Home is Where the Light Gets In
At the Front Door.
Ranch, Reinvented: A Home To Raise A Family
The Owen Family loved the property, but weren’t thrilled with the classic Ranch style’s shadowy interiors and oddly proportioned, multiple small rooms. Their Dream: Create a beautiful, light filled home for their family to live and grow in.
But these smart people didn’t stop there. At the same time, they implemented energy efficiency improvements to the building envelope to increase comfort levels, and most importantly, create a healthy indoor environment with good indoor air quality for their family to thrive in.
Just a few weeks after moving in, Julie Owen sent us this photo of her son.
The Design
We proposed a bold plan: to remove nearly all of the walls at the middle part of the house, expose the attic vault to a new Great Room, remove the small windows and replace the entire walls at the front and rear with floor to ceiling windows. To create an outdoor, screened extension of the the Great Room towards the rear and to fully renovate the bedrooms and garage.
Site lines have been opened. Views are highlighted. Comfort and usability are the best they have ever been. Windows and skylights now frame beautiful views and allow natural light into the home but are carefully detailed to limit glare and heat transfer. The basement is now finished, complete with a stage to inspire the limitless imagination of the children. And solatubes make even the darkest recesses of the basement shine with the sun and glow with the moon.
The Energy and the Air Quality
Like most homes, the Owen’s residence was not well air sealed with entirely to many unsealed can lights wreaking havoc in the attic. How Big did the Hole amount to (per air leakage). The unfinished basement was cold, dark, and a little bit dank. And the insulation wasn’t what it should have been. All these problems created energy bills that were just to high, an uncomfortable home, and allowed unhealthy air to seep into the home from a musty basement and dusty attic.
During the renovation work, a few strategically located can lights were air sealed while the rest were replaced with better options. The attic was air sealed and properly insulated and the basement band joists were air sealed to prevent water vapor from entering and creating the musty basement effect. HVAC systems were properly calibrated to allow for a finished, conditioned basement.
The Love
“Awesome quote from Julie”
