the best ideas rise to the surface and are delivered to the client.  All the relevant possibilities are explored so that the client can make the best possible decisions about their home.  That same focus continues through the construction phase keeping it smoothly moving forward.  With a complex home remodeling program that calls for room additions and significant structural reconfiguration, this is the way to keep it all together.

CLIENT MEETING WITH DESIGNER LESLIE ROOSEVELT AND CARPENTER FOREMAN PAT DONLY TO FINALIZE SELECTIONS FOR A MASTER BATH REMODEL IN PROGRESS

This powerful collaboration cannot be achieved by a company that manages teams of subcontractors, part-timers or new hires.  A true integrated design build model takes time and conscious effort to develop.  It happens only when company leaders take the time and care to attract and retain the best designers, builders and managers in the field.

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Kitchen configurations most requested by our Washington DC metro area clients are, in order of frequency, the  L, U and G-shapes.    The L, U and G-shaped layouts work well for larger kitchens that include an island or bar seating and require a variety of task areas.  The direction the designer takes with the shape of the layout is determined by how it needs to relate to the adjacent rooms and corridors.  Following are examples of each layout type.

Example of an L-shaped kitchen layout in Chevy Chase Maryland

L-SHAPED KITCHEN WITH ISLAND BAR SEATING AND PREP SINK

Example of a U-shaped kitchen layout in Bethesda Maryland

U-SHAPED LAYOUT WITH BAR SEATING RIGHT AND OPEN WALL TO BREAKFAST ROOM (OUT OF FRAME RIGHT)

Example of a modified G-shaped kitchen layout in Washington DC

MODIFIED G-SHAPED LAYOUT SHOWS A LONG SEATING BAR RUNNING DIAGONALLY OFF THE RIGHT WALL

 The Best Kitchen Layout

Setting aside the functional requirements of the kitchen itself, the best layout is the one that gels with the physical characteristics of the space.  In other words, the room size and its relationship to adjoining rooms, the location (or anticipated location) of interior doors, exterior door(s) and windows will determine a layout that best defines task areas and circulation patterns.

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Modern kitchen layouts are referenced by the shape they make when viewed on a floor plan.  The most popular kitchen configurations are  the  L, U and G-shapes.  We will take a look at those in a future post.  Two other types of kitchen layout, less frequently requested but worthy of mention because of their extraordinary efficiency, are the galley kitchen and the single wall (a.k.a “efficiency”)  kitchenette.

The Super Efficient Kitchenette

The single wall kitchenette has always been a popular space saver in efficiency or studio apartments.  It may even be be installed in a closet–so hidden from view by folding doors when not in use.  Today there are companies that manufacture complete kitchenette modules in varying sizes.  They work well in applications where space is limited, say for a nanny suite or efficiency rental unit in a private residence.  They fit the bill when super efficiency is the driving principle.

The Modern Galley

The galley layout makes for an extremely efficient chef’s kitchen.  It’s gotten a bad name because it is usually found in older homes or row houses that squeeze the kitchen into a space that is too small.  Also, that kitchen space is usually doing double duty as the main corridor to the back door and portal to the basement stairs.  People almost always want to take out a wall to open them up to an adjacent room or move the kitchen out into an addition.  When a galley is properly sized, however, it makes a superbly functional and surprisingly open layout.

Here is a great example of how a fresh approach to the galley layout can do everything we expect an open plan kitchen to do.  This modern galley kitchen was created by removing interior partition walls in the center of a Tenleytown residence.  It is open the dining room on one end and the living room on the other.  The removal of a central partition wall allowed for a seating bar (facing the chef) to be included in the plan.  This is not the picture that typically comes to mind when we think “galley.”

THIS GALLEY KITCHEN IS BOTH SPACIOUS AND UNUSUALLY OPEN

Here’s another example.  We we created this one in a Kalorama town home.   We’ll call this a modified galley because it actually turns the corner at one end of the room.  Nevertheless, the primary task areas are set across the aisle from each other.  Incidently, the original kitchen this galley replaced had a U-shaped layout.  In this case, it wasn’t the U layout that was the problem.  The big issues were that it was a window-less dead end room.  One way in and one way out–completely disconnected from any other room.  To be fair we should point out that there was a clear purpose to the original design and it was entirely appropriate to the design trends at the time the home was built.  It’s just that times and tastes change.

LARGE GALLEY KITCHEN WITH BREAKFAST ROOM

A Model of Efficiency

To meet the needs of the minimalist kitchen, the galley layout is worth considering.  Again, it’s poor reputation is tied to the 40′s and 50′s housing stock so prevalent in older Washington DC and Bethesda Maryland neighborhoods.  Many of these homes are models of efficiency.  Often they were built to be as small (and affordable) as possible and still shelter a family of four.  The original kitchen design in many of these house?  The galley.   Why?  Because it makes such efficient use of space.  So, giving that tried & true layout some breathing room brings us to the modern galley kitchen.

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